Marriage Vows  by Marietjie Chase

Because we just celebrated our twenty third anniversary, because our oldest son (Steve's son from BC) is getting married this weekend and because I came across our wedding video this past Sunday and watched some of it, my mind has been on Marriage Vows. We were so young, so innocent. How little did we know. I can remember that I did not really care about what the preacher said or what the ceremony was like. I had a pretty dress and was getting married. I was in a hurry to start our life together.

But with maturity comes understanding. I now understand that God takes vows serious, even if you take them in ignorance. He is a covenant keeping God. Remember the Gibeons that tricked Joshua into making a covenant with them and then Joshua did not keep the covenant. David, the man after God’s heart, later came and rectified this. The Bible says not to swear falsly and if you promised something, even if it is to your own hurt, that you should keep the promise. Marriage vows is a covenant.

This covenant is not only between husband and wife. It is also between husband, wife and God. And so the Bible says that a threefold cord is not easily broken. But this covenant is not only between husband, wife and God but also includes every child that is brought to life by this union. The generations to come will be blessed by those who keep covenant and will be cursed from those who break covenant.

The Bible says in Malachi that God hates divorce. There is few things that is put as plainly as this to tell us what God hates and abhores. It is clear that divorce can never be an option for those who seek to please God.

So in the light of all this would a marriage covenant, marriage vows that reads like this, be better?

Minister to both Groom and Bride: “Do you both promise to place God and His word first in your individual lives and in your marriage?”

Bride and Groom: “I do” and “I do”

Minister to the Groom: Do you,......, promise before God and all these witnesses, to take ,......, as your wife, to forsake your father and mother and cleave to her, to love her, to cherish her and to lay your life down for her, even as Jesus Christ gave Himself for the Church; for as long as you both shall live.”

Groom: “I do”

Minister to the Bride: “Do you, ....., promise before God and all these witnesses, to take, ......, as your husband, to honor him, to respect him, to adapt yourself to him and to submit to him even as the Church submit to Jesus Christ; for as long as you both shall live.”

Bride: “I do”
 

Maybe we can prevent some divorces by changing how the marriages start.