Marriage Problem

Could it be that they want to be married in God's eyes because of the attitude of the church members?

Could it be because they want to sing in the choir?

They probably do not think that they are doing anything wrong because as Pastor Larry has pointed out, they are not. They are house mates.

$1000 is a lot of money for a woman to lose or for anyone to lose in this day and time. She probably has to consider her health and her health insurance. I'm guessing that they are living together now in order to have enough money. It is not easy to live on a fixed income.

 

No one understands that better than a pastor- churches don't pay overtime!

You can argue about it not being a clearly-defined sin, and it may not be. I don't see anything in scripture that would lead me to believe that it would be wise, and I certainly don't see that it would help them be pure. Ephesians tells us that we should not give place to the devil- there would seem to be a pretty good breeding ground for temptation under that arrangement. If it is simply a financial arrangement, find another person of the same sex to room with- you could accomplish the same thing without the problems of appearance or the risk of losing the money.

 

I posted this on the wrong thread earlier by mistake:

There are problems with the idea that a preacher can marry people 'before GOd' and not before the state. The Bible doesn't teach that a preacher had anything to do with making people married. In the west, the preacher says 'What God has joined together, let not man put assunder." Because wedding liturgy says this, a lot of preachers think their performing the marriage makes two people one flesh. Bu Paul, in I Corinthians 6, clearly associates becoming one flesh with the the couple having relations, as if there were any doubt. Paul uses this as an argument against joining oneself with a prostitute.

In the Bible, virgins got married when their fathers gave them away to young men. The young man payed a bride price and was then engaged. When he paid the price, the father agreed, and that was a covenant. (A lot of people talk about a marriage covenant being the vows made in public. The idea of wedding vows evolved from Roman culture. In the Bible, the covenant was made through the bride price , rather than through wedding vows between the couple.) After a certain amount of time, the groom would come to collct his bride. After a while it became a custom for men to throw a feast when they married (or for their parents to pay for it.) There is nothing in scripture to indicate that it was the Levitical priests job to oversee wedding ceremonies. Modern Jews may have 'rabbis' perform ceremonies, but they are influenced by the culture in which they live.

In Ruth's marriage to Boaz, some of the elders of the city were present. But the text indicates that they were there as _witnesses._ The Torah required that the elders of the city be involved when a man passed up on the responsibility to marry his near relative who died without descendant's late wife. So elders may not have been required at a wedding ceremony. There is no indication that they officiated.

Our modern wedding ceremonies, with the preacher officiating, serve the social function of causing marriages to be publically recognized. If you explain this to these people- that you don't have any magical power to make people 'married before God' but not before men, maybe that will clear theings up for them. Your function in performing marriages is so that marriages will be socially recognized, as they were with parties and processions in Old Testament times.

I wouldn't advise being a part of a plan for them to get married and scam an insurance company or pension fund out of money. Even if you follow the 'leave it up to them' approach, you could still be opening the door for them to sin. Maybe the woman can negotiate a one-time settlement with the insurance company, especially if statistics say she has some years left to live. She could explain her situation, and explain that she would want to marry -if- she could get a settlement, but not otherwise.

Another issue to consider is if they can't have sex to consumate the marriage, why not just date?

I don't think it is a sin for unmarried people to live together if they don't fornicate. This is a conscience issue. It can look bad to others. In some cultures, it isn't always a bad thing. For example, I live in the house with my wife and two of her sisters. If something were to happen to my wife, in some cultures, it would be okay for me to keep my two sister-in-laws here. If my wife had to go out of town for a night or two, and my sisters-in-law were still in my house,I don't think anyone here in Indonesia would think evil of it, especially since they would help out with the baby. A lot of these things are cultural rules. We need to respect other people's consciences.

Btw, if brethren are holy enough to take communion with, aren't they holy enough to recieve ministry from? All the members of the body of Christ are to use their gifts to minister to others. You might want to make sure they have faith in Christ and have been baptized before letting them participate in church ministries.

 

Steveo,

I've read your comments and everybody else's comments. I advise you, of course, not to marry this couple because they portray an improper model of financial and relational responsibility.

I agree that the Bible does not specifically, word-for-word tell us, "Thou shall not live together even if sex is not participated. It is a sin."

I agree that 1 Thessalonians 5:22 could get disputed by the learned theologian (I see Pastor Larry's excellent point quite clearly). This is a textual/translational discrepency easily understood by serious Bible scholars, but not by common folks.

Unfortnately, I realize that 1 Thessalonians 5:22 WOULD stand up as a scripture of support for most Christians that I know who have no theological training (common folks).

However, I believe the proper scripture to point out the sin of this situation comes from Romans 14. We should not let anything that we believe to exist as a proper part of living to sway someone away from trusting God's principles. Even if there is nothing wrong with what we do, if it makes people question the morality of God (or our own personal morality of God in other people's opinions), we should abandon it. We need to teach this from the beginning.

Everybody knows what "shacking up"/cohabitation means. Everybody knows what it looks (appears) like. Let's make sure we don't see this with naivete. We know what it looks like whether the couple tells others that they have sex or not. "Shacking up" is "shacking up" because society labels it that way and injects the situation with all the characteristics it wants to inject into it whether specific factors (like sexual relations) exist or not.

Steveo, the two people mentioned could live perfectly unsexual lives...but SOCIETY sees them as "shacking up" and society WILL perceive them as lying about their unsexuality.

What does that mean? It means that we must start at the beginning teaching would-be Christians that they must live a certain way in the light even if their shadowy activity stands as honest. For the sake of the unsaved society and for proper role modeling as accountable Christians, this couple violates Romans 14 even if they are not "weak" or "strong" Christians per se.

The financial hypocrisy is quite enough to void the possibility of marrying them if I were pastoring this church, but the moral precedent and example for others to see, in my humble opinion, transcends the financial problem by thousands of miles.

The couple needs to see the uncomfortablity and questionable nature of their living/relational situation through the eyes of the The Church. THAT MATTERS. We cannot allow Christians to think that God will allow them to involuntarily mislead Christians, for I feel that this couple is doing that if they are married in their current living situation.

Personally, whether they are having sex or not is a non-issue. They are setting bad examples as people wanting to be part of Christ's body (Otherwise, why not go to the Justice of the Peace to get married?). Remember Romans 14.

I hope this helps a little bit.

Jamal5000

 

As my boss is so fond of saying "Old people need love to". LOL Their age doesn't prohibit human feelings. Lots of people assume that seniors don't have any interest in sex and that is completely false.

1 Thessalonians 5, verse 22 says: Abstain from all appearance of evil.

What they say and what they do when nobody is looking may be completely opposite, but while they live together, they give the appearance of being a couple.
Apparently they are worried about the appearance of this situation and that's why they think that a church marriage may solve that problem. They just haven't been convicted of the falsehood of not be legally married.