Very few fail at that which is weak.
I want to investigate one of the greatest things that God has made. One of the highest metaphors. Arguably the means through which God chiefly reveals his love for us. The relationship of marriage.
I am by no means an expert on marriage, but through observing many who practice (or aspire to) it I have come to suspect that I understand marriage better than most. I also like to think of myself as a student of metaphors.
The more important a metaphor, the stronger and better God has made it. The metaphor of the nature of man is written into our very flesh and bones. That of light and truth, less powerfully so. Marriage, however, is written both in our bodies, and in our minds, and in all living creatures. Marriage is a draught so potent that the mere smell of it may overpower the strongest of men. It undoes the sinews and caulk of the mind and spirit. It reforms a man and a woman into something stranger and stronger than they were.
Why is marriage so important?
Marriage is the metaphor for the meaning of Life the Universe and Everything. Mankind was designed, destined, concieved, created, trained, and redeemed for one purpose, to be the Bride of Christ. There is no greater purpose, no higher meaning than this. It is the means through which God conveys our menaing.
It is for this reason that marriage (or the unwilling lack therof) is the chief source of grief and pain in the world. One can not mar a stone as one can mar a tree. One can not mar a tree as one can mar an animal. One can not mar an animal, as one can mar a man, nor can anything be cruelly touched as a woman. The perfection of marriage is what enables its corruption.
Therefore, I implore the wed and the unwed, beware lest you distort God’s words, written in your actions.
For many fail at noble things.
Would you care to elaborate on: “The perfection of marriage is what enables its corruption.”?
… while I try to stop laughing.
The preceeding few sentences are the neccecary context. Something can not be very bad, unless it was very good to begin with. Thus marriage, a very good thing, has the potential to be a very bad thing.
Right, but the only reason it has the potential to be a very bad thing is because of the supreme idiocy and sinful nature of Man. You can’t say that “marriage is the chief source of grief and pain in the world”, or “The perfection of marriage is what enables its corruption”, because it’s not marriage that’s at fault, it’s stupid and sinful people.
And yet, by that token, the ONLY source of grief, pain, or corruption of any kind is stupid, sinful people. Saying that proves nothing; it’s almost a tautology. However, there are things in the world that can be corrupted more than others, or that, in their corruption, can cause more pain or grief. Ziggy’s point was not to say that marriage itself causes grief, but that the corruption of marriage causes grief. The fact that it was corrupted by a sinful being is a given, the point was that the corruption of marriage has the potential to cause more grief than the corruption of, say, a single person, for example. Think of it this way: what hurts a married man worse, his boss being a jerk, or his wife leaving him? Both were actions performed by “stupid, sinful people,” and yet the corruption of his marriage hurt him worse than the corruption of his work environment.
Then he should’ve said that instead.
Pingback: Isqua Istari » Biblical Roles of Husbands and Wives