So God created people in his own image;
God patterned them after himself;
male and female he created them.
God blessed them and told them, “Multiply and fill the earth.…”
GENESIS 1:27–28, NLT
And the Lord God said, “It isn’t good for man to be alone; I will make a companion for him, a helper suited to his needs.”
GENESIS 2:18, TLB
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.
GENESIS 2:24–25, RSV
“Haven’t you read the Scriptures?” Jesus replied. “They record that from the beginning ‘God made them male and female.’ And he said, ‘This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.’ Since they are no longer two but one, let no one separate them, for God has joined them together.”
MATTHEW 19:4–6, NLT
A story from a young woman:
“When we started dating fourteen months ago, everything was perfect. I felt I’d finally met a great Christian guy who loved my family and agreed with my morals. But six months ago, we slept together. We were both virgins and, to tell you the truth, I didn’t want to do it. I had struggled through many relationships before and had remained pure. I was so wanting to wait for my wedding night, but I also wanted to make him happy, so I let it go too far.
“Since then, life has been terrible. I knew that getting it on was a mistake and a sin before I even did it, but the experience really hit him hard too. Now every other area of his life has been impacted. He doesn’t think looking at pornography is wrong, he doesn’t think cursing is wrong, he doesn’t think premarital sex is wrong, and he doesn’t even honor his parents or mine anymore. We were thinking about getting married after college, but now I don’t know what to do. He views everything I say as ‘nagging.’ I just want the same godly man back that I grew to love. I guess I don’t want to face the fact that this man that I gave myself to is not the one who God has planned for me to marry.”
—adapted from Every Young Man’s Battle
Is it a good thing to have sexual relations?
Certainly—but only within a certain context. It’s good for a man to have a wife, and for a woman to have a husband. Sexual drives are strong, but marriage is strong enough to contain them and provide for a balanced and fulfilling sexual life in a world of sexual disorder. The marriage bed must be a place of mutuality—the husband seeking to satisfy his wife, the wife seeking to satisfy her husband. Marriage is not a place to “stand up for your rights.” Marriage is a decision to serve the other, whether in bed or out.
1 CORINTHIANS 7:1–4, MSG
Give honor to marriage, and remain faithful to one another in marriage. God will surely judge people who are immoral and those who commit adultery.
HEBREWS 13:4, NLT
And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
MATTHEW 19:4–6, KJV
Let your wife be a fountain of blessing for you. Rejoice in the wife of your youth. She is a loving doe, a graceful deer.
Let her breasts satisfy you always. May you always be captivated by her love.
PROVERBS 5:18–19, NLT
Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life which he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life.
ECCLESIASTES 9:9, RSV
House and wealth are an inheritance from fathers,
But a prudent wife is from the LORD.
PROVERBS 19:14, NASB
He who finds a wife finds a good thing,
And obtains favor from the LORD.
PROVERBS 18:22, NKJV
My lover is to me a cluster of henna blossoms
from the vineyards of En Gedi.
How beautiful you are, my darling!
Oh, how beautiful!
Your eyes are doves.
SONG OF SONGS 1:14–15, NIV
A wife of noble character who can find?
She is worth far more than rubies.
PROVERBS 31:10, NIV
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
ROMANS 5:8, NIV
Love is very patient and kind, never jealous or envious, never boastful or proud, never haughty or selfish or rude. Love does not demand its own way. It is not irritable or touchy. It does not hold grudges and will hardly even notice when others do it wrong.
1 CORINTHIANS 13:4–5, TLB
Hatred stirs up strife,
But love covers all sins.
PROVERBS 10:12, NKJV
Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
1 CORINTHIANS 13:7, NLT
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
JOHN 15:12, NIV
In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”
EPHESIANS 5:28–31, NIV
I want you to live as free of complications as possible. When you’re unmarried, you’re free to concentrate on simply pleasing the Master. Marriage involves you in all the nuts and bolts of domestic life and in wanting to please your spouse, leading to so many more demands on your attention. The time and energy that married people spend on caring for and nurturing each other, the unmarried can spend in becoming whole and holy instruments of God. I’m trying to be helpful and make it as easy as possible for you, not making things harder. All I want is for you to be able to develop a way of life in which you can spend plenty of time together with the Master without a lot of distractions.
1 CORINTHIANS 7:32–35, MSG
I … tell the unmarried … that singleness might well be the best thing for them, as it has been for me [Paul].
1 CORINTHIANS 7:8, MSG
I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs—how he can please the Lord.… I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord.
1 CORINTHIANS 7:32,35, NIV