What is Biblical marriage?
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"I believe that it seems logical to me that true marriage occurs in the heart. A document and ceremony doesn't validate a marriage. As we know there are plenty of loveless sham marriages." amen I agree yet.. I live in America and the law about marriage is what GOD in this land will hold me to. For it does not go against His word.
You have to apply for common law marriage status from the court. Then it is made legal. There is no such thing as automatic. The legal process will recognize the couple who requests common law status but there is no such thing as being common law without the recognition from the state so you still end up with a legal sanction and this is because you are seeking the legal status. The laws were written to grant women legal marriage status who were living with men in the early frontier days having become a family with kids and carving out a place in the wilderness and there were no justice of the peace or clergy around to preform a legal wedding. They passed the common law status for these women so they would not be treated as outcasts when they went to towns by the other women. This was some of the history behind these laws.
I know that the secular world has their own definitions and guidelines for what constitutes a legal marriage, but what if those definitions and guidelines are not in accordance with Biblical marriage? Do you think we should honor secular laws that redefine and change God's original designs?
I'd rather have an "illegal" marriage based on the type of marriage Christ spoke about.
You have already been shown that the biblical marriage included contracts, written documents and records stored in the Jewish Royal Court and included more ceremonies than even the western version of marriage. It seems that you are wanting to ignore history and written documentation found in the rabbinical writings concerning the ANCIENT Jewish wedding details and claim it is not in the bible, which it is.
You keep appealing to an idea you have that is based on extreme.. and I stress extreme ignorance of the facts of Jewish weddings and claim that it is not in the bible when all those who are well read in biblical literature are wondering how you could have missed it.
I suggest you abandon your efforts of building a made-up theology about marriage based on ignorance and study the bible searching for these details that you thought were not there. Start a list. Once you have searched all the scriptures you will have discovered many details that you over looked. Some of which have already been pointed out to you but you seem to be rejecting them because they destroy your ideas that contracts and written documents witnessed by government (Jews had a government and kept records of marriages and no one doubts this who has read even one book on biblical history). Once you concede that this "lack of detail" you speak of is a phantom of your own imagination you can move on to the truth that contracts, written documents, witnesses, and even family approval was all part of ancient Jewish weddings and you cannot use Adam and Eve for your argument.
Stop pretending like your questions were not answered and trying to forcefully present an idea based on ignorance. Your line of reasoning is not persuading anyone but those who refuse to acknowledge the historical documented facts concerning the ancient Jewish wedding requirements you appear to be belligerently ignoring. I might have misjudged you but this is how your responses appear to me.
There is no question that written contracts and witnesses were involved in all marriages recognized by God and men in Bible times. Keep studying and you will soon be convinced that there is plenty of historical evidence for this.
Marriage was very much a societal event. It was never something done between a couple in secret. Appealing to Adam and Eve is an argument based on silence. We don't know what happened there because it is not revealed.
What we do know is that there were rules and laws in Jewish culture and they did not allow living together without marriage which included contracts, documents, recording in the Jewish courts and you seem to be attempting to ignore that and pretend "we don't know" when we most assuredly do. You might not know but that does not mean these details are not known by those who have read about them. You just haven't got there yet. Don't run off and create a theory and be so cock sure about it before you have completed your research or you will soon find that your entire theory was based on ignorance of well documented historical facts. Stay humble and keep reading before you form an opinion. And by all means listen to those who are trying to steer you away from any idea that could be considered sin. Don't get near a questionable theory that might result in rebellion against the known will of God.
This whole pushing an idea that is based on ignorance of history is glaringly obvious to those who know the history of Jewish culture.
You brought the topic up as if you wanted to know, and then when you find out that there are historical records to prove that the Jews had marriage contracts, written documents, and requirements that had to be met for marriages to be RECOGNIZED BY SOCIETY you seem to come across as if you want to "pretend" like none of these facts contribute to the answer "what is a biblical marriage" when they most certainly do.
Bottom Line. The idea that needing a license, exchanging vows, witnesses, state recognition, recording of documents of official weddings is not biblical is based on extreme ignorance. Sorry if that hurts but sometimes a little pain is required for us to self correct. And hopefully learn from our mistakes.
Christ spoke about a wedding procession where friends of the Groom waited with burning lamps to join in a procession where the Groom would go into the wedding feast with a bunch of people and which was usually hosted by the Brides Father.
So if you are going to used things Jesus said about weddings as your guide you would want to incorporate that in part of your wedding ceremonies. It would be only then that you could say you did it the way Jesus spoke about it. Isn't that correct?
And if so, then there would be lots of people involved who witnessed this wedding we are talking about.
Shall we discuss some other scriptures where Jesus refers to the Jewish wedding ceremonies. Since his readers understood him in the light of the culture in which they lived they also knew that these marriage requirements involved documented contracts and recordings.
So we can't ignore all that and suggest that Jesus said anything to dissuade these traditions. His using them as examples in his parables suggests that he condoned them correct?
Incorrect. He used them because that was how Jewish people were conducting marriages. Man always adds onto things like this. Man did that to God's original and pure form of marriage. The Jews added so much to everything it caused the law of God to be polluted. BTW, are you married and did you have a Jewish wedding? You seem to promote Jewish wedding as the only valid way to marry
Like I said, "or something like that". But I AM aware that some states will consider a couple married if they have been together for 7 years. Maybe not all states have the same rules.
Not sure what you mean by 'should honor secular laws'. Of course believers are commanded to obey the "laws of the land". However, we also know that we cannot support/approve any law that violates what God has said.
For example, a Christian baker shouldn't bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. Even if that means facing a hostile left-wing government, who will penalize the baker.
Except the whole concept of marriage began in the garden of Eden. When there weren't any Jews around.
You're not going back FAR ENOUGH in history.
Adam and Eve had the most elaborate marriage ceremony in history. And it was completely conducted by God.
God caused a deep sleep and took one of Adam's ribs and made his wife Eve. She was bone of his bone.
Neither of them left their father or mother because they had no father or mother. There were no other people on earth. God made Eve directly to be Adam's wife.
No need in heading to the courthouse to make vows to one another when you are the only people on earth...I mean who could they cheat with a goat
and especially no need to head to a courthouse since there were no courthouses around at that time...lolYour scathing rebuke didn't hurt. in post #1 I said I welcome any criticism. I'm just happy to see you speak your mind and I encourage that.
I'm not so ignorant of Jewish weddings either, but I'm not Jewish nor am I bound to any of their laws, regulations, traditions, etc. I don't have any issues with what they do nor am I saying they're wrong for choosing to do what they do, but that's not for me.
Furthermore, there isn't any clearcut guidelines for Christian marriages in the Bible except something like leaving your parents and becoming one flesh with a woman. No commands about which customs to follow, vows to be taken certificates to produce, etc. Actually, it looks like Jesus said making vows is a sin.
I'm a Sola Scriptura kind of person. I wouldn't have asked this question had there been a bounty of relevant information on this topic.
So far what I am seeing is that true marriage occurs in the heart, that a physical marriage occurs when two people sleep together, and that someone is considered married to whichever person they sleep with even if that's multiple people.
I have sourced this information from a variety of Biblical sources, including the story of Jesus and the woman at the well in John 4:16-18, Genesis 2:24, Matthew 5:28, and 1 Corinthians 6:16.
Incorrect. He used them because that was how Jewish people were conducting marriages. Man always adds onto things like this. Man did that to God's original and pure form of marriage. The Jews added so much to everything it caused the law of God to be polluted. BTW, are you married and did you have a Jewish wedding? You seem to promote Jewish wedding as the only valid way to marry
Jesus did not say anything negative about these marriage traditions nor did he include them in his rebuke of the Pharisees methods of teaching traditions that ignored the commandments of God. Jesus used these marriage traditions it to teach truths about the Kingdom of God which suggests that God providentially had something to do with the marriage customs as they stood at that time. You would be on safer ground to assume that the witnesses, the contracts and the solemn traditions are condoned by God rather than to embrace any form of justification for fornication that has no accountability before man. The concept of Marriage cannot be removed from the societal obligations it assumes. Leaving Father and Mother and cleaving to the wife is a contractural societal agreement and transition and includes parents in the transaction. The vow, and contract, is right there before your eyes in the scriptures you are claiming and you are missing it.
The vow, and contract, is right there before your eyes in the scriptures you are claiming and you are missing it. It is concise but nevertheless it is there.
When the man left the authority of the parents and became the authority of his own household everyone bore witness to the transition and transactional agreement.
There was no returning later to say it never happened. The very statement is an ancient VOW. He should leave his mother and Father and Cleave to the wife.
But your issue with vows and trying assign the marriage vow to the condemnation on swearing by temples or God is bad hermeneutics. So you say you are scripture only but you misinterpret and misunderstand what you read therefore you are "my own way of viewing the scripture even if NOT ONE SINGLE scholar of the bible agrees with me" Which is quite different than sola scriptura.
If you had scriptural grounds for your interpretation don't you think there would be scholarly presentations you could find to support it? The lack of any should make you realize you have dropped off the edge of sound hermeneutics.
And he also did not say anything negative about the type of marriage Adam and Eve had and used it to teach about marriage which remains valid to this day.
Again, I am suggesting that you are not understanding the implications of, He shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife. You see it as a sex act. I believe there has always been more to it. That from the beginning there was some sort of a process that took place when the parents agreed to the son taking the wife and making that transition from parents to wife. There was certainly a discussion and agreements and witnesses and celebration. From the beginning.