The recent disruptive events that have shaken the church regarding issues of misogyny, clergy sexual abuse, and the role of women in the church have caused many pastors to reconsider the basis of their beliefs and teaching on these issues.
This writing space is too limited to address all the issues involved. So instead, I would like to consider just one area. That is the area of Christian premarital and marriage counseling. As a pastor’s wife and someone involved in lay pastoral counseling, I have been overwhelmed when looking back at the materials and counsel we have given, with the conviction that we have been doing it all wrong! A premarital curriculum focused on “meeting needs” slanted in the wrong direction. Placing blame and undue burden frequently resulted in one person in the relationship carrying the weight of a more “needy” partner. Not to mention the incredible amount of damage done using authority structures in marriage!
Surely God had a better model in mind. In fact, he did.
Genesis 2:24 Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
Jesus was speaking in Mark 10:6-9.
But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
There it is! The two shall become one flesh/ they shall become one flesh.
Even in Paul’s interpretation of marriage in Ephesians 5:31, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
Given the hierarchical-patriarchal structure in which Paul was culturally bound, this concept was almost too much for him, and he felt compelled to redirect the concept toward Christ and the church. Eph. 5:32 “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”
Since he can’t imagine two becoming one as really happening in a marriage, he sums up his advice on marriage as follows: 33 “However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”
But God! God, who is intimately acquainted through the Trinity with a communion of personalities being one, said it is not only possible but that IT HAPPENS! They are no longer Two- They are One. Jesus said God joins them together.
It is not that their individual identities are lost. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are still distinct. The best way I can describe it is that an “Ourself” is created. The individuals-“Our”- have become one “self.”
The Ourself marriage can sound either like a blessed utopia or a hellish nightmare! For most people, the reality falls somewhere in between the two extremes. But I believe it happens whether we are aware of it or not.
How often have you noticed couples in long relationships begin to look, act, and talk like one another? How often has the loss of a marriage partner been described as a loss of self?
After marriage, everything you, as an individual, do affects the Ourself of the marriage. The oneness- I can no more explain how it comes about than I can explain how the Trinity functions- means that you can never again act privately. If you are selfish and domineering, you are damaging the other person and harming yourself. If you are needy and demanding, you are hurting yourself.
Paul did see that part when he wrote: Ephesians 5:28-29 “He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it.”
Every bit of nourishment and cherishing that a person pours into the marriage – they are pouring into themselves because now they are one.
If you lie, cheat, or are unfaithful in thought or action within your marriage- you are lying, cheating, and being unfaithful to yourself.
Whatever you put into the marriage, how you care for the “Ourself” can either heal and strengthen or fragment and tear at the oneness. As Jesus said in Mark 10:9, “What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”