Marriage existed before Judaism and Christianity. That confuses me, because Judaism and Christianity were how God first revealed through prophets how he wanted people to live. In indigenous cultures, and even in different cultures around the world, what defines it is different.
I would say that basic human marriage is if a couple commit to staying with each other. This can be before God's word tells them how to live in commitment. God's main interest is not only what defines the marriage, but how we learn to do it.
And God's way of marriage is between a man and a woman. Nowhere does the Bible talk about how a man is to be married to another man, or a woman with another woman. God is not only a human writer who would have overlooked this
What is the bibical definition, exactly? I'm confused. I was always interested in analyzing every detail of the Bible, but this is one topic that I find somewhat enigmatic.
Like I offer > if they commit to staying with each other, this is basic marriage. Jesus, I understand, says that if you have done something in your heart, you already have done it.
I've heard people say the legal institution of marriage is different (but yet closely connected) to the religious sacrament of matrimony. Is that true or false?
Now we could be talking about if the egg or the chicken come first. The egg is the seed > the heart commitment > this comes before religious ceremony and legal measures. I consider that if you have the egg and it is of love, you won't be chicken about sharing your intentions with others, however your religion and culture do this.
But doesn't the religious ceremony make it holy matrimony, which gives the marriage a sacred and religious context and meaning?
It can. But ceremony can be a copy-cat thing. What is in the heart is what makes it all it is, in the sight of God.
But how did the Institution itself exist before God spoke to Moses and gave him a covenant?
There always has been the institution, but God's word has directed people in how to handle marriage and live in holy matrimony. Under the law of Moses, things could be not as good as how they can be in Jesus. But marriage could be of God's love then, too. But the religious trimmings can be different, in culture and religious copy-catting and legal details.
If two people in a committed relationship move in together, that in and of itself is not a marriage.
If a couple stays with each other and has and brings up children . . . I am not going to tell them they are not married. It may not be legal, or by the Bible . . . but > if they somehow love each other and take care of each other and their children, they are doing more than a number of secular and religious married couples are doing in their pronounced marriages.
How was Adam and Eve being married similar to the modern institution of marriage?
Adam and Eve did not do well with each other. They were married, yes, but fell into sin. The similarity is they were one and committed. But what ones do with their oneness is so much more important than how you label their relationship, Sam.
Recently someone told me that the institution of marriage that was practiced throughout the ages existed before "paper you're referring to was" invented.
Now you are making someone's head work
You are helping people to find employment for their brains, then; so you could run for president since you are helping to increase employment!
So what was marriage in the bible if it wasn't papers?
In the New Testament, I consider what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7:7. What I understand is he says if you have a relationship with another child of God and you can't handle staying celibate, get married. In the case of the Jesus people in Corinth . . . my opinion is they could tell who God was putting together. They had deep sense to know what was going on with each other. So, it was understood that couples would go with celibacy or with marriage, depending simply on how each relationship developed. But if any couple got sexually intimate, Paul says "let each man have his own wife". If you got together, that was the person you stayed with.
Yes, there was the possibility of a Christian celibate covenant correctional companionship commitment couple who did not have sex, but they were together. So, I guess they could be considered married, because of their commitment.
So you're saying marriages done without papers are crimes? I'm not an expert on the subject, and I'm kind of confused at this discussion.
In the United States, a legally uncertified marriage can be illegal, I think, partly in consideration of making sure the children and a surviving spouse get taken care of. So, if it is not legally taken care of, marriage might be not only illegal, but unloving.
Biblical weddings were similar to Jewish weddings of today.
Well, the Biblical weddings reported in the Bible are weddings of Jewish culture, then. So, I suppose they could still be similar. But in Jesus we have Gentiles of different cultures not reported in detail in the Bible; the Christian marriages of Gentiles is not reported.
Also, I suspect that certain ones could be wishfully claiming they know how things really used to be; there are people who are into promoting Jewish religion and culture; so they might promote that the Jewish way is the right and Biblical way. But, even so, there might have been different ways of Jews, but ones maybe have picked and chosen what makes it into the history reports.
In any case, Sam, the marriage is not the wedding ceremony or celebration. Marriage basically means a state of being in union, joined somehow. The main union and intimacy is in the heart. Intimacy certainly is not only the bodily sexual union. But love's intimacy is in the heart, if it is there.
Also . . . by the way . . . the Bible says >
"But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him." (1 Corinthians 6:17)
So, while we are at it, Sam . . . consider how each person of Jesus is "one spirit with Him." We are, first, engaged to our Groom Jesus. But we already are each "one spirit with Him." The marriage is spiritual, then, in God's own love. And, likewise, real marriage for humans is in God's love, not only in our own ways of picking and choosing who is good enough for us to love > "For if you love those who love you, what reward have you?" (in Matthew 5:46)
So, I guess we might say that the marriage which God wants for us is much better than what a number of people have been doing. And it is for living in our Father's all-loving love. Marriage can be a research laboratory for making breakthrough discoveries in how to relate in love, so we can love in this way with various other people of God's family caring and sharing love. We need how the Bible says to love as family, in all our relating > Ephesians 5:21, Ephesians 4:31-32, Ephesians 5:1-2, 1 Peter 3:8-9, Mark 11:25.
