The Bible is the central authority for all life. By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the Bible tells us about itself. In 2 Timothy 3:16 (New Living Translation) we read, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.” As Dennis Rainey, the founder of the Family Life Seminars puts it, “We believe the Bible was written by men who were divinely inspired by God the Holy Spirit, and we believe it to be authoritative and error-less in its original autographs. We believe the Bible contains the blueprints for building solid marriage and family relationships. It teaches principles for marriage and family life that transcend time and culture. We are committed to communicating biblical truth in order to strengthen and give direction to a marriage and family.”
Marriage was God’s idea and the first one was performed in God’s presence in a public venue from which the promises of the couple became common knowledge to all living souls. The scriptures speak of generations being present in the “loins” of Adam, just as all generations were present in the loins of Abraham when God called him to become the father of the “faithful” as implied in Galatians. Adam named his wife Eve, according to the text, because “she was the mother of all the living.” The vows pronounced at the point when God brought the woman to the man (He walked her down the aisle) and presented her to her husband and they “became one flesh.”
Marriage was the first institution designed by God. It’s sacred and exclusive and permanent and only heterosexual. I agree with Rainey who adds, “… we believe God gives a wife to a husband and a husband to a wife, and they are to receive one another as God’s unique and personal provision to help meet their mutual needs. We believe God created marriage for the purpose of couples glorifying God as one flesh, parenting godly children, and enjoying sexual pleasure.” As described in the creation account, Gods primary purpose was for companionship. It’s vital, especially in light of the cultural trends of our day, to uphold God’s design of marriage as a sacred institution in which men and women, as Rainey concludes, “can experience the truest sense of spiritual, emotional, and physical intimacy, so that the two can become one.” We must be ready to quote the words of our Lord and savior, in a culture that rejects him, who said, Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together let not man separate.” (Matthew 19:4-6)