Marriage is More Than Me

This past Sunday Dave Harvey preached a wonderful message in our series, “In the Beginning” from Genesis 2:18-25, entitled “Marriage is More Than Me”.

Genesis 2:18-25 ⁸ Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him." ¹⁹ So out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. ²⁰ The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. ²¹ So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. ²² And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. ²³ Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." ²⁴ Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. ²⁵ And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

Dave made a number of points that Jill and I found helpful. But there are three quotes I thought you’d like to ponder for your marriage this week.

The first is from Dave himself: “Even in Eden, Adam alone with God was not enough”.

For Jill and me, there are times that life seems so full, and so busy, that we forget God’s good purposes for marriage and one of those wonderful purposes is that we were created for one another. And not just to do the “business of life” together, but to see our relationship as a context where we can encourage and exhort one another toward the Savior and living the glorious truths of the gospel. This week, think about one way that you can encourage your spouse toward deepening their intimacy with Jesus Christ

The second is simply penetrating perspective from Puritan commentator Matthew Henry that husbands need to commit to memory, or at least to heart:

“The woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected by him and near his heart to be beloved (by him).”

Husbands, how we view our wives says a lot about how we view God and His glorious purpose for marriage. Take one day this week and honor your wife by communicating your appreciation for how she helps you, as your most trusted partner and friend, with her wisdom, gifts, creativity, and endless service.

And then from contemporary commentator George Knight….,

“Unbeknownst to the people of Moses' day (it was a ‘mystery’), marriage was designed by God from the beginning to be a picture or parable of the relationship between Christ and the church. Back when God was planning what marriage would be like, He planned it for this great purpose: it would give a beautiful earthly picture of the relationship that would someday come about between Christ and His church. This was not known to people for many generations, and that is why Paul can call it a ‘mystery.’ But now in the New Testament age Paul reveals this mystery, and it is amazing.”

This means that when Paul wanted to tell the Ephesians about marriage, he did not just hunt around for a helpful analogy and suddenly think that "Christ and the church" might be a good teaching illustration. No, it was much more fundamental than that: Paul saw that when God designed the original marriage He already had Christ and the church in mind. This is one of God's great purposes in marriage: to picture the relations between Christ and His redeemed people forever!”

Marriage is not about us, its about something far grander. Can you believe we get to participate in such a glorious cause through marriage?!!