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The Purpose and Power or Love and Marriage by Myles Munroe Ebook

The greatest source of human joy and pain is found in the drama of love and relationships. Marriage has always been the most common context for this drama. Today, many question the viability and validity of marriage and openly wonder if it should continue to be esteemed as the bedrock of modern social development.

The epidemic and explosive rise of the divorce rate adds further fuel to the fear, hopelessness, disillusionment, and despair people feel with regard to marriage. Many are skeptical and question their chances at success in marriage. The situation is so serious that some have opted for co-habitation without any formal contract or legal agreement, with the understanding that no commitment is involved—no strings attached. In essence, we are producing a generation whose appreciation and respect for the institution of marriage is disintegrating.

Many victims of these failed marriages and divorced families develop resentment and suppressed anger, which manifest themselves in a generational transfer of broken relationships and emotional dysfunction. Because of the fear of failure, some have plainly stated that they neither believe in marriage nor intend ever to marry. The negative press given to high profile individuals in sports, entertainment, politics and, sadly, the church, whose marriages have also fallen victim to the demise of relationships, has not helped. It has served only to further erode the respect, confidence and the high position the marriage institution once held in the social structure of our communities.

Where is this all headed? Where do we go from here? Will the institution of marriage survive the onslaught of negative reports, horror stories, and the proponents of radical society change who promote the idea that marriage has outlived its usefulness and value to human society?

I am curious: If we do away with the traditional institution of marriage, what will we replace it with? What more effective and efficient arrangement could we find to secure the level of commitment, loyalty, support, sense of community, and love necessary to meet the basic needs of the human spirit, needs such as love, a sense of belonging and importance, security and mutual respect? Over the past six thousand years no civilization or culture has produced a better concept for orderly social development than that of the traditional institution of marriage. Every society and culture has recognized an instinctive desire and need for a formal arrangement for the healthy development of families.

It is my belief that no matter how advanced man may become in science, technology, systems, and knowledge, he can never improve on the foundational precepts of marriage as the bedrock of social development. It is my conviction that marriage is such a good idea, only God could have thought of it.

In spite of the many failed marriages, broken homes, divorce cases and disillusioned products of failed relationships, marriage is still a good idea. In fact, it is the best idea.

PART ONE

Understanding Love™

Marriage, Still a Great Idea

Chapter One

Marriage Is Like a Precious Gem

A lot of people are confused about marriage these days. In the eyes of many, the institution of marriage has become irrelevant, an archaic relic of a simpler and more naive time. They question whether marriage is still a good idea, particularly in today’s more “liberated” and “enlightened” culture. Concepts such as honor, trust, faithfulness, and commitment seem old-fashioned and out of touch with modern society. Many people change partners as easily as they change shoes (and almost as frequently!).

This confusion over marriage should not surprise us, considering the bewildering barrage of worldly attitudes and philosophies that hits us at every turn. Every day books, magazines, movies, and television soap operas, sitcoms, and prime-time dramas bombard us with images of wives cheating on their husbands and husbands cheating on their wives. Unmarried men and women hop into bed with each other at the drop of a hat, and just as quickly hop out again to find their next partner.

People today shop for relationships the way they shop for clothes. They “try something on for size,” and if it does not fit they simply try something else. When they find something that suits them they wear it for awhile until it fades or goes out of style. Then they throw it out or hang it up in the back of their closet and rush out to replace it.

We live in a disposable, “cast-off-and-throw-away” society that has largely lost any real sense of permanence. Ours is a world of expiration dates, limited shelf life, and planned obsolescence. Nothing is absolute. Truth exists only in the eye of the beholder and morality is the whim of the moment. In such an environment, is it any wonder that people ask, “Doesn’t anything last anymore? Isn’t there something I can depend on?”

One major symptom of a sick society is when we attach to our human relationships the same attitude of impersonal transience that we display toward the inanimate and disposable items that we use in everyday life. Marriage is the deepest and most intimate of all human relationships, yet even it is under assault. Is marriage still viable in modern society? Does it still make sense in our transitory world? Is marriage still a good idea?

Marriage Is God’s Idea

The answer is yes. Marriage is still a good idea because it is God’s idea. He created it. He designed it. He established it and defined its parameters. Contrary to much contemporary thought and teaching, marriage is not a human concept. Mankind did not simply dream up marriage somewhere along the line as a convenient way of handling relationships and responsibilities between men and women or dealing with childbearing and parenting issues. Marriage is of divine origin.

Marriage is still a good idea because it is GOD’S idea.

God Himself instituted and ordained marriage at the very beginning of human history. The second chapter of Genesis describes how God, taking a rib from the side of the man He had already created, fashioned from it a woman to be a “suitable helper” (Gen. 2:20) for the man. Then God brought the man and the woman together and confirmed their relationship as husband and wife, thereby ordaining the institution of marriage.

From the outset, God established marriage as a permanent relationship, the union of two separate people—a man and a woman—into “one flesh.” When Adam first laid eyes on Eve he exclaimed, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man” (Gen. 2:23, emphasis added). God’s design for marriage is found in the very next verse: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24).

“One flesh” is not simply the “gluing” of two people together but rather the “fusion” of two distinct elements into one. If I glue two pieces of wood together, they are bonded but not fused. They remain two separate pieces of wood, and sufficient heat or pressure will break the bond. In the world of chemistry, different elements are linked to each other by chemical bonds that allow them to work together in a particular manner. If that bond is broken, those elements are released and go their separate ways.

It is different with fusion. When two elements are fused into one they become inseparable. A force of sufficient magnitude may destroy them, but it can never disjoin them. A man and a woman who have become “one flesh” under God’s design for marriage cannot be separated without suffering great damage or even destruction. It would be the spiritual equivalent of having an arm or a leg torn from their bodies.

When God ordained that the man and the woman should “become one flesh” He plainly had a permanent, lifelong relationship in mind. Jesus, the great Jewish rabbi and teacher, made this abundantly clear during a discussion with some Pharisees over the question of divorce. The Pharisees asked Jesus if it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife, pointing out that Moses had permitted it in the law.

“It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’

‘For this reason a man will leave his father