Revelation 20:4-6 “They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy are those who have part in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years.”

The people John sees died for their faith. Yet they were alive in heaven, more truly alive than they had ever been before. They were the living dead, and John lists their blessings.

First, they are participants in the “first resurrection.” This is not the resurrection of the body, which Jesus says will take place one time for all people on the last day in John chapter 6. This is the resurrection Paul is talking about when he writes the Colossians about how they have “been buried with him (Christ) in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God.” We have been raised with Christ through faith. God has raised us from being dead in our sins to being spiritually alive with Christ. This is the new birth, the resurrection to new life in faith.

This is why we can say these martyred Christians are blessed. In their earthly life, they didn’t look very blessed at all. They struggled with the struggles that are common to us all. They got sick. They weren’t particularly rich. Then they became Christians, and they didn’t fit in with their own family and friends anymore. They were like foreigners in their own hometowns. Eventually the authorities came and put an end to their short lives.

But in heaven, they don’t just live. They reign. “The second death has no power over them.” Yes, they died the first time. When the Roman authorities separated their heads from their bodies, their blood spilled freely, their hearts stopped beating, and all went dark. But that was just a temporary condition. The death that’s really scary, the one that cuts us off from God, the one in which people wake up in hell, the one that never ends–that one has no access to their souls, no way of touching their existence. They are finally, fully, completely beyond its reach because they live and reign with Christ.

In their heavenly life “they will be priests of God and of Christ.” In most Lutheran churches, we don’t call our clergy “priests” because every Christian is a priest by faith. “A royal priesthood” Peter calls us in his first letter. At the beginning of this book John tells his readers that Jesus has made us “a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father.” Men, women, young, old–every believer is a priest.

That doesn’t mean we don’t need someone teaching or preaching to us. It means that through Jesus we all have a direct line to God. There is not a class of believers closer to God than anyone else. We don’t need to know an influential Christian who can get God to do us special favors, because we are all influential Christians who know Jesus personally. The only difference between us and the beheaded martyrs is that we say our prayers and practice this privilege by faith. They see Jesus face to face.

So, “they will reign with him for a thousand years,” during the whole time from death until Judgment Day. They are kings and queens in God’s kingdom. Everything in heaven and on earth has to serve them, because it all has to serve Christ, alongside whom they rule. They may have lost their earthly lives for their faith, but they aren’t to be pitied. They live and rule. They are blessed.

Sometimes the picture looks bleak for us Christians. It looks like we are losing. But in this scene from Revelation we get to skip ahead to read the last pages of the story–not just of the Bible, but all human history. Don’t worry. Don’t be afraid, even if we die. The truth is, we still live. We reign. We win.

Revelation 20:4 “I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus and because of the word of God.”

Through the ages, the world God wants to save has wanted to kill the very people the Lord sends to their rescue. Many of the Old Testament prophets met an untimely death at the hands of the people to whom they were sent. Isaiah was sawed in two on the orders of the king. Several attempts were made to murder Jeremiah. Jewish tradition says he was eventually stoned to death. Zechariah was killed inside of God’s own temple.

Of Jesus’ apostles, John, the writer here, was the only one who died a natural death. Many missionaries since have died at the hands of the people they were trying to reach. When the established Christian churches across Europe became corrupt, many faithful men who tried to reform them and lead them back to the Scriptures were burned at the stake for their efforts.

At the time the Apostle John saw this vision in Revelation, beheading was the favorite method for getting rid of Christian leaders. Feeding them to the lions would come later. John was writing to comfort people who had seen their spiritual leaders put to death this way. The people in his vision are not necessarily, however, limited to those who died under this kind of persecution. It is not out of keeping with John’s vision to see others added to this group by various methods across the span of history.

The reason for killing prophets, preachers, and missionaries was not just to silence their voices. It was also intended to intimidate the Bible-believing Christians who followed them. It could even drive some away from the Christian faith. Christians in our country have been spared this kind of treatment for most of our nation’s history. It has been an island of safety, an odd blip on the historical timeline. This is due in part to the influence of so many persecuted Christians who fled here from the very beginning.

But persecution has not been absent altogether. It grows as American Christianity shrinks. Tolerance for Christian teaching on sex and marriage, the sanctity of life, Jesus as the only way to heaven, etc., has been eroding. People of influence in industry, entertainment, sports, politics, and even religion vilify ideas that can easily be demonstrated to be the teachings of Jesus and his apostles. They regard them not merely as ignorant or misguided. They denounce them as hurtful and evil. The point of the campaign is to shame such beliefs and those who hold them.

The Lord’s reason for showing John these persecuted martyrs of the faith was not to kindle a spirit of revenge or rally believers to violent resistance. We need to guard against those kinds of reactions. That’s not Christ’s way.

But he understood the temptation to despair under persecution, abandon the faith to escape it, and hide our faith to avoid it. These are the inclinations we need to resist. For believers, death always leads to reward, even if that death was violent and unjust. “Thrones” are in view in John’s vision. These martyred believers didn’t die in defeat. They were granted a promotion. We still have every reason to believe, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?” (Hebrews 13:6).

1 Corinthians 9:12 “If others have this right of support from you, shouldn’t we have it all the more? But we did not use this right. On the contrary, we put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ.”

Paul did not collect a salary from the people to whom he preached. Of course, he had to have some kind of support. Sometimes he received gifts from people on the outside, Christians in other cities who wanted his mission work to succeed. Many times he worked with his own hands. Jewish rabbinical students generally learned a trade in addition to their theological studies. Their teachers recognized the ministry would not work out for all of them, and they needed to have a backup plan so that they didn’t starve. Paul learned how to make tents while he attended seminary with Rabbi Gamaliel. He used this skill to support himself when he began his mission work in Corinth.

So while Paul defended his right to receive a salary, and taught that this was the normal thing for those who preach, he confessed that the thing that really drove him was doing whatever it took to win people to Christian faith. “Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law, I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some” (1 Corinthians 9:19-22).

The apostle is describing different kinds of people in these verses, the kinds of people he met in his mission work. Sometimes he preached to Jews. They still lived under the Old Testament restrictions that forbad pork or shellfish, certain kinds of cloth, and limited activities on the Sabbath. Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection made these things optional. He set us free. But Jewish people who were new to Jesus didn’t know that yet. Paul continued to observe these laws so that Jewish people would not automatically dismiss him before he had a chance to tell them about the gospel.

Sometimes Paul preached to Greeks and Romans. They thought Jewish ways and customs were weird. They might be offended if they served Paul pork chops or shrimp scampi and he wouldn’t eat it. Keep in mind that for Paul, growing up Jewish, these foods had always been considered “unclean.” He might have had to work to choke them as we would struggle to eat certain insects or rodents common to other nations’ cuisines. But rather than offend his host and lose the chance to share his faith, Paul “made himself like one not having the (Old Testament) law.” He closed his eyes and swallowed hard “to win those not having the law.” He wasn’t going to let his tastes get in the way of someone’s salvation.

In one way or another, all of these people were “weak.” They did not yet know Jesus. They did not yet know grace and forgiveness. They did not yet know about Christian freedom. They did not yet know how Jesus united people from every culture and made them his own by faith. These were the main things. If it wasn’t sinful and it meant people would let him tell them about Jesus, Paul was willing to give it a try. “I do this all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.”

For this reason Paul even relinquished his rights to a salary, “for the sake of the gospel.” As long as the Lord was keeping him fed, clothed, and housed by other means, he didn’t want a little money to come between some blind soul and salvation. Religious hucksters were part of the religious landscape in his day, too–maybe more than our own. Paul had the truth: this incredible message of God’s love, that God left heaven to become one of us, died in our place, forgave all our sins, and gave us heaven as a guarantee. Maybe if Paul gave the message away for free, people would realize his preaching was sincere. So, he relinquished his rights. He hoped more people would believe.

Today Paul’s example applies to more than paying preachers. It is a model for how all Christians can approach the rights and freedoms Jesus has given them. In the Gospel Jesus has not only set us free from all our sins. He has given us great freedom about our food, our clothes, our worship, other matters of personal taste in various facets of our lives. By all means, defend your rights and keep the free things free. Don’t let anyone take your gospel freedom away. But indulging these rights and freedoms is never so important as loving others and saving their souls. It’s okay to set them aside if it means we can bring someone the gospel.

1 Corinthians 9:7-10 “Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its grapes? Who tends a flock and does not drink of the milk? Do I say this merely from a human point of view? Doesn’t the Law same the same thing? For it is written in the Law of Moses: ‘Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.’ Is it about oxen that God is concerned? Surely he says this for us, doesn’t he? Yes, this was written for us, because when the plowman plows and the thresher threshes, they ought to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest.”

 I don’t believe Paul’s pictures are hard to get. When people work at something, they expect to enjoy the fruits of their labor. This is “fair.” This is right. There may be things for which we “volunteer.” But you would likely not show up for work anymore if your employer was making money but you got no paycheck. You would likely stop planting a garden if one hundred percent of your produce were confiscated every year. You might drop out of school if they told you they were keeping no record of your GPA, would not acknowledge your attendance, provided no graduation or diploma, and had nothing to offer for securing employment at the end.

That is how it works in the material, physical, secular world. Does this really have application to spiritual life? God established the principle of paying those who serve his people spiritually as far back as Moses, writer of the first Bible books. It applies to people and work in general, and that means it applies to those whose work is spiritual as well.

This, then, is the conclusion: “If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you? If others have this right of support from you, shouldn’t we have it all the more?” Those whose work is teaching and preaching God’s word should be compensated for their work. This is how Paul says it a few verses later: “…the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel” (vs. 14).

That’s the principle. Now here’s the problem: All pastors and all laypeople are essentially sinful, selfish creatures. We are all familiar with the offense and scandals caused by greedy “ministers” who have used their following to fund lavish, indulgent lifestyles. One televangelist told his audience he needed them to donate $54 million so that he could purchase a private luxury jet with a 6000-mile range. It would be the fourth aircraft in his fleet.

He says he needed it to preach the gospel. Truth is, such nonsense creates a barrier for the gospel. A man with whom I had a conversation while I was canvassing his neighborhood had a few questions about my church: “What kind is it? Where is it located? How many attend?” Then he made the comment, “So you want me to come so that you can build up your little church.” His implication didn’t even strike me at first. I think he was saying, “You don’t really care about me. I would be feather in your cap, a notch on your belt, someone to attend and pay and make you more successful.” Why do people think that way about pastors? Because sinful, selfish ministers, and not just the ones on TV, have talked and acted in ways that made their ministries all about the money.

On the other hand, members of churches, and people in the general public, are infected with the same spiritual disease. Many give to support their own spiritual care somewhat grudgingly, or not at all. Historically the average pastor has struggled financially. One woman I know, who grew up in a pastor’s home, said that when she was a little girl (1950’s) she used to dream about chewing meat. The average minister in the United States today is paid $30,000 to $40,000 less per year than people with a similar level of education. On average, clergy make just a little more than a high school graduate working full time.

I am not saying this to complain. My church pays me something close to the average person with a college degree. If a congregation and its pastor want to do this God’s way, then they will work out an arrangement that allows the minister to support his family without creating a scandal–either because he is living in obscene luxury, or because the church is stingy and keeps him just above the poverty line.

I once heard my grandfather say, “The pastor is not in it for the money.” That is true, or should be. This is one profession in which there is no honor, and some shame, for being at the top of the pay grade. But Paul’s message to the Corinthians takes up the other side: For their financial support, preachers have the right to receive an income, too.

2 Kings 5:19-20 “After Naaman had traveled some distance, Gehazi, the servant of Elisha the man of God, said to himself, ‘My master was too easy on Naaman, this Aramean, by not accepting from him what he brought. As surely as the Lord lives, I will run after him and get something from him.”

Gehazi wanted to profit from God’s work. It’s not wrong to expect to receive support for doing God’s work. The Apostle Paul writes in the New Testament, “The Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel.” Elisha almost certainly received some kind of financial support for his work as a prophet, much as ministers are paid today. Believers in Israel gave gifts that helped support his ministry. In some sense, then, Gehazi, as his servant, was also receiving his living from the gospel.

But this was different. Gehazi was no longer concerned about gifts given to support gospel work, though he lied about that to Naaman. “Two young men from the company of the prophets have just come to me from the hill country of Ephraim. Please give them a talent of silver and two sets of clothing.” Gehazi’s deceit, his treatment of Naaman as though he was someone to use for his own gain, like a greasy salesman making up a story to close the sale, was pure selfishness. For his efforts he got a chunk of silver worth about $25,000 that day. He also got more than he bargained for when he got home.

It’s not wrong for us to want our church to stay afloat financially. It’s not wrong for me to want to support my family from my work as a pastor. But we need not to let this sully our motivations or influence the way we interact with our community as a church. We don’t want to start seeing our neighbors as a mark whom we target for a sale. They are souls to be saved, people to love and add to our family. The church sale may be a long way from what Gehazi did to Naaman, many of them carried out with the purest of intentions. Sometimes it may even be a way to meet people. But let’s police ourselves, and not let money concerns ever get in the way of our concern for souls. Let’s not contribute to the suspicion so many already have: that preachers and churches are just interested in your money.

Gehazi learned about God’s concern the hard way when he got home. “When Gehazi came to the hill, he took the things from the servants and put them away in the house. He sent the men way and they left. Then he went in and stood before his master Elisha. ‘Where have you been, Gehazi?’ Elisha asked. ‘Your servant didn’t go anywhere,’ Gehazi answered. But Elisha said to him, ‘Was not my spirit with you when the man got down from his chariot to meet you? Is this the time to take money, or to accept clothes, olive groves, vineyards, flocks, herds, or menservants and maidservants? Naaman’s leprosy will cling to you and to your descendants forever’” (verse 24-27).

The key to understanding Elisha’s rebuke is in the phrase, “Is this the time…” On another day, from another person, in other circumstances, receiving gifts, even extravagant ones, to support God’s work might be appropriate. But taking advantage of Naaman in the flood of his emotion and excitement over being healed and finding the true God; potentially corrupting his understanding of God’s free and gracious treatment of us; seeking personal profit over another man’s spiritual welfare–this was Gehazi’s sin.

God’s gifts are not a commodity to be sold. They are not to be used to satisfy our greed. He takes seriously the importance of communicating his gifts are free.

2 Kings 5:17-18 “ (Naaman said) ‘Please let me, your servant, be given as much earth as a pair of mules can carry, for your servant will never again make burnt offerings and sacrifices to any other god but the Lord. But may the Lord forgive your servant for this one thing: When my master enters the temple of Rimmon to bow down and he is leaning on my arm and I bow there also–when I bow down in the temple of Rimmon, may the Lord forgive your servant for this.’ ‘Go in peace,’ Elisha said.’”

God’s grace can’t be bought, but it can and does create a complete makeover of the human soul and inspire a response of praise. Naaman’s desire to worship God illustrates the point.

Some people see worshiping God as an incidental part of their faith and morals, a less important side effect, if you will. The details of how they worship, where they worship, if they worship aren’t very important to them. What really matters is how you live your life. Are you honest? Are you kind? Do you respect others and their things? These are the things, they say, that really matter. These are the things that truly display your faith.

This is backwards. Honesty, kindness and respect are good things. But virtues like this are a dime a dozen. I know plenty of atheists who live this way.

The one thing that distinguishes believers in the God of Scripture from any others, or from those who believe nothing at all, is that the Bible believers gather to worship the God who revealed himself to Israel and sent his Son Jesus to save us. They do it on a regular basis. He included this in his 10 commandments. Love God comes before love your neighbor. People who get God’s grace get why worshiping him is important, too.

Naaman certainly did. From now on he would worship only the Lord, the God of Israel. As a way of making it clear this was his God, he would worship only on soil he dug up and carried back from Israel. And just to be clear, if his knees had to bend a little in the temple of the false god Rimmon while Naaman was fulfilling his state duties, he was not worshiping that God anymore. He worshiped the Lord, whose gifts can’t be bought, but they can inspire a response of worship and praise.

2 Kings 5:14-16 “So he (Naaman) went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy. Then Naaman and all his attendants went back to the man of God. He stood before him and said, ‘Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel. Please accept now a gift from your servant.’ The prophet answered, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, whom I serve, I will not accept anything.’ And even though Naaman urged him, he refused.”

You recognize we are picking this up in the middle of the story. If you went to Sunday School regularly as a child, you probably remember that Naaman was the commander of the Syrian army. He had leprosy, and after trying everything else, he came to the prophet Elisha to see if he could cure it. Elisha didn’t even come out of his house to talk to him. He sent a servant to tell Naaman to wash himself in the Jordan seven times and he would be cured.

Naaman was furious. He was used to VIP treatment. He felt like Elisha was blowing him off. He was about to turn around and go home when his servants convinced him to give it a try. So, we are told, he “dipped” himself in the Jordan river seven times–a kind of grudging, half-hearted performance of the prophet’s instructions. But true to the prophet’s word, Naaman came out of the river completely healed of his leprosy.

God’s grace is all over this story. Not only was Naaman’s body healed, he came back to Elisha a changed man. “Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel,” he confesses. He is convinced. He is humbled. He is grateful.

But he is also a little confused. “Please accept now a gift from your servant.” But Elisha is adamant: He won’t accept a thing. He says so with an oath. Why was this so important?

It’s not that Elisha was necessarily against ever taking any gifts or pay for his work. As prophets go, he seems to have been a more prosperous one. He lived in his own house and had servants.

But he also knew that Naaman had come to him with a small fortune. Earlier in the story we hear that Naaman had come with nearly 10,000 ounces of silver, and nearly 2000 ounces of gold. At today’s rates (converted to the troy ounce) the silver would be worth over $455,000, and the gold almost $7.5 million. That wasn’t just a little traveling change to throw in the toll booths along the way. Naaman thought that he was going to buy himself a miracle. It appears now he thought he was going to pay for his cure.

God’s gifts don’t work that way. They are not for sale. Elisha wasn’t going to reinforce that kind of misunderstanding, even if it would benefit him personally. Grace, the kind of love you can’t earn, deserve, or purchase, is the single most distinguishing feature of the God we worship. It is what sets Christianity apart from every other world religion. It makes our faith counter to every human culture.

There is nothing so powerful for working faith, for changing hearts, for securing allegiance, for inspiring commitment to God than the truth that he forgives the guilty, loves the unlovely, befriends his enemies, seeks those who want nothing to do with him, who have nothing to offer to him, who are so broken they can’t be fixed, humanly speaking. Grace, by its very nature, is not a commodity you can buy, and Elisha had no intention of jeopardizing that understanding for the infant faith of Naaman. He did not want to cloud the enormity of the gift Naaman had been given, the love he had experienced, by letting him pay for something that cannot be bought.

Mark 10:13-16 “People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.’ And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.”

Jesus wants your children. Like the disciples, adults often stand in the way of this, even parents. Jesus’ disciples likely felt that Jesus’ time was too valuable to waste on children. This was the Messiah, the rightful leader of Israel. He should be rubbing shoulders with the powerful. He should be gathering a mass of followers to help usher in his kingdom. Why should the Master waste his time on a bunch of runny-nosed, half-witted little children? They didn’t put much value on the little ones.

Today, parents often turn this around. They don’t put much value on Jesus. They spend hours watching their children practice soccer. They cough up big money to get their little scholars into the right schools, and their hearts swell with pride at each graduation they attend. But take their children to hear God’s word? How did that ever help the kid make the team or get into college?

Still, Jesus is their Lord just as much as he is yours or mine. “The kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” Our children are real sinners in need of real forgiveness. Some Christians question this, but funny how the parents that do still treat their children’s misbehavior like it’s real and it counts when they have to deal with it themselves. They don’t wait for some unbiblical “age of accountability” before they start handing out discipline, putting the kid in time out, or taking away privileges at home.

Our children are real believers, who have received God’s real grace. They have a real relationship with Jesus as their Savior. Some Christians don’t consider a little child’s simple faith a real faith. Jesus says the children’s faith is the only kind that truly is. “I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” It’s the adults we have to wonder about, with all their questions and skepticism. The child who simply trusts Jesus’ every word is the kind of believer Jesus seeks. He is Lord of their hearts with a hold he struggles to achieve in your typical grown up.

We can rightly envy the special place children have with Jesus. While the adults were bickering about whether the children could see him, “…he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.” No doubt Peter was too big to sit in Jesus’ lap anymore. But each of these little ones had Jesus wrap his arms around them and hold them close. Each received a blessing spoken just to them.

This is why we want Jesus to be Lord of our families, and Lord of our own hearts: because where Jesus is Lord, he rules not with fear and threats and judgment. He rules with grace and love. He embraces the people who belong to him and blesses them.

Mark 10:3-9 “‘What did Moses command you?’ he replied. They said, ‘Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.’ ‘It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,’ Jesus replied. ‘But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.’”

Do you notice the word play going on? Jesus asks about a command. The Pharisees come back with a permission. They are skipping past the rule to get to the exception. Jesus himself offers exceptions to the rule in other places. He recognizes that unfaithfulness kills a marriage and provides grounds for divorce (Matthew 5). He inspired Paul to write about desertion and the freedom to end a marriage (1 Corinthians 7). But exceptions don’t make the rule. They should not become the rule. They are the exceptional cases.

Jesus recognizes what Moses wrote. But even that is a call to repentance. “‘It was because your hearts were hard.” Not everyone wants to live like a child of God. Sometimes I don’t want to live like a child of God. Our hearts are hard. But then the problem is not with God or the commands he has given for the human institutions he has created. The problem is with our hearts that won’t accept what God has given us.

So Jesus takes us deeper into God’s purpose for marriage, so that we can understand. “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

Where Jesus is not Lord of the family, or Lord of a marriage, many people cannot even recognize rudimentary truths. How many genders there are, or how many genders does it take to have a real marriage? Jesus makes it clear that the answer in each case is “two.”

So why did God create these two genders and then bring them together in marriage? Why did he have men and women leave the homes where they were loved and nurtured all through childhood and loosen their attachment to mothers and fathers? Because marriage is a unity, two joined together as one flesh. Marriage is not just a commitment between two people, though commitment is certainly important for making it work. It is not just a relationship of love, though love is usually a foundational feature. It is far more than a contract between independent parties laying out obligations and expectations for them to get along.

Marriage is a union of body and life. It is the union of the two genders, with their unique gifts and strengths and inclinations. More than a new relationship, it is more like a new entity. It’s stability and endurance are necessary for the purposes for which God invented it: not only the production of children, but a secure environment for their development; the quintessential training grounds for teaching and learning sacrifice and selflessness; the foundation on which any functional society can be built.

Even more, God often uses marriage as a picture of his love and grace to us. We are the bride, Christ is the groom. He sacrifices himself to make us holy. He doesn’t abandon us because we have sinned. He bonds himself to us forever.

Why would you want to mess with that? This is the rule according to the Lord of marriage: What God has joined together, let man not separate.