Yesterday, I happened to come across yet another article on marriage. This article was written by Tim Keller, pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, NY. You can read it here: You Never Marry the Right Person. (I promise: I’m not looking for them . . . it’s like they find me). The premise of Keller’s article was that our culture misunderstands the concept of compatibility, creating a marriage scene where “we are looking for someone who accepts us as we are and fulfills our desires, and this creates an unrealistic set of expectations that frustrates both the searchers and the searched for.” As the name of the article suggests, Keller believes that you never marry the right person.
But when I read that, I couldn’t help but think, “You’re wrong, bro! My wife is the right person for me to be married to! She accepts me for who I am and she fulfills my desires. I love my hot wife. So there!”
Pretty compelling rebuttal, right? I know. I’m in grad school right now.
Agreement with Keller
Culturally, I agree that people who do not have a biblical understanding of marriage have failed to understand why marriage is so difficult. Keller rightly argues that these people “do not see marriage as two flawed people coming together to create a space of stability, love and consolation.” I completely agree. In fact, at a wedding ceremony I performed a year and a half ago, I emphatically told the young, awesome couple that:
According to Genesis, the two of you are complementary, yet flawed and fallen creations, and are choosing the path of most resistance: a union that attempts to reconcile on earth an imperfection whereby a man and a woman will join together to mutually create an environment in which they, equally and in cooperation, move closer to Christ Jesus each day by faith, with hope, and in love for as long as you both shall live and through that marriage demonstrate the grace and love of Christ to the world around them.
So I agree with Keller on that point. But, does he paint a holistic picture of a healthy God-honoring Christ fueled marriage? My gut tells me no. And I think the Bible says so, too. Keller continues and writes that culture has made marriage about people “looking for someone who will accept them as they are, complement their abilities and fulfill their sexual and emotional desires.”
I disagree with the implication of his assertion that it is not okay to look for those qualities. Is it that culture has made marriage about people? Or is it that culture has intended more for marriage than it was designed to give, outside of the context in which it was intended to be in? Yesterday, I posted on the big fuss about marriage in the church right now and outlined some of my initial thoughts which support the following idea: Within the context of a biblical, Messiah worshipping relationship, isn’t what Keller is arguing against what we see as marriage’s purpose in Genesis?
What the Bible Teaches: It is Not Good for Man to Be Alone.
According to the Bible, on the sixth day of creation, everything that God made and beheld, including man and woman and their union, was declared good. There was only thing that God identified as being ‘not good.’ It was the state of the man, Adam, whom He had created. Adam, in perfect relationship with the living God (remember, this is pre-the fall of man), was described as being alone. How could God identify Adam as being alone, and that not being a good thing, when he was in relationship with God? Perhaps because being created in the image of God compels us to find relationship. That’s an important observation. It goes against the argument made by Duke University Ethics professor Stanley Hauerwas: Destructive to marriage is the self-fulfillment ethic that assumes marriage and the family are primarily institutions of personal fulfillment, necessary for us to become “whole” and happy . . .” In some sense, God saw that Adam was not whole without Eve. Adam even recognized it as he saw and named all the male and female animals God brought before him. It is not good for man to be alone.
What the Bible Teaches: God Makes People as Suitable Helpers for their Mates.
Furthermore, God actually wanted to create someone for Adam that would be his helper. This would mean that whoever God created to be with Adam would complement his abilities exactly as Adam needed. Adam was to rule over creation and Eve was to help Adam with those commands. Let me rephrase that: God created a person specifically crafted to complement the purpose, gifts, abilities, and mandate that He had given to Adam, for His glory. Doesn’t that mean that as we are looking for someone to marry, compatibility is something that is okay to pursue?
What the Bible Teaches: Just the Two of Us.
Of course, it goes without saying that Adam and Eve did not necessarily have to deal with compatibility, since they were the only two in the beginning. But they were in perfect relationship with God, which meant that being the only two did not matter. Submitting to God’s ultimate authority was what mattered, and their relationship with each other and with God was intact and healthy until they stopped obeying Him. Which leads me to my next point.
What the Bible Teaches: As A Follower of Christ, Any Person Who is a Follower of Christ is the Right Person to Marry.
At the end of the day, I think this is where I land concerning Keller’s article. It is not so much that you will never marry the right person. It is that, as a follower of Christ, any other follower of Christ is the right type of person. Why? Only when both people are submitting themselves to Christ, through the empowering of the Holy Spirit, to the glory of God, does marriage work. It is when we search outside of that context that we miss the point. An insightful pastor, Gary Thomas, once wrote, “Marriage is not meant to make you happy, but holy.” That is absolutely true.
Here’s what I think that means: you can expect and enjoy the awesome fruits of the process of becoming holy, even during the more difficult times. That’s what I see Keller missing when he writes his article. He leads us to a better understanding of what one problem is without sharing what marriage is ideally created for, achievable only through Christ. Marriage is awesome because, in Christ, marriage is not just where we learn what it means to be holy but also where we get to enjoy the benefits of our state of holiness! How great is that!?
Confession: I am a hopeless, idealistic romantic.
Keller writes, “Love without truth is sentimentality . . . Truth without love is harshness.” These are both true. I would like to add teh following: love without hope is obligatory: we don’t believe that marriage can be everything God made it out to be. Hope without love is fantasy: we don’t really care about a person; we only care about what they can offer us to fulfill our desires. Love without the Gospel is idolatrous: we worship love and all it offers us. I think this is what Keller argues against.
Love with the Gospel is the goal: when God remains fixated as the center of worship, because through the Spirit, we can be all that we were meant to be in marriage. Messiah’s work on the cross allows us to accept one another as redeemed and justified sinners. Because of grace, we can move forward in the process of sanctification together. As we live life together, we get to fully enjoy the original intention of marriage as authored by our good and perfect God. This is what Keller and I agree on as being the key to a successful marriage.
I think that the distinction Keller fails to make clear is this: marriage cannot give us more than it was assigned to deliver. With that, I will close, and wholeheartedly agree, with his closing argument:
“The reason that marriage is so painful and yet wonderful is because it is a reflection of the Gospel, which is painful and wonderful at once. The Gospel is—we are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared to believe, and at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.” – Tim Keller
Amen.
- Marriage makes you happy: biblical or cultural?
- Marriage makes you holy: biblical or cultural?
- You Never Marry the Right Person: biblical or cultural?
- There is a Soul Mate: biblical or cultural?
- You Deserve to Get What you Want: biblical or cultural?
- All Your Desires and Needs are Fulfilled in Marriage: biblical or cultural?
- Do you think Keller overemphasisez the equation of compatibility with impossibility?
Have you ever experienced the power of a wave beneath you as it pushes you to shore? Or the wind blowing against you during a violent storm? Seemingly limitless power restrained by the physics of this world. But what if there were no boundaries? What effect would that same power have if it were unleashed?
