Marriage versus Singleness: Both Equal "Gifts"? You Decide!
Captain Sensible writes: The "church" (not the Lord, mind!), tells us that marriage and singleness are both equal gifts, and that we must be content with either "gift".
The Bible doesn't speak of such nonsense of course, despite what Christian leaders and writers try to make us believe (out of convenience perhaps? See Debbie Maken's revealing comment on the previous post!).
Love and marriage is God's design, God's creation, God's will for all of us that are a) not gifted with a high degree of sexual self-control, no doubt in order to free us up for Kingdom work that would be incompatible with marriage and a family (1 Corinthians 7:7), b) are experiencing a time of present crisis (1 Corinthians 7:26), or c) fit into the eunuch categories that Jesus outlines in Matthew 19, including self-sacrificially renouncing marriage for the sake of the Kingdom (not for the sake of commitment phobia or video games and computers, note!).
No wonder then the Bible is full of marriage, marriage, marriage -- with even a whole book dedicated to the joys of erotic love! (Where's the book dedicated to the joys of singleness I wonder? Hmm...)
So enough of (mainly married!) church leaders telling us otherwise. (Remember a couple of hundred years ago, church leaders were telling people that slavery was God's will...)
Here's what some other people have had to say on the matter. So much wisdom and understanding to be found just about anywhere except in the contemporary church!
You don't have to accept the nonsense the Bride of Christ is spewing out at the moment, you know...
Beware you be not swallowed up in books! An ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge.
John Wesley
Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness.
Sigmund Freud
Thank heaven. A bachelor's life is no life for a single man.
Samuel Goldwyn, immigrant-turned-famous-movie-producer, when told his son was getting married.
Love is like pi - natural, irrational, and very important.
Lisa Hoffman
There is nothing nobler or more admirable than when two people who see eye to eye keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting their friends.
Homer, Odyssey, ninth century B.C.
Life is the flower for which love is the honey.
Victor Hugo
Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.
Samuel Johnson
To love another person is to help them love God.
Søren Kierkegaard
To love someone deeply gives you strength. Being loved by someone deeply gives you courage.
Lao Tzu
Love one another and you will be happy. It's as simple and as difficult as that.
Michael Leunig
Harpo, she's a lovely person. She deserves a good husband. Marry her before she finds one.
Oscar Levant, to Harpo Marx upon meeting Harpo's fiancee
We seek the comfort of another. Someone to share and share the life we choose. Someone to help us through the never-ending attempt to understand ourselves. And in the end, someone to comfort us along the way.
Marlin Finch Lupus
There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage
Martin Luther
Age does not protect you from love but love to some extent protects you from age.
Jeanne Moreau
Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
To keep your marriage brimming, with love in the wedding cup, whenever you're wrong, admit it; whenever you're right, shut up.
Ogden Nash
For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of our tasks; the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.
Rainer Maria Rilke
This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love; the more they give, the more they possess.
Rainer Maria Rilke
We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love.
Tom Robbins
To love is to receive a glimpse of heaven.
Karen Sunde
Love is the same as like except you feel sexier.
Judith Viorst
God help the man who won't marry until he finds a perfect woman, and God help him still more if he finds her.
Benjamin Tillett
And finally, for commitment phobes everywhere... ;)
I date this girl for two years--and then the nagging starts: "I wanna know your name."
Mike Binder
The Bible doesn't speak of such nonsense of course, despite what Christian leaders and writers try to make us believe (out of convenience perhaps? See Debbie Maken's revealing comment on the previous post!).
Love and marriage is God's design, God's creation, God's will for all of us that are a) not gifted with a high degree of sexual self-control, no doubt in order to free us up for Kingdom work that would be incompatible with marriage and a family (1 Corinthians 7:7), b) are experiencing a time of present crisis (1 Corinthians 7:26), or c) fit into the eunuch categories that Jesus outlines in Matthew 19, including self-sacrificially renouncing marriage for the sake of the Kingdom (not for the sake of commitment phobia or video games and computers, note!).
No wonder then the Bible is full of marriage, marriage, marriage -- with even a whole book dedicated to the joys of erotic love! (Where's the book dedicated to the joys of singleness I wonder? Hmm...)
So enough of (mainly married!) church leaders telling us otherwise. (Remember a couple of hundred years ago, church leaders were telling people that slavery was God's will...)
Here's what some other people have had to say on the matter. So much wisdom and understanding to be found just about anywhere except in the contemporary church!
You don't have to accept the nonsense the Bride of Christ is spewing out at the moment, you know...
Beware you be not swallowed up in books! An ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge.
John Wesley
Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness.
Sigmund Freud
Thank heaven. A bachelor's life is no life for a single man.
Samuel Goldwyn, immigrant-turned-famous-movie-producer, when told his son was getting married.
Love is like pi - natural, irrational, and very important.
Lisa Hoffman
There is nothing nobler or more admirable than when two people who see eye to eye keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting their friends.
Homer, Odyssey, ninth century B.C.
Life is the flower for which love is the honey.
Victor Hugo
Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.
Samuel Johnson
To love another person is to help them love God.
Søren Kierkegaard
To love someone deeply gives you strength. Being loved by someone deeply gives you courage.
Lao Tzu
Love one another and you will be happy. It's as simple and as difficult as that.
Michael Leunig
Harpo, she's a lovely person. She deserves a good husband. Marry her before she finds one.
Oscar Levant, to Harpo Marx upon meeting Harpo's fiancee
We seek the comfort of another. Someone to share and share the life we choose. Someone to help us through the never-ending attempt to understand ourselves. And in the end, someone to comfort us along the way.
Marlin Finch Lupus
There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage
Martin Luther
Age does not protect you from love but love to some extent protects you from age.
Jeanne Moreau
Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
To keep your marriage brimming, with love in the wedding cup, whenever you're wrong, admit it; whenever you're right, shut up.
Ogden Nash
For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of our tasks; the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.
Rainer Maria Rilke
This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love; the more they give, the more they possess.
Rainer Maria Rilke
We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love.
Tom Robbins
To love is to receive a glimpse of heaven.
Karen Sunde
Love is the same as like except you feel sexier.
Judith Viorst
God help the man who won't marry until he finds a perfect woman, and God help him still more if he finds her.
Benjamin Tillett
And finally, for commitment phobes everywhere... ;)
I date this girl for two years--and then the nagging starts: "I wanna know your name."
Mike Binder
posted by Captain Sensible at 3:31 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home