If marriage is so difficult, why should I even consider it?

We have souls also, and the soul seeks companionship; it needs relationships in which its affections can be exercised and developed. God's desire is that His creatures should be unselfishly happy, and in His wisdom and compassion He has said, “It is not good that man should be alone.” So He has ordained marriage and the family life. It is true that the Word says, “They that marry shall have trouble in the flesh,” yet, even so, every sensible person realises that the greatest natural happiness that any can know is found in marriage and the family life. And for Christians who dwell together as heirs of the grace of life there is the added joy of the home being the Kingdom of God, in which He is owned in dependence and prayer so that marriage yields a fuller communion with God than meats.

We have souls also, and the soul seeks companionship; it needs relationships in which its affections can be exercised and developed. God's desire is that His creatures should be unselfishly happy, and in His wisdom and compassion He has said, "It is not good that man should be alone." So He has ordained marriage and the family life. It is true that the Word says, "They that marry shall have trouble in the flesh," yet, even so, every sensible person realises that the greatest natural happiness that any can know is found in marriage and the family life. And for Christians who dwell together as heirs of the grace of life there is the added joy of the home being the Kingdom of God, in which He is owned in dependence and prayer so that marriage yields a fuller communion with God than meats.

IT is a happy and a right thing for each of a young couple, if Christians, to know a little of human nature, of self and of the other too, before they agree to be united together. And an additional experience ere they come together as man and wife (additional to the knowledge they had before the one proposed and the other accepted), too, is a good thing. I suppose I know what — is, and she knows what I am, after nearly thirty years being man and wife, and growing in the knowledge of the Lord and His grace, as well as of the world, the flesh, and Satan, better than we did in 1835. It is in the knowledge of one another's infirmities and shortcomings that we find here below (not leaven, which has to be put away, but bitter herbs, which have to be eaten) the occasions of pouring forth our faith and grace one toward another, and as to one another.

Marriage is a reality, and generally a very stern one to both, specially to the wife, on whom all the wear and tear of house and family fall; but you must learn how to let His grace be sufficient for you, "His strength made perfect in weakness." Death and resurrection lie in that path as much as in any other for the Christian.

Yet the apostle guards the abuse of his commending a single life to the Christian ordinarily. The married should not seek its dissolution, any more than the single seek to be so bound; and again he would keep the conscience free for such as might marry. Neither man nor woman sins in being married, whatever may be its inexpediency to the christian judgment. For trouble in the flesh is inevitable for such, and the apostle desired that they should be spared this.

And there was another matter also to be considered; the great and important thing in his eyes was that people should live without care, — without that weight of anxiety which would disturb them in their walk with God. As a fact, he is not speaking of what should be or what need be, but what is so often found. The unmarried would be naturally careful for the things of the Lord, to please Him — he has no one else to please. If a man is married, he has, on the other hand, plainly, another to please, and thus he is tempted at least to care for the things of the world in order to please his wife. So with a woman, in the same way. The one who is free from everything of this sort can be careful for the things of the Lord alone. She that is married is apt to be careful for the things of the world, just with the desire, and a not unreasonable desire, to please her husband. He is not saying this, as he declares again, constantly guarding it, for anything but for their profit. He does not want to lay down rules, the observation of which might only be a snare to them, but he wants them to seek, whatever their course may be, to serve the Lord without distraction. There was no sin, as he insists again, there was no kind of sin in marriage; but if a man had no need of it, if he had authority over himself and had judged in his heart to remain so, he did well. So, on the other hand, he says, the one who marries does well, although if he does not, he may do better. Once in the bond of marriage the Lord's will was already declared, wife or husband were bound unto death. if the husband were fallen asleep, the wife was still free to be married to whom she would; (thus the apostle declares positively as to the lawfulness of second marriages;) but he puts in the condition that it was to be only in the Lord, which does not mean simply that she was to be only married to a Christian, though that of course, but as seeking the Lord's guidance about it and therefore in obedience to Him, as the whole Christian life should be. The happier course, according to his judgment, was for her to remain unmarried. He thinks that he could surely speak as one having the Spirit of God, but there he leaves it.

The Apostle speaks for spiritual power and for order, "Every man has his own gift"; but it is a gift. He wills that men marry as a rule, but tells them that the married man cares for the things of the world, that they will have trouble in the flesh, but he spares them.

Clearly then, for the believer the normal thing is that marriage should take place, and all its duties and responsibilities be observed. It is contemplated in verse 5 that husband and wife may separate for a season, in order more fully to be at the Lord's disposal, but that is to be done mutually, and with prayer, lest the adversary should gain any advantage by it.

Verse 28. "But if thou marry, thou hast not sinned," etc. While maintaining the honour of marriage, he clearly intimates the preference of his spiritual judgment for a single life. The reason has been already stated. Christ did not die and rise again to settle His disciples upon earth, but to make them meet for their expected transference to heaven.8 Till then they would best serve Him who were least impeded by the cares and troubles of this life. But to wed is to invite these cares. Such, therefore, shall have trouble in the flesh. A new "necessity" will supersede the old. Thus he sets before us counsel which, if followed in the enabling strength of God, will be for profit and for praise. But it is a counsel which bears with so unwelcome a restraint upon the heart and frame of nature, that he could not but have felt that the permission of God's primal ordinance would, even by those who confessed that they were dead, and tasted their true liberty and joy in the knowledge of their union with a risen Saviour, be generally followed rather than the apostolic warning. And as an imitator of Him who marked, without upbraiding it, the weakness of the flesh, his sympathies are with the weak. To be truthful, he shows them the effect of marriage; but in refusing to dilate on such a theme, he spares himself as well as them.

His own desire was that all men (believers of course) were as himself, unmarried. Certainly this was impossible of fulfilment, for everyone had his proper gift from God. If God had not himself fitted one for this, it would be a mistake for him to refuse to marry a wife God had brought to him. Paul's viewpoint certainly was a blessed one, but it is not the normal, usual path, and however we might admire it, this is not itself the power to follow it. We can fully agree that it is good to remain unmarried; yet even Paul himself advises that if the natural instinct and desire for marriage were strong within one, it is better to marry. "Forbidding to marry," he assures us elsewhere, is diabolical teaching (I Tim.4:1‑3).

But verses 9 and 10 are not simply Paul's advice, but the Lord's commandment. The wife is told positively not to depart from her husband. Of course, if he were unfaithful to her, this would be a different matter. If circumstances were such however, that a wife did leave her husband, she is told to remain unmarried, or to be reconciled to her husband. If of course in the meantime her husband had remarried, this would change things completely. She could then never be rightly re‑united to him, even if his second wife died (Deut.24:3,4).

1 Corinthians 7:32-34 teaches that the unmarried are the most free from care, but verse 7 as distinctly teaches that “every man has his own proper gift of God.” Each one must know for himself what his proper gift is. It is one thing to say, “Follow Paul's example and quite another thing to have the “proper gift” to do it. It is a fatal mistake for anyone to expect to walk in a path for which God has not given him a call or given him the spiritual power. Remember in these days of ritualism and revived monasticism, that marriage is a holy and honorable institution, established by God in the Garden of Eden and sanctioned by His presence in Cana of Galilee. It is pronounced to be honorable in all by His Spirit in Hebrews 13:4. Thus much as to the general principle, but the moment you come to individual cases, each one must be guided of God. To Him we affectionately commend you.