The Meaning of Marriage: A Couple's Devotional

by Timothy Keller

  Reflection: Is your primary inspiration and motivation for fulfilling your marital vows: (a) the approval of your family and society, (b) your desire for your spouse’s love and affirmation, or (c) responding to God’s love for you? All these motives are good—but how can you increase the last one?

  Thought for prayer: Meditate on the remarkable intimacy of God’s offer that, in Christ, he can be not just God, but “your God.”

  May 29

  [It is now seen as] common sense—namely, that love must be the response to spontaneous desire, never a response to a legal oath or promise. But the Biblical perspective is radically different. Love needs a framework of binding obligation to make it fully what it should be. A covenant relationship is not just intimate despite being legal. It is a relationship that is more intimate because it is legal. (Hardcover, pp. 84–85; paperback, p. 88)

  LENGTHENING LOVE. In the Bible, covenants are literally everywhere. It is assumed that all love relationships need covenantal strengthening. Why? Covenants intensify both the length and the depth of love. Think about how covenants extend the length of love relationships. Our feelings will wax and wane for all sorts of physical and emotional reasons even if the loved one behaves perfectly. But of course they never do. Anyone we love is a sinner whose heart is prone to self-centeredness. Without the promises we would give up on the relationship. We would not get through the inevitable rough patches and conflicts. Without covenants our lives would be filled with broken relationships.

  Reflection: Think of some times in which your marriage vow strengthened your resolve to work through problems you were having.

  Thought for prayer: Meditate on Hebrews 13:5–6, on the infinite length of God’s love for you in Christ. Then thank him for it.

  May 30

  Someone who says, “I love you, but we don’t need to be married” may be saying, “I don’t love you enough to curtail my freedom for you.” The willingness to enter a binding covenant, far from stifling love, is a way of enhancing, even supercharging it. A wedding promise is proof that your love is actually at marriage level as well as a radical act of self-giving all by itself. (Hardcover, p. 85; paperback, p. 89)

  DEEPENING LOVE. Covenants also intensify love by deepening it. They keep us in the marriage so we can make progress against several of the things that “clog” our ability to love each other well in this world.68 The first is our inability to express our love properly. On the one hand, we often fail to give our spouse love in the form he or she most needs it. When our partner is upset, we may step in with a plan and a solution, making the mistake of “answering a feeling with a fact.” On the other hand, we fail to express our love in ways that truly convey its magnitude. In heaven this problem will end and is part of the unimaginable joy of that place. Yet over the years we can grow in this ability in our marriages, if we stay together.

  Reflection: Think of two or three times that this particular “clog” in your ability to love asserted itself in your relationship. How can you improve?

  Thought for prayer: Thank God that he always loves us in exactly the way we need at the moment.

  May 31

  When dating or living together, you have to prove your value daily by impressing and enticing. . . . We are still basically in a consumer relationship and that means promotion and marketing. The legal bond of marriage, however, creates a space of security where we can open up and reveal our true selves. We can be vulnerable, no longer having to keep up facades. . . . We can lay the last layer of our defenses down and be completely naked, both physically and in every other way. (Hardcover, p. 85; paperback, p. 89)

  MELTING AWAY FACADES. A second thing that “clogs” our love is that we tend to hide behind facades in order to guarantee that we will be loved. We fear we would not be loved if the truth were to be revealed. The close quarters of marriage show us our flaws as nothing else can. At the same time the security of the marriage vows enables us to be open about our true selves without the same fear of rejection we would have in other situations. If your spouse responds with love, it can be as healing an experience as is possible between two human beings. This dishonesty about ourselves is another way that the marriage covenant can help us deepen love.

  Reflection: Think of two or three times that this particular “clog” in your ability to love asserted itself in your relationship. How can you improve?

  Thought for prayer: Thank God for seeing us to the bottom, with all our sins, but loving us anyway.

  June 1

  Wisdom will save you from the adulterous woman . . . who has left the partner of her youth and ignored the covenant she made before God. (Proverbs 2:16–17)69

  FRIENDSHIP ELEMENTS. The word for “partner” used in this verse means the closest of friends (cf. Proverbs 16:28). We speak often in this volume about the importance of friendship in a marriage. The book of Proverbs, however, details the elements that create a friendship. First, there is intentionality: we must “stick close” and deliberately spend face-to-face time together (Proverbs 18:24). Second, there is constancy: friends are there for you when the chips are down (Proverbs 17:17). Third, transparency: a willingness to be vulnerable and open to one another (Proverbs 27:5–6). Finally, there is sensitivity. A friend does not “sing songs to a heavy heart” (Proverbs 25:20). There is more to be said about how friendships develop, but these are the fundamentals.

  Reflection: Look up the references in Proverbs to further understand each of the four elements. Which of these elements do you most need to work on in your marriage? In your other friendships?

  Prayer: Lord, you called us friends (John 15:13–15) because you opened your heart and life to us and for us. Now help me to be a friend—to my spouse and to others—as you have been to me. Amen.

  June 2

  My son, keep your father’s command and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. (Proverbs 6:20)

  LIFELONG LEARNERS. Old Testament scholar Bruce Waltke points out that in ancient times most women were not typically educated. Yet here we have a wife teaching her children, and in the book of Proverbs this would mean instruction in wisdom. Those trained in wisdom memorized a large number of sayings and poems. In other words, the wife was a colleague with her husband in intellectual pursuits. This biblical idea was revolutionary in its time. Today, however, even though men and women have equal access to education, that often doesn’t carry over to spouses reading and learning together, sharpening each other’s thinking on a variety of topics. In particular this is a call for spouses to study the ultimate source of wisdom together—the Bible itself.

  Reflection: Do you have a systematic way to read the Bible together? Try this—read the same chapter of the Bible every day and note one thing that helped or impressed you most. That evening share it at bedtime and pray together.

  Prayer: Lord, I pray that you would make us, as a married couple, interdependent students of your Word. Lord “teach us your way, that we may walk in your truth,” and so “unite our hearts to fear your name” (Psalm 86:11).70 Amen.

  June 3

  A loving doe, a graceful deer—may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be intoxicated with her love. . . . Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. (Proverbs 5:19, 31:30)

  TRUE LOVELINESS. A spouse is to not merely be a friend but also a lover and romantic partner. On the one hand you should be intoxicated and sexually attracted by features of your partner’s body such as her breasts. But Proverbs 31:30 reminds us that physical beauty is fleeting and inexorably passes away with wear and tear and age. There is a deeper attraction, however, that comes from perceiving the beauty of character and also from years of sacrificing for each other and walking together through life’s varied circumstances. The more we fix our gaze on the loveliness of our spouse’s spirit, the more our physical attraction will grow, even as our physical attractiveness diminishes
over the years.

  Reflection: Have you embraced this understanding of “comprehensive attraction” or are you exclusively fixated on your partner’s figure, weight, and physique for judging his or her desirability?

  Prayer: Lord, help us both, not only in looking at the other but at ourselves, not to fix on outward beauty but on “the inner disposition of the heart,” which is an “unfading beauty” (1 Peter 3:3–4). Amen.

  June 4

  She opens her arms to the poor and extends her hands to the needy. . . . She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue. (Proverbs 31:20, 26)

  CHURCH IN MINIATURE. Husband and wife are to be ministry partners. The first verse implies that the family has a ministry to the poor. Extending her hands implies not just a general social concern but an invitation to the poor into one’s home or delivering of concrete help. The second verse uses a Hebrew verb for “speaks” that means to speak publicly and expound on a subject at length.71 The depiction is striking. Both husband and wife have turned their home into a ministry center, a church in miniature, where people are instructed in God’s Word and wisdom, and where neighbors receive practical help for their needs, especially if they are poor or powerless.

  Reflection: Are you and your spouse not only friends, lovers, and colleagues (see the rest of this week), but ministry partners?

  Prayer: Lord, enable us to turn our home into a little church, where people find you, are built up in you, and get help for their needs. Give us a vision for this and the wisdom to know how to carry it out. Amen.

  June 5

  Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. (Proverbs 31:11)

  CONFIDANTS. The Bible constantly condemns putting one’s trust in anyone or anything other than the Lord (Psalm 118:8–9), so this verse is remarkable. Nowhere else do we see the Bible speak of, literally, entrusting one’s heart to anyone beside God.72 But in marriage spouses are to be confidants, to be intimate and vulnerable to one another, and to enjoy the highest level of spiritual trust. Such a relationship is hard won. No two flawed, sinful people can be married without letting each other down, so mistrust can easily grow. Only by keeping intimacy fresh through genuine mutual repentance and forgiveness can even the failures lead to deeper trust in one another. Only as we give our spouses the same grace that Jesus gave us will we be able to trust each other (Ephesians 4:32).

  Reflection: Recall a time in which each of you let the other down. Did you use grace to repair and deepen trust?

  Prayer: Lord, help us to forgive those times in which we have disappointed each other so that we don’t lose confidence in one another. Give us grace so we can show one another grace, and let our trust in each other grow and grow. Amen.

  June 6

  She selects wool and flax and works with eager hands. She is like the merchant ships, bringing her food from afar. . . . She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard. (Proverbs 31: 13–14, 16)

  CO-EXECUTIVES. Again we notice how the Bible’s assessment of a woman’s calling contrasted remarkably with those of surrounding societies, most of which saw wives as mere possessions of their husband. The Bible calls the husband to be head of the home (Ephesians 5:22–26). Yet headship cannot mean that husbands are to make all management decisions, nor can it be defined as dictating that only the husband must have an income. Here wives are seen as breadwinners, and also as managing assets in the economy of the family. What each partner contributes to the economic prosperity of the household will depend on their gifts and skill sets, respectively. So spouses are friends, colleagues, lovers, ministry partners, confidants, and economic partners.

  Reflection: Look at the list in the last sentence above. Which of these roles needs to be strengthened in your marriage?

  Prayer: Father, you, the Son, and the Spirit have from all eternity been glorifying and lifting up one another, yet inhabiting different roles. Make us one in our marriage even as you are one (John 17:22–23). Amen.

  June 7

  If a man has recently married, he must not be sent to war or have any other duty laid on him. For one year he is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married. (Deuteronomy 24:5)

  DELIGHT. We are looking this week at all those things that spouses are to be to one another according to the Bible. This text made it law in Israel that when a man married he was exempt from military service or from any other kind of public service for one year. The most practical reason for this, of course, was that the man would not die before having a chance to have children and ensure the continuity of the family line.73 But something much more is in view, because the last line says that he is to stay home for a year in order to “be a joy” to his wife. Are you, in the end, a source of joy to your spouse, or a drain on it? Do you bring each other joy?

  Reflection: Among all the duties of spouses to each other, do you delight in each other?

  Prayer: Lord, as you do not merely take care of us in general but actually take “great delight” in us and “rejoice over us with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17), so stir us up to do the same with each other.

  June 8

  Vows . . . give love a chance and create stability so the feelings of love, always very fitful and fragile in the early months and years, can grow strong and deep over time. They enable your passion to grow in breadth and depth, because they give us the security necessary to open our hearts and speak vulnerably and truthfully without being afraid that our partner will simply walk away. (Hardcover, p. 89; paperback, p. 94)

  LOVE REFINEMENT. Another thing that impedes our love is how much we love others not for the sake of their happiness, but for our own. Jonathan Edwards says, “Most of the love which there is in this world . . . proceeds . . . from selfish motives.” We love people because we think they can meet our needs, and if they do not we turn on them in anger. But marriage forces us to see how self-involved we are, and with God’s help we can slowly learn to put our happiness into theirs—so that their joy becomes ours rather than the other way around. Then “the greater the [happiness] of the beloved is, the more the lover is pleased and delighted.”74 In heaven this kind of love is perfectly realized, but even tasted partially here on earth it is glorious.

  Reflection: Think of two or three times that this particular “clog” in your ability to love asserted itself in your relationship. How can you improve?

  Thought for prayer: Thank God for loving us selflessly in Jesus Christ, who gave up his glory for our joy and was satisfied to do so (Isaiah 53:11).

  June 9

  This blending of law and love fits our deepest instincts. . . . Lovers find themselves almost driven to make vow-like claims. “I will always love you,” we say and we know that the other person, if he or she is in love with us, wants to hear those words. Real love, the Bible says, instinctively desires permanence. . . . So the “law” of vows and promises fits our deepest passions at the present. But it is also something the love of our heart needs. (Hardcover, pp. 85–86; paperback, pp. 89–90)

  DESIRE FOR PERMANENCE. Look at the language of love songs. “I will always be with you; makes no difference where your road takes you to.” “I’ll be loving you eternally.” “Longer than there’ve been stars up in the heaven, I’ve been in love with you.” “I’ll love you from now, till the end of time.”75 These lyrics are sentimental, but they exist because this is how romantic and sexual love makes you feel. Real love does not want independence, it wants permanence, and so, paradoxically, making vows “till death do us part” actually expresses our deepest passion and at the same time gives us the support we need to follow through on love’s desire. And only in the Christian hope of eternity are the deepest desires of ordinary love fulfilled.

  Reflection: How do these love songs make an argument for why the Bible’s prohibition of sex outside of marriage is right?

  Thought f
or prayer: Thank God that, in Christ, his love for you and yours for him will literally last forever.

  June 10

  Wedding vows are not [primarily] a declaration of present love but a mutually binding promise of future love. A wedding should not be primarily a celebration of how loving you feel now—that can safely be assumed. Rather, in a wedding you stand up before God, your family, and all the main institutions of society, and you promise to be loving, faithful, and true to the other person in the future, regardless of undulating internal feelings or external circumstances. (Hardcover, p. 87; paperback, p. 91)

  KEEPING LOVE KINDLED: 1. When we promise future love at our wedding, what does that mean? Of course it means behavior. We are to be sexually faithful, we are to serve and protect, and we are to be kind, gracious, and patient while we are doing so. But is the promise to love confined to actions? How can we promise feelings? Of course we cannot promise to always have particular levels of joy and attraction to another person. Emotions, in some sense, are not ours to command. But there are four things that we can promise to do that are directly tied to our feelings for our spouse. The first one is this. We can promise to engage sexually (1 Corinthians 7:2–5). Sex can be done as a kind of “covenant renewal ceremony” in which both spouses remember the other person’s strengths and give themselves to one another afresh. This can continually rekindle romantic love.