Exalting Marriage

 Young families embody the hope and dreams of our future.  Few scenes move me as much as young couples strolling through the neighborhood pushing a stroller; fathers splashing in the pool with their children while young mothers lounge in poolside chairs; children laughing in the park flying kites with their fathers, giggling on playgrounds with their mothers.

 It is this special bond that God’s seventh commandment seeks to nourish and protect: “You shall not commit adultery.”   Sex, in all of its beauty and pleasure, was given to men and women to celebrate the mystery by which human life is conceived, cradled and nurtured. According to Merriam-Webster, the strict definition of adultery is “voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and someone other than that person's spouse.”

 This year my wife and I celebrate our 58^th anniversary along with our friends who “pledged their troth” about the same time in 1968.  Marriage is worth holding on to, worth working through the difficulties, worth the investment.  The seventh commandment provides the foundation for trust and a love that lasts. It is the foundation of the family where children are born and nurtured.

 Somewhere along the way sex became recreational.  I guess this happened around the time birth control was introduced.  It revolutionized sex in the 1960s: free sex with whomever without the consequences of conception. 

 We are witnessing the consequences of the cavalier attitudes spawned over the last half-century. Women are speaking up.  Sexual misconduct and harassment is widespread. Matt Lauer, Bill Cosby and other household names that once commanded respect are gone leaving behind a trail of disgrace and embarrassment. Fallout from the Epstein files continue to dominate the news.

 But things “they are a changing.”  Gen Z, in particular, those born between 1997 and 2012 are having far less sex than their predecessors.  According to recent research by the Barna group, not only is Gen Z less likely to have sex or to drink alcohol, they are one of the most spiritually open and curious generations and they are attending church more often than older generations.

 As with other commandments, Jesus raised the bar.  “You have heard that it has been said, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ but I say to you, he who looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.” (Matthew 5:27). That first look of lust takes root and bears its poisonous fruit.

 I like what Jeff Christopherson wrote in his book, Kingdom First, “The husband who faithfully and sacrificially loves his wife over a lifetime not only receives the personal blessing of a joyous marriage, but further, the Kingdom ripples of that union emanate through generations.  … Children, grandchildren, colleagues, friends, and neighbors are all secondary recipients of the grace experienced in a godly marriage.”