How Should Christians Pursue Marriage Faithfully?
Recovering God’s first covenant gift for the building of His kingdom.
Our Culture vs. God’s Word
Our age treats marriage like a preference. It is marketed as a lifestyle choice, like a career path or a diet plan. Some pursue it. Others delay it. Many discard it altogether. But Scripture does not present marriage as optional. It presents marriage as creation ordinance, covenantal duty, and a gift from God. To neglect or despise it is to despise God’s design.
The Beginning: Genesis 2
God Himself declared, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him” (Genesis 2:18, LSB). Adam did not invent marriage. God did. He created Eve, brought her to Adam, giving the woman to the man as his covenant helper. Genesis 2 ends with this pattern: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother, and cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh” (v. 24). This is covenantal language. The man is called to leave the household that raised him and to establish a new covenant household with his wife. Marriage is public, permanent, and fruitful. It is the first institution God gave, the foundation for households, nations, and the church itself.
Marriage Held in Honor
The writer of Hebrews declares, “Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers” (Hebrews 13:4, LSB). Marriage is not just for some. It is to be honored by all. To treat it lightly, delay it without cause, or tolerate its corruption is sin. The Westminster Confession of Faith is blunt: “Marriage is to be between one man and one woman… it was ordained for the mutual help of husband and wife, for the increase of mankind with a legitimate issue, and of the church with a holy seed, and for preventing of uncleanness” (WCF 24.1–2).
Singleness: Rare and Exceptional
Paul speaks of singleness in 1 Corinthians 7, but he speaks of it as a gift given only to some. “But I wish that all men were even as I myself am. However, each has his own gift from God” (1 Corinthians 7:7, LSB). It is not the ordinary call. It is the exception. Paul counsels widows to remarry (1 Cor. 7:9) and exhorts younger women, “I want younger widows to get married, bear children, keep house, and give the enemy no opportunity for reproach” (1 Timothy 5:14, LSB). Scripture assumes marriage as the norm, not the outlier. To pursue singleness as a standard or delay it until later in life is to invert God’s order and subvert His plan.
The Household Mandate
Marriage creates households. And households are the building blocks of Christ’s church and kingdom. Husbands are called to love their wives as Christ loved the church (Ephesians 5:25). Wives are called to submit to their husbands as the church submits to Christ (Ephesians 5:22–24). Children are commanded to honor father and mother (Ephesians 6:1). Households are the covenantal pattern we are to live by.
The Heidelberg Catechism makes this plain. Q/A 108 asks: “What does the seventh commandment teach us?” The answer: “That all unchastity is accursed of God; and that we should therefore loathe it with our whole heart, and live chastely and modestly, whether in holy wedlock or single life.” Q/A 109 then presses further, teaching that God forbids not only outward impurity but even unchaste thoughts, words, and looks. Purity is covenantal obedience worked out in bodies, marriages, and households.
Covenant Examples
Scripture is filled with examples of covenant households being built through marriage. Abraham did not leave Isaac to wander the land looking for a bride. He sent his servant under oath to secure Rebekah, showing the weight and deliberateness of covenant marriage (Genesis 24). Boaz did not take Ruth in secret. He redeemed her publicly at the city gate with witnesses, tying her to the line of David and ultimately to Christ (Ruth 4).
We also see Jacob laboring fourteen years for Rachel, his household bound to covenant promises (Genesis 29). Moses received Zipporah from Jethro, her father giving her in marriage (Exodus 2:21). Even Samson’s tragic story assumes that marriage is a family-governed covenant, arranged and recognized within the community (Judges 14:2).
In every case, marriage was never private, experimental, or casual. It was covenant. Families were involved. The community bore witness. Fruitfulness was expected. Faithfulness was the goal. To separate marriage from family oversight and covenantal accountability is a modern distortion, not the biblical pattern.
The Church’s Failure
Our churches have too often treated God’s commands as preferences. We delay marriage as if a decade of extended adolescence were normal. It has become normal to send our daughters away to “experience life” at school before marriage or pursue careers and work outside of the home, as if household fruitfulness were a distraction from their real calling or even viable alternatives.
We fail to train sons to work, to lead, and to take wives. Instead, we allow them to waste their strength in gaming and endless scrolling on social media, rather than forming and strengthening young men to shoulder responsibility early. We treat them like children and they remain a child. We fail to train daughters to love fruitfulness, discern godly men, and build households. We leave marriage to chance, like a hobby, and then act surprised when our churches are filled with broken families. Elders fail to speak clearly, even promoting dating cultures that foster adultery rather than covenantal faithfulness. Parents fail to act deliberately. The church then suffers because marriage is despised in practice even if honored in words.
But become doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. - James 1:22
Recovering Faithful Practice
What then should we do? Parents must recover their role in preparing sons and daughters. Sons should be trained to work diligently, to lead with wisdom, to seek wives and establish covenant households. Daughters should be raised to prize faithfulness, to love their husbands, to love children, and to discern godly men. Elders must counsel, affirm, and warn in the process. Marriage must be pursued in the light, with prayer, with the Word, and with purity.
Churches must move beyond warnings against fornication and actively cultivate marriages. Parents must network with like-minded families, creating opportunities for their children to know and be known. Fathers must guide sons toward responsibility. Mothers must help daughters prize fruitfulness above the shallow ambitions of careerism. Elders must not wait passively but actively shepherd young men and women into covenant faithfulness.
The church must learn again that preparing for marriage is not “old-fashioned” but obedience to God. When households are strong, churches are strong. When churches are strong, society is strong. When marriages produce holy offspring, the kingdom advances. This is covenantal faithfulness for the glory of Christ.
Theological Conclusion
Marriage is theological. It is a picture of Christ and His church. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:31–32, LSB). To despise marriage is to despise God’s image. To delay it or treat it as optional is to treat lightly what God calls holy.
Pastoral Exhortation
Marriage is not optional. It is a creation ordinance, a covenantal duty, and a gift from God. It builds households, guards purity, and advances Christ’s kingdom. The church must recover the honor of marriage. Parents must prepare their children. Elders must guide their flocks. Sons and daughters must seek to walk faithfully into covenant households.
The enemy knows that to despise marriage is to despise Christ’s order. That is why the world delays, mocks, and destroys it. But the church must not follow. We are called to honor what God calls holy.
Marriage is not a preference. It is obedience. It is joy. It is covenantal faithfulness. It is a weapon in the hand of Christ to build His kingdom.