"Thou shalt not commit adultery. Ex 20:14 A second and more serious look"

 

"Thou shalt not commit adultery. Ex 20:14

A second and more serious look"

This is not popular but faithfulness in marriage is an essential key to enjoying your marriage. A marriage is supposed to be enjoyed between a man and a woman united in ONE FLESH. It is not supposed to be enjoyed by a man and a woman, plus another extra somewhere. The addition of another person in the relationship (except the Lord who is supposed to be the third strand in the rope of marriage, Ecc 4:12, that makes it unbreakable) IS NOT one flesh. It is one flesh plus extra. It is like a third wheel on a bicycle. You cannot have a third wheel on a bicycle, adding a third wheel makes it a tricycle- it ceases to be a bicycle. Similarly marriage ceases to be a one flesh union if there is an extra "husband" or "wife" (read concubine, affair, kerida). 

Some react to this as a prohibition for enjoyment of sex. Didn't God create sex? Wasn't sex meant to be enjoyed between willing and "loving" partners? Then why did God put a limit to enjoying sex as the highest expression of human love and intimacy? Isn't He being mean, killjoy? Didn't He want His creatures to have happiness and enjoyment in their brief lives on earth (the Preacher made a similar argument)?

Now imagine playing a basketball where the rules are violated, or better where there are no rules. As you dribble the ball and drive to the basket for a lay up imagine the defense delivering a well-placed round house kick to your head. I am sure you won't be enjoying your basketball when every time you drive for a lay up, someone is tackling you, punching you or kicking you. When you complain to the referees, they simply turn away. Would you enjoy your basketball? Probably not. The moment kicking, tackling and punching are allowed in the game, your basketball ceases to be a basketball and no matter how pumped you are for the additional actions, you are no longer enjoying basketball. Similarly, a marriage where God-given restrictions are ignored, you will cease to enjoy marriage. How many people purposely ignore these restrictions only to regret it later? How many families are destroyed by a second woman? A second family? I am intimately aware.

Someone will say, I will enjoy a game like that. Sure you can enjoy it. But do not call it a basketball. It isn't. In the same way do not call a sex relationship that violates the one man-one woman flesh marriage. You might enjoy what you have but it is not marriage. You get sex, but you don't have marriage.

A celebrity once shared in FB her belief in trial relationship. The one where you cohabit together, then if you are not compatible, you leave as if nothing happen. It is like enjoying a steak, after being satiated, you wipe your mouth, then leave and look for a new meal to whet your appetite. My comment is she is a slut. Incidentally her new partner is a slut too. They deserve one another. Beautiful people, dirty relationship. I know I used terrible words but hey if you know me, I am actually being mild. I am far more colorful if I put my mind to it. 

Now, may I just make a warning. A marriage ceremony IS NOT marriage. It is just a ceremony. In the Bible the man basically leave his family, takes his wife, build a new home, the community recognizes it. I don't think they file papers at the town registrar, have a ceremony, and a kiss, and a honeymoon. So what I am saying is that even if the manner differ, marriage is when one man and one woman became one flesh in a manner recognized by their community. In our culture, it involved filing papers and a ceremony. In others it is probably as simple as parents talking, hands shaked  the two are left "to know each other." I am not as much concern as the ceremony as the fact that once the one flesh is created, there is no other person that can join it, other than the Lord in a three stranded cord of marriage. 

For more information, I recommend Moses Onwubiko's Focus on Christian Marriage, George Meisinger's Marriage, Divorce and Remarriage, Jody Dillow's Intimacy Ignited, La Haye's The Act of Marriage and if you can find a copy, Thieme's Adam's Rib.

As Christian men let us pioneer the Faithful Husband Movement. Maybe if we do, this world will be a little bit better. We'll create a more stable society if its basic unit is also stable. But a house divided against itself, die to quarreling women, will not stand. Neither will the society stand if is made up of unfaithful men. For how could you trust a man who cannot even honor a basic promise of love till death do us part?

(Kung gusto ninyo ng karagdagang impormasyon, bisitahin ninyo kami. May pagtitipon kami sa Dahat, kada Linggo, alas 8:30-10:30 am. Sa Amoguis, 1:00-3:00 pm. Sana manampalataya kayo at kita-kita tayo.)