Someone observed that marriage is like horseradish — men, and women, sometimes praise it with tears in their eyes. Marriage can bring tears of unparalleled joy, or tears of intense pain and grief. After the Lord, a good marriage partner can be the greatest help we have in life. As the old marriage ceremony goes, husbands and wives can halve life’s sorrows and double life’s joys and pleasure. Scripture and observation bear out that building a strong, happy, effective and enduring marriage is one of life’s greatest challenges. Christian mates face the same difficulties and barriers to a happy married life that non-Christians do, but they have the advantage of being united in commitment to Christ and in involvement in the life of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. These factors do not eliminate all of the trails and tears, but they do keep both mates pulling in the same direction, not against each other. Commitment to Christ welds them to the same values and goals and priorities. If you are married to a committed Christian whose number one commitment is to honor and glorify God and go to Heaven, consider yourself blessed, whatever else you have or don’t have in life!
Many wonderful, devoted Christians find themselves in a “mixed marriage.” I am not using that term here to refer to marriage between a man and woman of different ethnicity or race, but rather to a person who is married to a husband or wife who is not a faithful Christian. What is God’s will for a Christian in that kind of situation? The apostle Paul gave this inspired directive: “If any brother has a wife who does not believe, and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her. And a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him” (1 Corinthians 7:12-13). This passage makes clear that being in a “mixed marriage” is not a reason to leave your married mate or seek a divorce. Apparently in the first century as the gospel spread, there were cases where one mate obeyed the gospel and the other one did not. Questions arose as to whether Christians in such circumstances should stay with their unsaved mate. Paul goes on in the verses following the text cited above to show that God recognizes the sanctity of marriage in spite of the fact that one of His children is joined to one who is not a child of God. God’s will for a Christian in such a marriage is clear — stay put! Don’t give up and bail out of the marriage. God will honor you if you honor Him in your life and home, even if your mate is not a Christian. Love your mate. Live the Christian life. Set a good example. Faithfully serve and reflect Christ. Seek to win him or her through a thoughtful, prayerful, beautiful and winsome Christian life. According to 1 Peter 3:1ff, you can preach to your non-Christian mate without ever saying a word! There will be men and women in Heaven who were won to Christ through the powerful witness (by life and by lip, through ways and through words), of a devoted Christian mate. Don’t cave in. Don’t call it quits. Persist. Persevere. Press on. Always pray (Luke 18:1). But what if your non-Christian mate threatens to leave you unless you leave the Lord? Scripture answers: “But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart; a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases. But God has called us to peace” (1 Corinthians 7:15). A Christian must never leave Christ, even in a mixed marriage where it might mean losing a married mate.
Dan Gulley, Smithville TN
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At Sunday school they were teaching how God created eve-
rything including human beings. Little Johnny, a kindergartener,
seemed especially intent when they told him how Eve was created out of one of Adam’s ribs. Later that week his mother noticed him lying on his bed as though he was ill. She said, “Johnny, what’s the matter?” He responded with “I have a pain in my side. I think I’m going to have a wife!”