Living in Sin or just roommates who love each other?

[amigo de christo]

I believe that biblical marriage was very different to how we might define it today. What we call marriage was invented by the (Roman) church in order to have more control over the lives of the people. To marry means to join - male and female.

In the UK it is only the Anglican church whose clergy can legally marry a couple. All other denominations need a registrar present. At my church somebody became a registrar so that weddings could be carried out.

Marriage is a subject that gets Christians hot under the collar. I knew lady once who thought sex was the biggest sin ever and the church's interference has made it a dirty word.

If a man and a woman are exclusively committed to each other I wouldn't call that fornication. And believe that they are married in God's eyes even if not in the eyes of some Christians.

Its easy to get married in the eyes of the LORD . Just be married with some witnesses before GOD .
We dont need all that legality from the state . Any simple preacher or man can marry two before the LORD .
It seemed even the days of jews they had wedding ceremonies and such . So we should do it before the LORD .
But i myself , being just a simple man of God could marry two folks . Its an easy process sister .

 

[Ferris Bueller]

Fundamentalists are not usually historians. Which means more or less going back to the Bible...scriptures....written in a different time period. But not knowing what is going on in that time period. So what happens is they read it living in this time period and reading the words like it was the latest edition of the local Sunday paper and making a lot of assumptions. Which leads to a lot of misunderstandings. Thinking that everything that Christianity understands now...and the values now...was going on then. And by the methodology of fundamentalism, there is nothing different that can be revealed by God.

I'm glad I kept my post short and didn't launch into this. You obviously know it already.
For starters I think the best thing a Christian can do is just learn church history. It'll change a lot of wrong thinking in the church. It shocked me.

 

[Ferris Bueller]

Change is a constant

Within reason.
The Catholic church pretty much destroyed the original Christian faith with their 'changes'. But the church doesn't know this because they do not know church history.

 

[Ferris Bueller]

So after the biblical era...as time went on Christians eventually understood that the Old Testament relationships between men and women were not an expression of the Christian spirit or Christian love....not an expression of Christ.

Maybe the right way to say that is the church realized that the law was not commanding those behaviors (how to take a wife, etc.) but simply governing the behaviors of men at that time.

 

[Ferris Bueller]

Did Christ ever agree with selling your daughter as a sex slave?

It's called 'marriage'.
We don't recognize it as such because we don't practice it that way.
And the law is certainly not commanding us to practice it that way.
It tells you various things to do if you do practice it that way, which they did back then.

 

[Ferris Bueller]

Did you think that Christ would think it is a good thing that a lady would not have a choice of who they married?

That's what they did back then. And God did not stop it. But he did not enforce it either. It's a cultural thing, not a religious thing. Various rules governing how you do that, if you do that, is a religious matter, of course, but the practice itself, either way, is not.

 

[Ferris Bueller]

The Church made marriage a sacrament....the sanctity of marriage. The Protestants added to the Bible requiring that weddings were required for marriages....accumulative....because that comes from the customs of the Gentiles.

You must not be aware of ancient Jewish marriage ceremonies and traditions.
Traditions, coincidently, that help us understand the marriage of Christ to the church and the events associated with that.
It's quite interesting.

 

[Ferris Bueller]

Do you think that Christ ever believed that slavery was good or fair?

We call it 'employment'. And it is good. And it should be fair.
Paul talks about it in one of his letters.

 

[Pearl]

Its easy to get married in the eyes of the LORD . Just be married with some witnesses before GOD .
We dont need all that legality from the state . Any simple preacher or man can marry two before the LORD .
It seemed even the days of jews they had wedding ceremonies and such . So we should do it before the LORD .
But i myself , being just a simple man of God could marry two folks . Its an easy process sister .

Matthew 1:24-25
"When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus."

Where was the wedding? He 'took her home as his wife'. No mention of going to the temple or involving a priest. A big part of the church is hung up on correct procedure. It was later that they came together as man and wife after Jesus had been born but still no mention of a 'wedding' as they had fled to Egypt.

 

[Ferris Bueller]

If you think that Christ's spirit is about slavery or the second rate status of women, then you do not know Christ.

Slavery is having a job.
And second rate status means man is head over woman.
It's the abuses of these two God ordained things that causes the confusion and problems.

 

[Ferris Bueller]

Matthew 1:24-25
"When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus."

Where was the wedding? He 'took her home as his wife'. No mention of going to the temple or involving a priest. A big part of the church is hung up on correct procedure. It was later that they came together as man and wife after Jesus had been born but still no mention of a 'wedding' as they had fled to Egypt.

Remember, the sin of the people in the OP is not caring what the appearance of their relationship may mean to a weaker person. Paul made it very clear that's a sin. Debating what constitutes a marriage and what does not doesn't change that. If the other person doesn't know that, or disagrees with it, the couple in the OP is sinning against them.

 

[farouk]

Matthew 1:24-25
"When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus."

Where was the wedding? He 'took her home as his wife'. No mention of going to the temple or involving a priest. A big part of the church is hung up on correct procedure. It was later that they came together as man and wife after Jesus had been born but still no mention of a 'wedding' as they had fled to Egypt.

@Pearl There is also the context of the Jewish betrothal custom. Joseph and Mary were already betrothed, but according to custom they did not come together until after a set period. The betrothal was considered so binding that nothing less than a divorce was needed in order for the parties to be released; and this really seems to be at the origin of the 'exception clause' for divorce which is often cited but less frequently defined in context.

 

[Pearl]

@Pearl There is also the context of the Jewish betrothal custom. Joseph and Mary were already betrothed, but according to custom they did not come together until after a set period. The betrothal was considered so binding that nothing less than a divorce was needed in order for the parties to be released; and this really seems to be at the origin of the 'exception clause' for divorce which is often cited but less frequently defined in context.

Yes they were betrothed but not married until 'he took her home as his wife'.

 

[Ferris Bueller]

Women should be equal members in the Church.

To the extent allowed, in accordance with the principle of headship God has ordained.

 

[Pearl]

Amen sister, I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Thank you, @JohnPaul you are the first person not to get all het up about my views on marriage.

 

[Ferris Bueller]

Yes they were betrothed but not married until 'he took her home as his wife'.

Wrong.
Their betrothal was considered as binding as marriage because Joseph sought to divorce her.
In our society we do not consider people pledged to be married to one another as requiring a divorce should one of them be unfaithful or not want to continue in the pledge. We consider them free up to the official declaration of marriage in a ceremony and legal procedure. That's not what marriage was in Mary and Joseph's day. It began with the pledge to be married.

 

[farouk]

Yes they were betrothed but not married until 'he took her home as his wife'.

@Pearl Anyway, in England, years ago if a young couple was 'in a hurry' they would often travel to Gretna Green, where a quick wedding would be available. Now it seems so often they just buy a pack of condoms.

 

[Ferris Bueller]

If a man and a woman are exclusively committed to each other I wouldn't call that fornication.

If they were really committed to each other they would get married.
In our society, that's how you commit to one another in marriage.
I think some of us forgot what it's like to be 18 years old, lol.

 

[JohnPaul]

Thank you, @JohnPaul you are the first person not to get all het up about my views on marriage.

We think alike Pearl, you remember when I had my troubles at my other job back in 2019, you reached out to me?

I’ll never forget that.

 

[farouk]

We think alike Pearl, you remember when I had my troubles at my other job back in 2019, you reached out to me?

I’ll never forget that.

@JohnPaul Glad your job seems to be going better now. Keep looking up!

I do think that when a young couple are really smitten, a trip to the town hall is good (it doesn't have to be a flamboyant religious ceremony) before the guy reaches for a pack of condoms, anyway.