3 questions on marriage:

Originally posted by papakapp
Is marriage THE highest calling?

Once you chose to be married should that become your highest calling?

Is there any calling that might preclude marriage?

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I am reading a book called "The Complete Husband" and I believe I can shed some light on these questions,...if I understood what you're asking.

Could you maybe rephrase your questions?

Thanks,

God bless.

wouldn't serving God be your highest calling?

Originally posted by Rising_Suns
wouldn't serving God be your highest calling?

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Absolutely.  However, when God brings someone in our lives, to marry, our obedience in that calling is serving God.

God bless.

Luke 14:20: Well well. Never thought to question it before now. And oddly enough, under Old Testament law, a soldier was perfectly entitled to refuse a call to arms if he had recently been married. The second condition applies. The later verses explain the conditions which underlie the parable.

Luke 14:26-27

If any [man] come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.

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I am also reading a wonderful book that spells out our roles in marriage very understandably, the title is "An Excellent Wife" by Martha Peace.  This book teaches that as a wife my top priority is my personal relationship with Christ.  My second priority is submitting to my husband.  See by doing what the bible is commanding of me I am obeying God, which is my Highest calling.

I generally put the priorities as:

1. God.
2. Wife.
3. Me.

("Everyone else" doesn't exactly fit on this list; depending, they're either below me in priority, or covered under my duties to God.)

I Corinthians 7:1
"Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry. But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband..."

Our first priority is to God

I also believe that your highest calling would be to God, then to your spouse. But God does shine somelight on how important that your spouse is suposed to be. Ephesians 5:22-33 says
"Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church-- for we are members of his body. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."This is a profound mystery--but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband."

1. God
2. Family
3. Country

A woman can be confused by telling her to put God before her husband.

Yes, I heard about one young lady who "divorced" her fiance to become a missionary. I knew another young lady who also "divorced" her fiance to gain a better education.

Doubtlessly, these young ladies thought to put God first, and their husbands second, and that when considered in the light of competing priorities, that it was right that "God" came out on top.

Both of them could not have been further from the truth. For under the Levitical law, which considered a betrothed woman to be as legally bound to her finance as a married woman to her husband, both women deserved to be put to death for playing the harlot.

So, lets consider the words of the apostle once more:

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Eph 5:24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so [let] the wives [be] to their own husbands in every thing.
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Surprised? Lets try again:

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1Cr 11:3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman [is] the man; and the head of Christ [is] God.
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The man is to be to the woman, as Christ himself is to the man.

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1Pe 3:5 For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands:

1Pe 3:6 Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.
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So, it is in the very act of submission to one's husband, that a woman's holiness is demonstrated.

People are also sometimes confused when they discover that actual human husbands are farm from the Christlike figures they're supposed to be.

Today at 12:35 AM seebs said this in Post #13 (http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?postid=655709#post655709)

People are also sometimes confused when they discover that actual human husbands are farm from the Christlike figures they're supposed to be.

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That has no impact on the duty of a woman before God.