Background for Discussing Marriage

The Bible explains the beginning of marriage in the first book of the Bible, Genesis, chapter 2:

 But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

    23 The man said,   
    "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh;
    she shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man."

        24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.   (New International Version)

 

In the New Testament, the relationship between husband and wife is compared to the relationship between God and people.  Paul writes the following in Ephesians, chapter 5, and notice that he quotes the Genesis 2 passage to back up his teaching:

   21Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ; 2Wives, to your husbands as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

   25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church– 30for we are members of his body. 31“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”32This is a profound mystery–but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

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