Many churches nowadays are
constantly pushing people to get married and have families, largely as a
response to the degeneracy of the decadent immorality of the culture around
them, which despises marriage and family and perverts these institutions. However,
this "marriage and family" agenda is based on many fundamental
misconceptualisations of Scripture.
One
key misconceptualisation is the view that people must marry to not be lonely,
because of Genesis 2:18 which says: "And the Lord God
said, “It is not good that man
should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.” These
religious people in the professing Church are constantly quoting this to people
who object to their view that all people must rush into marriage or else they
are "cursed" for being unmarried. Such are absurd lies!
What Genesis 2:18 really means is that God created woman to
complement man so that humanity will be both male and female. God did not
create humanity to be of one sex alone, but two. It needs the second sex in the
sense of being created second, so that humankind will flourish. Animals would
not be suitable to help Adam, which was why God created Eve:
Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of
the air, and brought them to Adam
to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature,
that was its name. So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to
every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable
to him.
(Genesis
2:19-20)
Man would have dominion over the earth, and woman would be
the helper. The two will be part of God's creation by procreating, with one
giving seed (male) and the other bearing children (female). In short, Genesis
2:18 is an explanation of God's creation of man as part of his creation
world. It is not a prescription that every man (or woman)
must marry and have a family, to be complete. Nor is it even a description of
the supposed loneliness that people will feel as they age if they do not marry
as these "marriage and family" advocates love to make it out to
mean.
This idea that Genesis 2:18 is proof that everyone must marry
and have a family is frankly wrong, absurd and most importantly, toxic. It is a
spiritual error that is ensnaring many young people, causing them to be
desperate for marriage and family. Many are likely to lose their faith because
of their teaching, if they do not end up being married, or married as soon as
they wish, because of being told that they must marry and have a family as
young as possible to be a true Christian. Since being a Christian is about
getting married and having a family, it follows that not marrying and having a
family means one is not a truly devoted Christian according to the teaching of
these "marriage and family" advocates. So, those who have swallowed
this teaching will feel like they do not please God and be in bondage to the
spiritual error of this view.
A critical point to note is that this emphasis on Genesis
2:18 among other verses, mainly Old Testament verses, neglects the New
Testament teaching. The emphasis on any one particular Old Testament verse or
passage to justify any position is should raise alarm bells. For with the Old
Testament alone, people can justify anything, be it murder, rape, adultery,
polygamy or even paedophilia. Jesus came to institute the New Covenant which
supersedes the Old Covenant:
In that He says, “A new covenant,” He has made the first
obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish
away.
(Hebrews 8:13)
Followers of Christ must focus on what Jesus said. It is that
simple. Jesus elevated the Church above the earthly family. As the Scriptures
testify:
He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he
who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. (Matthew
10:37)
If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and
children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My
disciple. (Luke 14:26).
This is not to say that one must or should abandon one's
family. By no means! It is heretics and cults who twist this doctrine and
tell people to abandon their families. By the same token, however, heretics and
cults tend to force people to marry and have children as young as possible, and
have as many children as possible to the point of being unable to have any
more.
Rather, it is that the Church takes precedence over the
earthly family. We must obey the will of God first and foremost, rather than
that of family. We must go where ever God tells us to go, rather than makes
decisions ultimately based on pleasing family. We must do whatever God wills
for us, rather than what our family wants us to do. This in no ways negates
respect for one's parents, and doing the will of God is never an excuse to
dishonour one's parents. Jesus himself affirmed the commandment to honour one's
parents under the New Covenant (Luke 18:20), but the Church is elevated above
the family under the New Covenant.
The main purpose of the Old Testament Israelites for marrying
and having a family was the bring about the line of David and eventually bring
about the birth of Christ. This duty no longer applies to anyone, whether Jew
or Gentile. Even under the Old Covenant, no everyone was obliged to marry and
have a family. Despite this general duty to marry and have a family, a number
of Prophets and Apostles did not marry, such as Daniel and Jeremiah.
Jeremiah was in fact told not to marry because God would destroy the people:
The word
of the Lord also
came to me, saying, “You shall not take a wife, nor shall you have sons or
daughters in this place.” For thus says the Lord concerning
the sons and daughters who are born in this place, and concerning their mothers
who bore them and their fathers who begot them in this land: “They shall die gruesome deaths; they shall not be lamented
nor shall they be buried, but they
shall be like refuse on the face of the earth. They shall be consumed by
the sword and by famine, and their corpses shall be meat for the birds of
heaven and for the beasts of the earth.”
(Jeremiah 16:1-4)
We are to pursue God and the Church first, laying down our
lives for Christ and for one's fellow saints first, above all things, not
pursue marriage and family above all things as "marriage and family"
advocates are pushing everyone to do, based on their false understanding of
Scripture.
Our ultimate family is our Heavenly Family in Christ, the
Holy Universal Church. It is our true eternal family. We are more closely
bounded together than we are with our unsaved family members. While blood is
thicker than water, the blood of Christ is thicker still than the blood that
ties early family and kin together.
The family is Christ is our ultimate family and our eternal one. There will be no marriage in heaven nor will there be distinction between different families. We will all simply be saints. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven (Matthew 22:30). People will not "enjoy" their children, and have "more enjoyment" in heaven if they have more children in this earthly life (that is, if they make it to Heaven).
Desperation for an earthly family is nothing but foolishness, based on an earthly mindset that lacks understanding.
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