The Fourth Cup // What's the Point of Marriage?

In this modern era, the way people's think and their lifestyle are changing. It includes how they think about marriage. Parents ask their children to get married because it's a shame if they don't. Children choose to marry whomever left for the sake of being married and save them from embarrassment. Single people rush in to marriage life too early without knowing the point of marriage.

We think marriage is a must-do thing in our life because if we don't get married, we are incomplete. Or there are some other people who choose not to get married because they think marriage makes their life even more complicated – you know the fight with your spouse, taking care of the children, etc. They choose not to get married because they're missing the point of marriage.

I recently read Loveology by John Mark Comer and he points out 4 points of marriage:

1. Friendship
In his book, he mentioned there is a Hebrew literature that refers spouse as allup which means 'companion' or 'best friends'. Our spouse is our closest friend – that's one of the reason God created marriage. In Genesis, after God created Adam, He said that it is not good for the man to be alone. We all need someone to accompany us. He wants us to walk through life with someone we enjoy, with our spouse as the primary relationship in our life. Our allup. The one who understands us more than anyone, even more than our own parents.


2. Gardening
No, this doesn't mean we have to do gardening in our marriage life. Gardening means God's calling. When God created Adam, He asked him to take care of the garden. Meaning he works to take care of the garden. It's his job, his calling. Everyone needs a gardening project. All healthy marriages are built around a calling.

In Comer's book, he gave advices for man and woman. For woman, as a helper, we need to find a man who knows his calling, a man with a vision. For man, find a woman who is willing to be our helper in fulfilling our calling, a woman who will always support us to our vision. It is both important because marriage needs two people working together.


3. Sexuality
God created human body, every single part of it. And not one part of our body is an accident. Just like God created 2 ears and 1 mouth so that we can listen more than we talk. God created sexuality as the glue to hold marriage together.


4. Family
Don't get married because we feel incomplete and think that our spouse will complete us. Marriage consists of two broken people wrapped up in a relationship for life, with a touch of friendship, doing gardening project together, and get glue together in sexuality. Family is about being process and how we stay faithful in the process.

Don't get married because we think s/he is the one. It's not about finding the one but being the one. Do get married because we want to be part of his/her process of transformation, to be more like Jesus. Do get married because we see God's calling and we want to be part of it. Nothing's greater than a family serving God together and making Him the center of our marriage.


I do enjoy reading relationship books (and sipping a cup of coffee). Relationship has two different people in it, each of us is unique so there is no two same people in this world. Therefore, relationship needs work, it doesn't just happen overnight. Most importantly, the relationship towards marriage has to consist of two people who love Jesus with all of their heart.