The Amazing Wisdom of Marriage

Drink water from your own cistern

And running water from your own well.

Should your fountains be dispersed abroad,

Streams of water in the streets?

Let them be only your own,

And not for strangers with you.

Let your fountain be blessed,

And rejoice with the wife of your youth.

As a loving deer in a graceful doe,

Let her breasts satisfy you at all times;

And always be enraptured with her love.

For why should you, my son,

Be enraptured by an immoral woman,

And be embraced in the arms of a seductress?

Proverbs 5:15-20

Marital fidelity is a constant theme in scripture.  Perhaps because sexual temptation is such a ready temptation to people of all ages.  These verses clash violently with the tide of human thought.  We think of love as a feeling, we use phrases like “fell out of love” and imagine that we might be justified in our selfish and self-satisfying thoughts and actions because the wind of fancy and emotion blew us in another direction.  Yet Scripture is clear: love is a choice and a commitment.  This is the love that God has shown humanity in Jesus Christ who died for us while we were yet sinners and enemies of God (Romans 5:1-8).  It is this love and commitment that is meant to permeate the marriage relationship (Ephesians 5:22-33).  This love is only found in, and supplied endlessly by, the vital relationship of the believer with Jesus Christ.  Anything less than that is sin and sin as always brings only waste, division, destruction and, ultimately, death.  When Christ’s love is at the center of the marriage there is the full display of all of the joy and happiness that marriage was always meant to bring.