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ONLINE CHURCH BULLETIN
Marriage: Beautiful Music or Sour Note? Marriage can be a dream come true, or it can end up as a nightmare. What begins as a sweet love song can end up on a sour note. One man fell in love with an opera singer. He hardly knew her, since his only view of her was through binoculars — from the third balcony. But he was convinced he could live happily ever after married to a voice like that. He didn't care she was considerably older than him, or that she walked with a pronounced limp. Her mezzo-soprano voice would take them through whatever might come. After a whirlwind romance they hurriedly married. Their first night together as husband and wife, his chin dropped to his chest as she plucked out a glass eye and plopped it down on the dresser. Next she pulled off her wig, stripped off her mascara, ripped off her false eyelashes, yanked out her dentures, unstrapped her artificial leg, and smiled a toothless grin at him as she slipped off her glasses revealing hearing aids in each ear. Stunned and shaken, he yelled, "Please, woman, sing, Sing, SING!" Marriage can be the most intimate and life-enhancing relationship on earth. In Jesus' words, when a man and woman many "they are no longer two but one flesh" as God Himself "joins" them together (Matthew 19:5b, 6). Take a look around the pews at church on Sunday. It won't take you long to spot some married couples who have been making marriage work for 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 and in a few cases even 60 or more years. What's up with these men and women? Are they flawless? Did they many a perfect mate? Have they never experienced problems or stress in marriage? Have they never had a difference or not seen eye to eye in all those decades of married life? Are they always "compatible?" Why don't you ask some of them? Just walk up to someone who has been married to the same person for decades and ask them how they've been able to do it. You will learn that the glue that has held them together through the years has been Christ-like love and commitment. They didn't stay together because they were perfect but because they were committed. We don't have space to examine the context, but a Bible word found in l' Corinthians 7:5 reveals a key principle in building a lasting marriage. The word is "consent." The Greek word is sumphonos (pronounced "soom'-fo-nos") defined by Strong's Concordance as "sounding together" and by Vine's Expository Dictionary of Biblical words as "to speak with, hence, to express agreement with." From this Greek word the English word symphony is derived. Symphony is defined as a "harmony of sounds." An orchestra doesn't make beautiful music because everybody plays the same instrument or the same note. The music is beautiful when different instruments are blended with the rest in harmony. The same is true in marriage. Marriage can be a sweet song of harmony and love or a really sour note of discord and strife. You and your spouse should read Galatians 5:19-26. If you really want to improve your marriage, do something radical and practice what that passage says. Dan Gulley |
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