As you look around at the cultural confusion, you might be wondering how to get involved. Where do you start with the kind of mess that is all around us? I have a simple suggestion: get married. And then throw a really big party to celebrate. You might even consider inviting the whole town. I am not being flippant here. This is a serious recommendation and it is a key tactical move in attacking the enemies of darkness. Nothing causes greater consternation in the foe than a godly wedding celebration and a godly marriage.
Over the month of June, the Rainbow Mafia has been inundating us with their brainwashing techniques. And they have been laying it on thick. Business after business has been running Gaystapo ads. And they are super cheesy too. Given this ploy, it is wonderfully defiant to celebrate a Christian wedding.
In this age of sexual perverts, a Christian wedding ceremony is a fantastic grenade to lob at our culture. This kind of grenade accomplishes two things: first, it destroys the folly of the world and second, it exalts the beautiful reality. This is a wonderful way to attack the evil around us. It is a one-two punch that is incredibly winsome. At a Christian wedding, we hear clearly and profoundly the truth of the world: God made us male and female and it is good. He made Adam and Eve for each other. Jesus proclaimed this as Christian marriage in the gospels. This is the reality of the world. All the other perversions are fakes. And those other relationships are ugly and harmful. We get the chance to stand against those errors when we celebrate a Christian wedding.
A Christian wedding also helps orient us in the right direction. We are not merely against those harmful perversions, although we are against them, we are also for the good and beautiful vision of marriage. At a Christian wedding, we get to rally the troops and remind everyone why we fight. We are fighting for the glorious design that God made in giving one man to one woman for life. This union is a blessing not just for two people but for generations of people. We are celebrating how God created this good gift of companionship and fellowship. He designed it and we are blessed to participate in it. This is a good not just for us but for the whole world.
A Christian wedding points to the relationship between Jesus and His bride, the Church. And this is another important part of our celebration. The Church has a husband who is perfect. He will never leave us nor forsake us. He has poured out His life for us and in His resurrection He has conquered sin and death and Satan. And we are called to follow Him as we live out our wedding vows. The husband is called to die to himself and love his wife, like Christ loves the Church. The wife is called to die to herself and obey her husband, like the Church obeys Christ.
In this way, a Christian marriage is a glorious picture of the deep goodness of the gospel. Who doesn’t love a good love story? “They lived happily ever after” is written deeply into the fabric of the cosmos and we all know it to be true: it is the message of the gospel. And we get to proclaim that truth at a Christian wedding. In proclaiming this blessed truth it crushes the sexual errors in our culture. A Christian wedding is a high-octane dose of reality and the reality is very good. God has piled wonderful gifts upon us in the gospel and we get to celebrate the gospel when we celebrate a wedding.
A Christian wedding also reminds us of how God does not want us to be alone (Gen. 2:18). We live in an age of deep loneliness because people have turned their backs on how God has designed the world. We are not made to live alone. We are designed for each other. And we are primarily designed to live in families. We are designed for marriage, one man for one woman. This design is good and right and we should not run from it or be embarrassed by it. While a small, small minority of Christians are called to be single, the fact is most Christians are called to be married. A Christian wedding proclaims that truth as well. Don’t wait or be lazy: get married. You are designed for marriage.
Christian marriage is the primary way that God connects us to other people. When we get married, it connects us to a whole host of people: aunts and uncles, cousins and nephews, parents and grandparents. You don’t just marry a person; you also marry a family. Marriage creates wonderful alliances and connections. God uses these relationships in all sorts of ways for our good: work, money, resources, comfort, growth, etc. People are the primary way that God shapes us to be more like Him. And we get to see the way God does that work right up close when we get married.
Every Christian wedding this June was a big loud taunt, reminding our culture: This is what real and true marriage looks like. This is what Jesus blessed at the wedding at Cana. This is what awaits the world at the Eschaton: the marriage supper of the Lamb. A glorious wedding between a bride and a groom. That is where we are headed and we get to taste a little part of it now. So encourage the saints in your community: get married and throw a big wedding party.
This article lacks the considerate, careful and loving tone that we’ve come to expect from Kuyperian Commentary. It reads like Christian propaganda rather than an intelligent reflection on our culture.
We need you to you to do better than this. Please do better than this.
p.s. I also recommend marrying someone because you wish to commit to them for life under God, not because our culture is confused and getting married so might ‘lob a grenade’ at it.
Thanks for the feedback, Andrew. However, I would suggest that you got caught up in the metaphor of the grenade and might not have read the article carefully. On your point about “marrying someone because you wish to commit to them for life under God”, that is exactly what I said in this article. For example, “the glorious design that God made in giving one man to one woman for life. This union is a blessing not just for two people but for generations of people.” And also “We are not made to live alone. We are designed for each other…We are designed for marriage, one man for one woman.” That is all about marrying someone because you wish to commit to that person for life under God.
Jesse: Marriage is winsome, your article was not. Please do better than this.
Andrew, it’s like this – when you criticize an article as you did, you come across exactly as your criticism says – your comments are inconsiderate, unloving and not winsome. That, of course means that my comments are perhaps unloving as well. I own it. So should you.
MW (and Jesse), I apologise for the abruptness of my second comment. It was intended to be read in the context of my first, which asked for a “considerate, careful and loving tone” in Kuyperian Commentary articles (which Jesse did not respond to in his reply).
The second and third paragraphs of Jesse’s article could (and should in my opinion) have been rewritten in a way that we could speak to the problem in culture without labeling other people as the ‘Gaystapo’, ‘Rainbow Mafia’ and ‘sexual perverts’. This may be the truth but we’re called to a higher standard of speaking the truth in love. We should assume that people who do not share our trust in God will read this article as well. Those paragraphs would only reinforce their misconception that we hate them when we should love them as our Lord does. I am asking Jesse to do better in this regard.
Secondly, in spite of Jesse’s reply, his article clearly and unambiguously advocates that Christians should get married as their primary response to a confused culture. This is not good advice. *When* Christians decide to get married they can have a fabulous witness to everyone. I recommend, however, that no one gets married as “[the place to] start with the kind of mess that is all around us”.
In my mind this is similar to the bad advice that was going around in the 1980s, that Christians would be happy in marriage if they simply marry another Christian, regardless of attraction, compatibility and so on. Some poor Christian is going to read this article and think ‘I need to get married in order to engage culture’ and end up in a marriage which isn’t good for them or their spouse. I am asking Jesse to be more careful in the way that he gives advice so that no reader will pursue folly in response to it.
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If only it were this simple.
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