Please please pray for me and my boyfriend

[baptistgirl21]

My boyfriend and I really want to get married. But I read a few articles online that said if he's on a disability check under his parents, then the benefits will stop. He won't marry me legally unless he keeps his check. Please pray God will allow him to keep his check. If not, I will have to marry him without a marriage license, and I know that's a sin. I'm trying to have faith that God will help us. But if it's not in God's will for us to marry, he won't help us at all. I'm so scared that God will abandon us. I love my boyfriend so much and want to start a life with him regardless if God wants me to or not. I still love God and will continue to serve him. I will take no for an answer if he doesn't help me, but I will be absolutely crushed. Please pray he will help us, thank you.

 

[Euodius]

My boyfriend and I really want to get married. But I read a few articles online that said if he's on a disability check under his parents, then the benefits will stop. He won't marry me legally unless he keeps his check. Please pray God will allow him to keep his check. If not, I will have to marry him without a marriage license, and I know that's a sin. I'm trying to have faith that God will help us. But if it's not in God's will for us to marry, he won't help us at all. I'm so scared that God will abandon us. I love my boyfriend so much and want to start a life with him regardless if God wants me to or not. I still love God and will continue to serve him. I will take no for an answer if he doesn't help me, but I will be absolutely crushed. Please pray he will help us, thank you.

I don't think it's a sin to marry without a marriage license. After all, the marriage license is a modern thing. A few generations back and it wasn't a thing at all.

 

[baptistgirl21]

I don't think it's a sin to marry without a marriage license. After all, the marriage license is a modern thing. A few generations back and it wasn't a thing at all.

I didn't think it was a sin either until my pastor told me it was. I don't know if he's right or wrong, but I don't want to take any chances

 

[Euodius]

I didn't think it was a sin either until my pastor told me it was. I don't know if he's right or wrong, but I don't want to take any chances

Well, not wanting to take chances is admirable, but is marriage in the realm of Church or State? Is marriage divinely given and the union made holy by the Church? Or is it a civil status open to redefinition at the whims of the government? So, I don't think it's a sin.

However, that doesn't mean marriage licenses are inherently bad either and your pastor might be wise in saying you should get one (even if he's wrong to say it's a sin.)

 

[Albion]

He won't marry me legally unless he keeps his check. Please pray God will allow him to keep his check. If not, I will have to marry him without a marriage license, and I know that's a sin.

How do you propose to marry without a Marriage License?

 

[Al Touthentop]

He won't marry me legally unless he keeps his check. Please pray God will allow him to keep his check. If not, I will have to marry him without a marriage license, and I know that's a sin. I'm trying to have faith that God will help us. But if it's not in God's will for us to marry, he won't help us at all. I'm so scared that God will abandon us. I love my boyfriend so much and want to start a life with him regardless if God wants me to or not. I still love God and will continue to serve him. I will take no for an answer if he doesn't help me, but I will be absolutely crushed. Please pray he will help us, thank you.

Where in the bible does it say that a marriage license is required? God sanctioned marriage long before the government added a license requirement. A bit of study on the marriage license reveals that its purpose was to prevent mixed race marriages and that is certainly not God's will.

I love my boyfriend so much and want to start a life with him regardless if God wants me to or not. I still love God and will continue to serve him.

These two thoughts are mutually exclusive. As Christians we are to submit to God's will over our own. I'm not suggesting that God doesn't want you to marry this man but if this check is truly a sign of God's will, then going against his will isn't serving God. What you're saying is that your own desire is more important than God's will in your life. You may not have meant it that way, but that's what you're saying here.

Maybe the check has nothing at all to do with God's will over your marriage. I would counsel you though to consider that if the man you're marrying, who is commanded by God to support you financially, won't support you himself, you might want to think a bit more carefully about the wisdom of marrying him. What he's essentially saying is that he'll only marry you if he can deceive the government into sending him a check that is only available if he's under the dependency of his parents. That can't be an auspicious beginning.

I pray that you get what you want within God's will. God may be showing you danger. If you ignore it, then you may find more heartache later. It could be that this is not God's condemnation but his blessing in warning you of your situation.

 

[Al Touthentop]

I didn't think it was a sin either until my pastor told me it was. I don't know if he's right or wrong, but I don't want to take any chances

He probably cited Romans 13. But God's law supersedes government law when that law is in conflict with God's law.

6 Then the captain went with the officers and brought them without violence, for they feared the people, lest they should be stoned. 27 And when they had brought them, they set them before the council. And the high priest asked them, 28 saying, “Did we not strictly command you not to teach in this name? And look, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this Man’s blood on us!”

29 But Peter and the other apostles answered and said: “We ought to obey God rather than men."

 

[LoricaLady]

The Bible is our ultimate authority. There is no mention of a marriage license which, as someone has said, is a fairly recent "invention." Theoretically you could get informally married with witnesses and vows before the Lord. However, as in all things, it is as HE leads.

I pray for you to be guided in what to do.

 

[Albion]

The Bible is our ultimate authority. There is no mention of a marriage license which, as someone has said, is a fairly recent "invention." Theoretically you could get informally married with witnesses and vows before the Lord. However, as in all things, it is as HE leads.

I pray for you to be guided in what to do.

"informally married" = not married.

 

[Al Touthentop]

"informally married" = not married.

"informally married" means not going through the government's formalities which are not God's rules but man's. The vows before God are most definitely formal.

 

[Carl Emerson]

Romans 13 requires us to be subject to civil authorities...

In my view an 'informal marriage' is not complying with this requirement.

 

[LoricaLady]

"informally married" = not married.

This is not a debate forum. You are entitled to your opinions and I am entitled to mine. On this forum however, you are not entitled to debate and argue with what others have stated.

 

[Al Touthentop]

Romans 13 requires us to be subject to civil authorities...

In my view an 'informal marriage' is not complying with this requirement.

Only if the civil authority is not in its command going against God. The license hands over the authority of the family to the authorities in divorce when that authority is God's and it is his rules we are to follow.

During the Roman rule, there was no marriage license.

 

[Euodius]

Romans 13 requires us to be subject to civil authorities...

In my view an 'informal marriage' is not complying with this requirement.

It legally complies to common law marriage. Also, the union will be recognized as marriage by the state without a license after some time passes.

 

[LoricaLady]

And P.S. Baptist Girl - Though the state does provide people with a way to get married with a license, they are not required by law to get one. So the laws of the land don't require it. The Bible doesn't require it. Let's see. Which kind of marriage might the Lord think is best if there had to be a choice? A purely secular wedding with a license, or a wedding with loved ones which includes sacred and Biblical vows and no license? Your decision, not ours here.

On the other hand being married with a license might provide some legal protections, if you needed them in the future so you might want to check those out and reflect on them especially if you plan to have children.

 

[LoricaLady]

It legally complies to common law marriage. The union will be recognized by the state without a license after some time passes.

I suspect that is true in some states but not all.

 

[Albion]

This is not a debate forum. You are entitled to your opinions and I am entitled to mine. On this forum however, you are not entitled to debate and argue with what others have stated.

I was speaking to the writer of the OP, if you don't mind, and following up the message of my post #5.

 

[Euodius]

I suspect that is true in some states but not all.

The difference is between states that primarily have civil law vs. states that primarily have common law. Most states are legally based off English Common Law, so it should apply to most states.

The difference between civil and common law may be described by this example:

Let's say you see a child drowning in a private fountain and you must trespass onto private property to rescue the child.

Under common law, if you rescue the child, no trespass has occurred because entering the property is justified and the law is not broken despite the written law not including an exception to save a life. This is because the common morality naturally supersedes the written law and the action, being commonly known as moral, cannot be illegal for law is in service to morality.

Under civil law, if you rescued the child, you are a lawbreaker. A hero perhaps, but you broke the law and the law requires you to be arrested and tried for your crime - unless an exception is written. You may be excused of punishment, but you still trespassed.

Common law marriage recognizes that if two people consider themselves married by means of the common social requirement (i.e. vows/church recognition... or, as used to be common in Europe, sometimes by the merely telling a priest you are married) then marriage has occured.

Similarly, many denomenations do not recognize a marriage license to be sufficient to make a union a marriage. Many denomenations would consider such a relationship to be fornication until such time that the marriage actually occurs in the Church.

Quite a few denomenations do not care about marriage licenses at all and ignore the marriage license (and leave it up to the couple to decide whether they want to do the license.)

 

[Albion]

It legally complies to common law marriage. Also, the union will be recognized as marriage by the state without a license after some time passes.

All of that has been done away with in most states, although people still talk as though common law marriages are recognized. Even then, it's not recognized as a marriage until some time has passed and other conditions are met. But of course, we don't know which state our inquirer lives in.

 

[Euodius]

All of that has been done away with in most states, although people still talk as though common law marriages are recognized. Even then, it's not recognized as a marriage until some time has passed and other conditions are met. But of course, we don't know which state our inquirer lives in.

I won't deny that civil law has, in a lot of ways, unfortunately overwhelmed common law - but as the two forms of law are in opposition, common law still justifies the relationship regardless of state approval - because common law exceeds the state in principle.