The Wedding Knot - For What?نموونە

WHY GOD CREATED MARRIAGE – FOR MAKING OF CHILDREN

God’s first command to man is to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28). After the floods came and devastated the earth’s population, God repeated this command to Noah (Gen 9:1). That’s the only command of God we, the human race, have obeyed very faithfully, perhaps!

Jokes apart, to be able to have children was clearly a blessing that God only can endow couples with – it is not just a result of sexual activity between a man and his wife. This is the teaching of the Bible in passages such as Psalm 128:3 which goes this way: “Your wife will be like a fruitful vine, flourishing within your home. And look at all those children! They sit around your table as vigorous and healthy as young olive trees!”

Some Bible characters understood this particular purpose that God had for their marriages very well. I am referring to Jacob – a man who was the father to 12 sons! He had an entire cricket team at his home and there was room even for the twelfth man! Gideon had 70 sons. He could have conducted a triangular cricket series right in his home’s backyard and picked up the first umpire, second umpire and third umpire from among his children!

Of course, it is not enough that one bears physical children. He or she should raise the children up in the fear of the Lord. “Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them!” – this is what the Bible teaches (Prov. 13:24).

Discipline must be diligently meted out to our children every time we see them go the wrong way. We should NOT do it only once in a while or only when we feel like it or only we no longer can tolerate their mischiefs. Priest Eli was a poor dad. He looked the other way when his son slept with the women in the temple. God wasn’t happy with him. We must not ape him.

Parents of our time are keen to send their kids for tuition when it comes to coping with the subjects they are weak in. Why not send them also for tuition (read, Bible studies, youth camps, etc.) when it’s obvious they are weak in their grasp and understanding of the Bible? Why are we so callously okay with giving stepmotherly treatment to the things of God in our lives?

“All the firstborn are mine!” This is what the Lord says repeatedly (Numbers 3:13; 8:17; Ex 13:2; 34:19).

In the New Testament times, this Old Testament teaching could be taken to mean that your child with the best of talents (not necessarily your firstborn) should be encouraged for doing the Lord’s work full-time. This is the duty of parents. We must motivate them for the same. We must pray that they choose to do God’s work in the one life they have. Of course, the final decision will be theirs.

Not all parents have the God-given privilege of bearing natural children for reasons best known to God, but all of them have the greater joy and higher privilege of bearing spiritual children like Paul did. Timothy, Titus and Onesimus were sons in the Christian faith for Paul (I Tim. 1:2; Titus 1:4; Phm 10).