The Bible never seems to speak of God giving us signs as to who He wants us to marry or that He even has one person picked for us...that verse seems to say that we get the freedom to choose only within God's will.
Before you draw this conclusion, think of the story of Isaac and Rebecca, and how Abraham's servant found Rebecca. Abraham prays for the Lord to send an angel before the servant, whom he sends to find a bride for Isaac. The servant arrives at the town and prays that the young woman Isaac should marry would offer to give him and his camels water to drink. I read an estimate that that could mean 90 buckets of water from a well. Rebecca did just that, and lo, and behold, not only was she a virgin and beautiful, she was also Isaac's cousin-- a perfect match.
This is pretty similar to what people call 'putting out a fleece' based on the Gideon story, where someone asks God to do something in particular as a sign. It's right there in the Bible, so there is at least one example of it. We also see bridal consent in the passage, because the family asked Rebecca if she would go with this man, and she agreed to it. They all believed the Lord was at work in this situation.
1 Corinthians 7:39 says that a woman whose husband dies is free to marry whom she will, only in the Lord.
Does that include women who have never married before as well?
The only answer I seem to get from the Bible for today is that verse...that we choose, but only choose a believer; only someone in the Lord.
I tend to view this as a verse about widows. In the Old Testament, a woman could not marry whoever she willed. It may not have even been considered valid if she'd eloped-- more like fornication. Her father gave her away. One could argue that God stood in the role of father for Eve. I've heard the same Hebrew word was used in that passage that was used for giving away brides, but I think I gave the book away that made the point, and I don't remember the details.
But the Old Testament had laws about this. If an unbetrothed girl was seduced or raped, the father could give her away in marriage, but the groom would still pay the bride price for virgins and could not divorce her. He could also refuse to give his daughter to a man who had taken his daugther's virginity. The father is in the role of protecting his daughter and giving her away in marriage.
In the New Testament, we read about 'giving in marriage.' I Corinthians 7, the passage you quote from, talks about a young woman being past the flower of her age, and a man giving her in marriage or not giving her in marriage. That may be referring to the father giving the daughter in marriage, right there in the New Testament. I suppose the other interpretation is that it would be talking about a man deciding whether or not to marry his betrothed, but if he declined, that would be strange since he would be pushing responsibility off for the girl on the father without freeing her up to marry, possibly, IMO.
In the Old Testament, the father gave the daughter away in marriage that first time when she was a virgin. But if her husband died, she could be married to her husband's brother. There is no indication that her father had to give her away for this. Ruth's dad didn't show up when Boaz took her to wife. They didn't really have a wedding. He just made a deal with his relative and announced to the elders that he was taking Ruth as his wife.
There were daughters who approached Moses because their father died without sons, and they wanted the land. The decision was that they could keep their father's inheritance, provided they married whoever they wanted in their father's clan. They married whoever they wanted, with the constraint that it was within the clan.
I saw this role of the father thing a bit in scripture as a young man. In my thinking, Biblically, my wife's father giving her away was more important than having a preacher do a wedding ceremony. That's a custom that developed, probably modified out of the pre-Christian Roman wedding, and became widespread probably a century or two into Christianity. Fortunately, we did have the church wedding and the marriage license and all that stuff. But her father gave her away as a part of the ceremony. He said he was giving her away, on behalf of their family name/clan, and stated the name proudly. I was happy with that.
Yet, what does it mean if we think certain things are very coincidental, like we're thinking of something, then someone starts to talk about it, and other people also talk about receiving signs and God telling them who to marry?
Unless you really do perceive God's hand at work specifically for you to marry that person, and you perceive it by the Spirit of God, I wouldn't jump to conclusions. You could hear a lot about this person just to pray for him or her. My wife had a dream where she saw this man. Later she met him in real life, and ended up dating him (before she met me.) But she made a mistake in interpreting the dream. She's had that experience many times since, where she will dream about a person, then meet the person in real life and it is the person from the dream.
If you are looking for a spouse, you might be too eager to read that into anything.
I'd say focus on getting to know about the other person's character and beliefs. You may want to find someone you are attracted to, physically, and emotionally. But it's important to find out, if you are looking for a man, if the man loves God and knows and respects the word of God if you are to follow his headship later in a marriage. You want to know if he is hard working and responsible with his money and time, and if he is kind to his mother and respectful toward both his parents. You'd want to know what he thinks about divorce and remarriage. If he thinks you can get a divorce if you aren't happy, forget it. If he is trying to fornicate, that's a bad sign. First of all, you'd want him to show some interest in you, rather than you chasing him around. Make him ask your dad to ask you out. See how he reacts to that.
In the meantime as the relationship progresses, pray for God to show you and him if you should marry and then believe God to do it.
I'd like to see some answers, and please list your denomination if you have one.
For any Calvinists, what do you think of God giving us signs to a particular person He wants us to marry?
Great topic. Practical, but theologically and philosophically heavy.
I was raised Pentecostal. Theologically, I'm not classical Pentecostal, I suppose, but I believe in the spiritual gifts. I'm not anti-Calvinist, but I wouldn't label myself as Calvinist. The Bible tells us about believers being predestined. I'm not sure one can show a good case from scripture that all details are predestined. I suppose a deterministic view of the universe where God plans everyone's marriage dovetails nicely with Calvinism with it's interest in God's sovereignty.. But if you view scripture as God's revelation to man, then it sure is difficult to hold to that when you see some of the passages of the Old Testament, despite the appeal of a heavily deterministic view of things
