Interesting Theory on Marriage

[A-B0T]

My mother pays a lot of attention to the bible and knows way beyond the typical 'The Bible says this and that' point. She studies hard. And she was telling me we may be depending too much on the legal system according to what makes two people husband and wife.
The theory is that if you love your spouse with all your heart and view them as your husband or wife no matter what any piece of paper says then you are married in the heart and the spirit. Adam and Eve never had any witnesses or wedding and yet they were husband and wife. They were married despite the lack of any ceremony. So if you view your spouse this way then you're already married in the spirit and God knows your hearts and whether or not you went to any pastor and had a wedding ceremony you are committing no sin to be sharing a bed and having marital relations.

Your thoughts?  

[real eyes realize]

That's what I concluded too. Tradition/Rituals don't really accomplish anything of themselves. It's just a way to get our heart to say "yes" or "no" to something. Baptism ceremony = do you repent of your old lifestyle and consent to live under YHWH/Yeshua, yes or no? Marriage ceremony = do you dedicate yourself to this person, yes or no? Unfortunately, some people need a physical ceremony to make things "real" for them/cement their decision. The baptism and marriage ceremony don't mean anything if you're unfaithful in your heart, lusting after other people other than your spouse, worshiping-self, seeking other Gods, seeking spiritual-fulfillment elsewhere not relying on our Heavenly Father and his word.  

[A-B0T]

real eyes realize

That's what I concluded too. Tradition/Rituals don't really accomplish anything of themselves. It's just a way to get our heart to say "yes" or "no" to something. Baptism ceremony = do you repent of your old lifestyle and consent to live under YHWH/Yeshua, yes or no? Marriage ceremony = do you dedicate yourself to this person, yes or no? Unfortunately, some people need a physical ceremony to make things "real" for them/cement their decision. The baptism and marriage ceremony don't mean anything if you're unfaithful in your heart, lusting after other people other than your spouse, worshiping-self, seeking other Gods, seeking spiritual-fulfillment elsewhere not relying on our Heavenly Father and his word.

I agree. I don't think there's anything wrong with a person needing to have a wedding to feel like it's official but that's not all it's about. I'm still planning to wait to lose my virginity until the honeymoon but I no longer feel guilty about the other things I've done with my fiance because we decided we wanted to get married before we even met face to face. We even call each other husband and wife in private. We're married in our hearts already but the only reason I'm still waiting to go all the way is just to make the wedding night something special.  

[Ameixah7]

If you don't want a big ceremony, you could just go to city hall and sign a paper. If you want to argue about the paper meaning nothing, well, I think you should take a look at this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxOnOCpC6gA 3nodding Marriage vows are deeper than most people may think. And when you say Adam and Eve never had any witnesses or a wedding (considering the circumstances that they were supposedly the first humans on earth), and yet they were husband and wife, God was their witness to their wedding, and to them being husband and wife. God encourages marriage. 3nodding

Genesis 2:22-25
"And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 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.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed."


It's also said if you feel overtly passionate about someone, or burning with passion, you should get married to avoid sexual sin. (Fornication-sex before marriage, lust, cheating ect).

"But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband." This verse, states that marriage is the "cure" for sexual immorality."1 Corinthians 7:2

Now when you say we depend on the legal system to determine how people get married, do you mean the legal laws in the bible as well? Should we just throw God's word/guidelines in the garbage, and become secular? confused  

[PSM Guild Mule]

I agree. I think the whole ceremony isn't needed and it is a huge waste of money.
You do not need the government to recognize a marriage for it to be legit.
God knows your heart.

 

[A-B0T]

I never said anything about throwing away God's guidelines and I don't appreciate you making assumptions from what I said. But think of this scenario. Say you're engaged to the love of your life then by a freak accident there is no one with the authority to marry you. You're alone on an island with no hope of rescue or something. So that means you can't make your own vows and eternal commitment to each other because you can't go to a church or a courthouse? It would be a sin to consider one another husband and wife because no one was around to make it official? If I were in such a situation I would probably say to my fiance that we already know how we view each other and we should make it official before God before we did anything husband and wife should only do. If he agrees and you vow to each other before God then I would call that a marriage. It's like getting saved. You can talk to Jesus one on one or if you feel more comfortable with it find someone to pray with you and repeat what they tell you. As long as you mean it in your heart that's all that matters.

 

[SinfulGuillotine]

I was raised to believe that marriage was one of the Sacraments of the Church. Baptism, First Communion, Confirmation, Marriage, and Last Rites.

But I'm a defected Catholic, so I don't really believe that anymore. My partner and I made our promises of love and commitment to one another years before we were civilly partnered in the eyes of the law, and getting married "4 realz" was something we did to be practical, not something we needed to validate our relationship. If you're planning to spend the rest of your life with someone, it makes sense to be legally partnered to them, but it shouldn't be the glue that holds you together. That glue should have already set and hardened before you say "I do" and drink heavily and eat too much cake with friends and family.

Not that there's anything wrong with cake.  

[real eyes realize]

I'm glad fornication was brought up because it got me thinking: wouldn't that mean having sex with someone you have no intention of marrying (exclusively uniting to forever)? That would include lusting after people that you have no intention of marrying; it's having sex promiscuously like a prostitute (having many sexual partners) without being exclusive to one person, in body and in mind, forever.

All the verses that speak of fornication sound like whorish behavior: [»], a total of 40 verses in the KJV; a whore is someone who sleeps around with many people and isn't faithful to one and only one.

To quote a few on the list:

Quote:

John 8:41

Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.

One god, not many.

Quote:

1 Corinthians 7:2

Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife , and let every woman have her own husband.

A man has one wife, not many wives. A woman has one husband, not many husbands. The emphasis being on exclusivity (and opposite sex), not on ceremony.

Quote:

Revelation 2:14

But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.

Balaam advised him to lure prostitutes into the camp and the children of Israel fornicated with them (Numbers 25); so again, don't whore yourself out. That's what fornication is.  

[SinfulGuillotine]

Promiscuous = having had many sexual partners, usually without being in a relationship with said partners.

Prostitute/whore = someone who has sex in exchange for money or other material gain.

Sorry, using those terms interchangeably is a huge pet peeve of mine. All prostitutes are promiscuous, but not all promiscuous people are prostitutes.  

[real eyes realize]

SinfulGuillotine

Promiscuous = having had many sexual partners, usually without being in a relationship with said partners.

Prostitute/whore = someone who has sex in exchange for money or other material gain.

Sorry, using those terms interchangeably is a huge pet peeve of mine. All prostitutes are promiscuous, but not all promiscuous people are prostitutes.

I was defining those terms based on scriptural examples; YHWH called Israel a whore/prostitute/harlot for "sleeping" around with foreign god(s), not necessarily for money, they were just plain disloyal to him.  

[SinfulGuillotine]

real eyes realize

SinfulGuillotine

Promiscuous = having had many sexual partners, usually without being in a relationship with said partners.

Prostitute/whore = someone who has sex in exchange for money or other material gain.

Sorry, using those terms interchangeably is a huge pet peeve of mine. All prostitutes are promiscuous, but not all promiscuous people are prostitutes.

I was defining those terms based on scriptural examples; YHWH called Israel a whore/prostitute/harlot for "sleeping" around with foreign god(s), not necessarily for money, they were just plain disloyal to him.

There's all kinds of nasty words that have been used for centuries to describe people (historically mostly women) who engage or have engaged in promiscuous behaviour, and I don't find any of them appropriate words to describe human beings. (Except perhaps for "prostitute," but only if it's being used to describe a person who has sex for money, and even then, the term "sex worker" is far more PC.)  

[real eyes realize]

SinfulGuillotine

real eyes realize

SinfulGuillotine

Promiscuous = having had many sexual partners, usually without being in a relationship with said partners.

Prostitute/whore = someone who has sex in exchange for money or other material gain.

Sorry, using those terms interchangeably is a huge pet peeve of mine. All prostitutes are promiscuous, but not all promiscuous people are prostitutes.

I was defining those terms based on scriptural examples; YHWH called Israel a whore/prostitute/harlot for "sleeping" around with foreign god(s), not necessarily for money, they were just plain disloyal to him.

There's all kinds of nasty words that have been used for centuries to describe people (historically mostly women) who engage or have engaged in promiscuous behaviour, and I don't find any of them appropriate words to describe human beings. (Except perhaps for "prostitute," but only if it's being used to describe a person who has sex for money, and even then, the term "sex worker" is far more PC.)

I don't know what other words you have in mind, but this applies to both women and men. It doesn't really matter how the world defines behavior though, or what they think is politically-correct; How YHWH defines a thing is what matters, and it boils down to this: YHWH disapproves of sleeping around and having multiple partners. He's constantly talking about being loyal to one, unless that person commits sexual immorality against you and you divorce them. (More often than not, he's describing his relationship to the nation of Israel; but he expects the same out of the relationships we have with each other).

example:

He divorces Israel for her "sexual immorality" with other gods: (Jeremiah 3:8 )
Jesus tells us we cannot divorce unless it's over sexual immorality: (Matthew 5:32)  

[Scarlet_Teardrops]

I believe people need to be married in a ceremony by a pastor or priest in the name of God.

Of course, this is based in my definition of marriage. Working definitions mean everything, as does context.

What would you define as being "marriage", exactly?
 

[keito-ninja]

I believe that ceremonies such as baptism or marriage are more than just matters of the legal system, and more than just matters of the heart. They are sacred covenants a person makes with God. As such, it is not important tat these ceremonies be recorded by the legal system, but it is important that these covenants are made under the authority of a priesthood holder.  

[i r i d e s s i c a n c e]

Hmm. That does get me thinking a bit.

My fiance always tells me, "How I already see it, we're already married." by that, as you have stated, given our loyalty to each other beyond belief. And, we act like a married couple as far as behavior in general in public and around friends/family. So to God it's like we are "married". I use parentheses for the term married, as in going by the whole Adam/Eve scenario/desert island scenario.

As far as in terms with a church/church ceremony, like baptism, I do agree it would be best to perform marriage in front of a pastor at least. Unless your friend is a pastor themselves, would it count if a stranger or regular person baptized you nowadays compared back in the Bible? Even if it was before God and by a stranger, you'd naturally still go to a church elder to get baptized.

My fiance and I are still going to get a legal ceremony in the next year or two of course and sign that paper to make it legal.

But honestly, if it would count to have a couple Christian friends, even if they weren't a pastor, by count I mean as in baptism/marriage and still before God, I'd love to. If that were to count, that's all I need. To just be married before God with Christian friends witnessing our vows to God, that would make me so very happy. That's all my fiance and I want. Something small, sentimental. And signing a piece of paper in a court office department isn't exactly our idea of sentimental by a court officiant. If you catch my drift. If it were only that simple and easy.