Have Christians got it all wrong?

[ben_u39]

Biblically speaking, marriage had no license - this idea was created by the US government around the time of slavery in order for them to control who they deemed fit to be married/marry people

it had no officiator - weddings were seen as more of an agreement more than a formal ceremony

had no formal ceremony - just declaring a never lasting love and commitment to one another.

The act of sex was what united someone (genesis 2;22, they became one flesh) talks about how the sexual act is what caused Adam and Eve to be married. Sexual intercourse was what made them married, sort of like a hand shake. When you shake someone’s hand you are buying into a contract that the product/service you are providing will be satisfactory to them, likewise when you have sex with someone you are agreeing to be with that person for ever and ever.

Physical union shows the union of souls as well as body.

The bible only records marriage as the physical act and not as a 'wedding'.

Surely if God created the world in such a short time we can 'marry' a couple who both prayer commitment to each other?

Genesis 24:67 says 'he married her and then she became his wife'
to me that said they had sex and made a commitment and because of that they were man and wife.

Therefore sex = promising to love and protect each other for ever.

Pornea was the Greek word for fornication, the only times in the bible when this is mentioned are Exodus when talking about idolatry, in this case lust, Leviticus 18;20 sex with someone else wife, when you cheat on your partner with someone else as in lev 20;10, incest as in lev 18;7 gay sex as in lev 18;7, bestiality (again, Leviticus) orgies, sex with more than one person (multiple partners), rape, taking advantage, date rape see Deut 22;19, during a menstrual cycle lev 18;19.

Also through out all of Lev 18;19 it lists all unlawful sexual relations, notice how not one of these mentions pre-marital sex. Is this because there is no such thing? only extra marital sex?

You CAN’T be married to your sister, pet dog, someone else wife so you CANT sleep with them. But what about your girlfriend/boyfriend to whom you have committed your self too?

NO WHERE in the bible does it say that sex between unmarried couple is forbidden. Only between those who aren’t married to each other but to others. At least from what ive found.

So fornication in Greek didn't mean to have sex before your wedding; it meant to have sex with someone you couldn’t be married to.
Surely sex = marriage, which is why you shouldn’t have sex with just anyone, only the ONE person. Sex = marriage but you can only take one wife (unless she dies - see lower down) so if sex = marriage, marriage =/= a wedding. Right?

1 Corinthians 6:12 advices on relying on sex to show love and warns not to commit any act previously mentioned here. Everything is aloud but not everything is beneficial to the soul or body.


Everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial.

So my question here is...Sex, does it = marriage or does a wedding=marriage=sex?



Edit.
Let's see what the bible says about being un married...

1Corinthians

8 Now to the unmarried[a] and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. 9 But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
Footnotes:

1. Or widowers

Here it says to those who are no longer married due to death of a spouse that they'd do well not to remarry this is because of the 'oneflesh' idea presented in Genesis. You can't become ONE with more than one. Sex should be for just two people. Exlcusivity is key in the bible.

The church and it's relationship with Christ is another point here.
Christ is commited soley to the benefit of the church. So should a husband be to his wife and vice versa.

 

[citizenthom]

NO WHERE in the bible does it say that sex between unmarried couple is forbidden.

That's because, as you come close to realizing, sex is marriage. "Premarital sex" is in fact a marriage with no binding vows, no public commitment, no promise that it will last forever, and most importantly, without God as its center. It's from that fact that all the Bible's laws about marriage flow...and the logical end of that fact is that sex without a marriage commitment is completely and utterly against God's word.

 

[iambren]

Sure, you can have a "handshake" type deal of a promise, have sex all you want and go on like your married............

Oh, and if someone opts out of supporting the children said union makes you agree to be tracked down and money taken from you for support.. And if you split what is legally your property or if one has the right to snatch the others inheritance who gets what? We ALL suffer for your freedom.

Get it. Marriage is legal,theological, and civil for a reason. We don't live on islands from each other.

 

[katautumn]

If marriage was only granted by having sex, why is there mention of weddings in the Bible?

 

[Melethiel]

And a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

What comes first, getting married, or becoming one flesh?

 

[gzt]

Your first paragraph is wrong in so many ways. Anyway, you're somewhat correct, in that a lot of modern American Christians have wrong ideas about marriage based on lack of critical thought about the history of it, but you have to first discuss "What do Christians say about marriage?" and then "What is marriage, really?"

The first thing your very first paragraph neglects is that there's a lot more to the West than America. There's more to the West than just the English Common Law tradition, too, but we can confine ourselves for now. In the early 18th century in England, there were two ways to get married: get married at church and they take a record of it or "marriage by habit and repute" - basically, cohabiting, holding yourselves forth to the world as married. England did away with the latter in 1758, but it didn't disappear in the colonies because they had separate legal systems. The rest of Europe stopped legally recognizing the latter, by the way, during the Reformation.

Anyway, the teaching in the West in Catholicism is that marriage is a sort of "natural sacrament" and that's it's confected by the couple, but within the Church it is transformed into an image of Christ and the church and all that jazz. Any Protestant thought on the issue is sort of an offshoot from that. The State's role in this, though, gets a little odd, because the Church was for so long bound up with the State and the government does have an interest in tracking these things a little rigorously, though there were always non-Christian populations that worked within these things... Anyway, in the medieval times, there were a lot of thoughts about the issue. Basically, two people could agree that they were married, have sex, and, boom, they were married. Even future agreement to marriage combined with the act could be said to count. But this, of course, leads to difficulties - namely, no witness who agrees with you means some guy could just trick some chick into sleeping with him.

Anyway, historically, all the way back to Judaism and ancient history, even looking at heathen cultures, they key elements of marriage seem to be the following: public acknowledgment of it, cohabitation, calling yourselves married. And, yes, I suppose you want the government to take notice of it, given that we're in modern society and so that there isn't any confusion and so that you can't marry multiple people at once. As a Christian, too, I think there's a point to the fact that Jews had weddings, Christians have had weddings (traditionally), Jesus was at a wedding, you need to have some sort of public acknowledgment that you're getting married and making this transition.

So, anyway, you have a lot of great ideas there, but it's all a little mor complicated.

 

[citizenthom]

And a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

What comes first, getting married, or becoming one flesh?

Just taking that verse: leaving, cleaving (that is, making the lifelong commitment), then becoming one flesh. That's the pattern the OT follows too.

 

[Mayzoo]

I guess all these threads about avoiding having a marriage license and a wedding makes me wonder why all the resistance? I have heard the "I do not government in my life" aspect, but how does that prevent the actual wedding (standing before others and declaring intent)? One can have a wedding ceremony sans the license should they so wish.

ETA: I mean why the resistance to having a wedding even OT style..standing up in front of relatives and friends and making announcement of your intentions. Why go to the other extreme and say merely having sex makes you married? That reduces a whole lot folks, Christians included, in committing adultery since they are not with their first partners any longer.

 

[gzt]

I guess all these threads about avoiding having a marriage license and a wedding makes me wonder why all the resistance? I have heard the "I do not government in my life" aspect, but how does that prevent the actual wedding (standing before others and declaring intent)? One can have a wedding ceremony sans the license should they so wish.

I'm not terribly averse to that idea in principle, though I don't think it's completely prudent. Prudence, however, isn't the same as morality. I would just point out that getting a marriage license from the state confers a variety of benefits and protections (notable protections: no bigamy, you really ARE married so one side can't just leave) with only one real drawback - you're somehow involving the big bad government.

 

[Mayzoo]

I'm not terribly averse to that idea in principle, though I don't think it's completely prudent. Prudence, however, isn't the same as morality. I would just point out that getting a marriage license from the state confers a variety of benefits and protections (notable protections: no bigamy, you really ARE married so one side can't just leave) with only one real drawback - you're somehow involving the big bad government.

Sorry, I edited to my position a little more clear I hope. The resistance I do not understand is resistance to any traditional wedding announcement and declarations first, but instead wanting to just find a person, have sex, and then state that they are married.

I do not agree with the big bad government argument as we are called to follow man's law unless it is immoral, but even with that aside I think it was fairly rare for a couple to just go off and have sex then inform others that they are married.

 

[iambren]

The civil part of getting marriage protects children and gives record that can be obtained by others so no one will try to move in where they are not supposed to go.

 

[Luther073082]

I'm not terribly averse to that idea in principle, though I don't think it's completely prudent. Prudence, however, isn't the same as morality. I would just point out that getting a marriage license from the state confers a variety of benefits and protections (notable protections: no bigamy, you really ARE married so one side can't just leave) with only one real drawback - you're somehow involving the big bad government.

Plus a whole host of provisions for hospitalization and end of life decisions and tax benefits.

It should also be noted that marriage licenses are state things. Now in a non incestual, heterosexual marriage, your marrage license in one state is completly valid in another state.

For example my wife and I where married in Florida and our marriage license is from the state of Florida. However the State of Indiana where we now live recognizes us as married too.

The thing about marriages historically is that they where community enforced. You couldn't really travel far from home very easily and where you where from everyone knew you where married. So you couldn't just forget you had a spouse.

Now we have more technology and you can move into another community and the people may not recognize you as being married. However the previous marriage license prevents you from marrying again without completing a divorce. If you do marry again, its a crime that would at the very least involve a perjury charge. (Signing a marriage license is pretty much an oath that you give, on penalty of perjury, that you are not married to anyone else.)

The complaint I hear most often besides the fear mongering about the government is the cost. However the cost of a marriage license isn't really that high, nor is a wedding cerimony. Its the reception that costs almost all of the money, which one does not need for a legal and Christ centered wedding cerimony. You don't need a super expensive dress or tuxes either. Those are optional choices, not requirements.

 

[gzt]

Yeah, the cost thing is absurd. I think it's, like, $40 in my state. Not something to sneeze at, of course, but it's not exactly big bucks.

 

[Luther073082]

Yeah, the cost thing is absurd. I think it's, like, $40 in my state. Not something to sneeze at, of course, but it's not exactly big bucks.

In Florida they gave us a massive discount on the marriage license because we where taking going to pre-marital counciling with Melissa's pastor.

Now thats something we would have done anyways and I think its a good idea for all couples. But many states offer a further discount on the license if you do that.

Thats not to say its a bad thing to have a reception with tuxes and a wedding dress and stuff like that. We had all those things at our wedding. But the point of it all is that, if you are really against spending that money, you really don't have to spend that money.

I will say that I think all Christians should get married by a representative of the church, usually a priest/pastor. If the church is Christ's body on earth and we want to have a Christ centered marriage, we should start it by having it performed by a representative of Christ's body on earth.

I worry about these things a bit though. Christians are trying to excuse pre-marital sex and "marriages" with no possibility of outside enforcement based on insane fears that having a marriage license is somehow going to make the big scary government more a part of your life. (Really it doesn't, I'm married, I have a marriage license, the government is no more a part of my life now then it was before I was married.) Or the cop out about weddings costing too much, which if all you want is a wedding, it really doesn't cost all that much. Its the celibration afterwards that costs a lot of money.

And also lets not forget you can still have a celibration afterwards and cut a lot of costs. Cut out the photographer, get a friend to do it. Cut out the catering and just have some of your family members help you cook up a big meal. There is some more money saved. Forget the DJ, either do it without music or have a friend play some tunes for you. Finally forget the rented hall and go with a relative who has a big place or even the church's hall and its even less money.

Plus at the wedding, cut the tuxes, wear a suit you have in your closet. Cut out the wedding dress and have the bride wear a dress she has in her closet or a nice non-wedding dress that she can buy.

Boom you do all that and your wedding suddenly doesn't cost that much. And you don't even need the reception, its just a nice thing to do.

 

[Tim Myers]

"NO WHERE in the bible does it say that sex between unmarried couple is forbidden."

Now there's a mess of cactus you shoulda looked over before ya jumped into it........

 

[iambren]

Having sex doesn't make you married either. The OP is wrong on about everything written!