This Momentary Marriage - Week 1

This morning we kicked off our study of John Piper's This Momentary Marriage.  I was as excited about this study leaving class this morning as I was before class started.  I enjoyed the discussion we had and look forward to continuing the series.  Thanks to all who participated this morning, and also thanks in advance to all those who will continue to participate in the weeks to come.

I've been putting some notes together as I've been going through the book again, and thought I'd share some of them as we go.  Some of them may reflect class discussion, some may be things that weren't brought up at all.  I hope that there may be some benefit for you in these (very raw) notes.

• Foreward: Pendulums and Pictures (Noel Piper)
  • Scripture – Ephesians 5:31-32
  • Questions & points/quotes
    • How are you & your spouse alike? How are you different?
      • Ruth Bell Graham – if two people always agree on everything, one of them is unnecessary
    • Do you find yourself disappointed or unhappy in your marriage?
      • Pipers – more than 43 years of marriage, they've seen plenty of ups & downs – “the first twenty five are the hardest”
      • sin sends our marriages into low points, but God's grace keeps them together and brings them to high points
      • Noel: “Marriage refers to Christ and the church—every marriage, no matter how pendulum-like because of our sin; every marriage, even if the couple doesn’t care a bit about Jesus.”
    • marriage is a picture of Christ and the church
    • anybody ever been to the Grand Canyon? Had you seen pictures before going? Did the pictures do it justice?

• Introduction: Marriage and Martyrdom
  • Scripture – Mark 12:25
  • Questions & points/quotes
    • Do you and your spouse have any goals for your marriage?
      • Piper: “The aim of this book is to enlarge your vision of what marriage is. As Bonhoeffer says, it is more than your love for each other. Vastly more. Its meaning is infinitely great. I say that with care. The meaning of marriage is the display of the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his people.” (p. 15)
      • Piper: “This covenant-keeping love reached its climax in the death of Christ for his church, his bride. That death was the ultimate expression of grace, which is the ultimate expression of God’s glory, which is of infinite value. Therefore, when Paul says that our great and final destiny is “the praise of [God’s] glorious grace” (Eph. 1:6), he elevates marriage beyond measure, for here, uniquely, God displays the apex of the glory of his grace: “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25).” (p. 15-16)
    • Piper: “Romance, sex, and childbearing are temporary gifts of God. They are not part of the next life. And they are not guaranteed even for this life. They are one possible path along the narrow way to Paradise. Marriage passes through breathtaking heights and through swamps with choking vapors. It makes many things sweeter, and with it come bitter providences.” (p. 16-17)

• Chapter 1: Staying Married Is Not Mainly about Staying in Love
  • Scripture: Genesis 2:18-25; Mark 10:8-9, 12:25; Matthew 19:4-5, 10-12; Ephesians 5:31-32
  • Questions & points/quotes
    • What sustains your marriage?
      • Bonhoeffer: “It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.” (quoted on p. 18)
    • What are some different things that our culture (movies, tv shows, music, friends, family, co-workers, etc.) says about marriage?
      • cultural view of marriage: “the main idol is self; and its main doctrine is autonomy; and its central act of worship is being entertained; and its three main shrines are the television, the Internet, and the cinema; and its most sacred genuflection is the uninhibited act of sexual intercourse” (p. 20)
    • How does the Bible either contrast and correct the culture's vision, or inform and support it?
    • What is marriage? Who can be married?
    • How long does marriage last? Can marriage be eternal?
      • Piper: “There is no human marriage after death. The shadow of covenant-keeping between husband and wife gives way to the reality of covenant-keeping between Christ and his glorified Church. Nothing is lost. The music of every pleasure is transposed into an infinitely higher key.” (p. 14-15, from Introduction)
    • What is the purpose of marriage?
      • our sin blinds us from seeing the wonder of God's purpose for marriage
      • we cannot expect a fallen, sinful culture to embrace the biblical view of marriage
      • we must pray for God to work in them, for the Holy Spirit to regenerate their hearts and open their eyes to the glory of God in the face of Christ, to the good news of Christ's perfect life, substitutionary death for our sins, and His resurrection for our justification
      • only then are people able to seek God and listen to Him teach us about all of life, including marriage; and we continue to need His grace and the power of the Holy Spirit
      • 1. Most foundational thing to see about marriage from the Bible: Marriage is God's Doing
        • a) Marriage was God's design
          • it was not good for man to be alone
          • God made a helper fit/suitable for him – a wife
          • the animals do not qualify
        • b) God gave away the first bride
          • God brought her to the man
        • c) God spoke the design of marriage into existence
          • a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh
        • d) God performs the one-flesh union
          • just as God made the woman from the flesh of the man, so he ordains and performs this uniting called “one flesh”
          • God takes a rib from the man and creates the woman, whose natural place is back by the side of the man from whom she was made – they become “one flesh”
          • Piper: “When a couple speaks their vows, it is not a man or a woman or a pastor or parent who is the main actor—the main doer. God is. God joins a husband and a wife into a one-flesh union. God does that. The world does not know this. Which is one of the reasons why marriage is treated so casually. And Christians often act like they don’t know it, which is one of the reasons marriage in the church is not seen as the wonder it is. Marriage is God’s doing because it is a one-flesh union that God himself performs.” (p. 23)
      • 2. Ultimate thing to see about marriage in the Bible: Marriage is for God's Glory
        • marriage displays God's glory like no other event or institution
        • questions from Piper: “What kind of relationship is this? How are these two people held together? Can they walk away from this relationship? Can they go from spouse to spouse? Is this relationship rooted in romance? Sexual desire? Need for companionship? Cultural convenience? What is this? What holds it together?” (p. 24)
        • mystery of marriage – it is patterned after Christ's covenant commitment to His church.
        • Piper: “Christ obtained the church by his blood and formed a new covenant with her, an unbreakable “marriage.”” (p. 25)
      • Piper: “Marriage is patterned after Christ’s covenant relationship to his redeemed people, the church. And therefore, the highest meaning and the most ultimate purpose of marriage is to put the covenant relationship of Christ and his church on display. That is why marriage exists. If you are married, that is why you are married. If you hope to be, that should be your dream.” (p. 25, emphasis added)
      • Christ will never leave His wife
      • Piper: “Staying married, therefore, is not mainly about staying in love. It is about keeping covenant. “Till death do us part” or “As long as we both shall live” is a sacred covenant promise—the same kind Jesus made with his bride when he died for her. Therefore, what makes divorce and remarriage so horrific in God’s eyes is not merely that it involves covenant-breaking to the spouse, but that it involves misrepresenting Christ and his covenant. Christ will never leave his wife. Ever. There may be times of painful distance and tragic backsliding on our part. But Christ keeps his covenant forever. Marriage is a display of that! That is the ultimate thing we can say about it. It puts the glory of Christ’s covenant-keeping love on display.
        
        “The most important implication of this conclusion is that keeping covenant with our spouse is as important as telling the truth about God’s covenant with us in Jesus Christ. Marriage is not mainly about being or staying in love. It’s mainly about telling the truth with our lives. It’s about portraying something true about Jesus Christ and the way he relates to his people. It is about showing in real life the glory of the gospel.
        
        “Jesus died for sinners. He forged a covenant in the white-hot heat of his suffering in our place. He made an imperfect bride his own with the price of his blood and covered her with the garments of his own righteousness. He said, “I am with you . . . to the end of the age. . . . I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Matt. 28:20; Heb. 13:5). Marriage is meant by God to put that gospel reality on display in the world. That is why we are married. That is why all married people are married, even when they don’t know and embrace this gospel.” (last 3 paragraphs of chapter 1, p. 25-26)