8) Wisdom in relationships

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As Christianity became a more formalised religion, there was a change of emphasis from relationships with one another to religious routines. The cultivating of loving and accountable friendships was replaced by forms of worship in which only the individual and God became the focus. Thus, the church slowly changed from the shared friendships and possessions of Acts chapter 2 into denominations with special buildings and worship services. If you were to read again the Sermon on the Mount, it becomes obvious that there is nothing there about buildings and services! Jesus was giving wisdom about building relationships: relationships of holiness to God; and relationships of love to others. Does this mean we should abandon buildings and formalities and get back to informal relationship building? Well, that might certainly rejuvenate the real heart of the Christian faith. But realistically humans crave order and organisation so even with informal meetings, structure in some form would eventually begin to appear.

friendships

If we gloss over the basic Christian calling to create and maintain friendships, then we shall miss the rich wisdom which the gospel brings to them. Take for instance The Lord’s Prayer: Jesus said we should go into a private room and close the door to pray using ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ as a guideline. Formal Christianity has made this prayer into one for people to recite together rather than use alone and in private. The Sermon on the Mount is packed with advice about creating and maintaining friendships: forgiving one another, turning the other cheek, not judging in self-righteousness, treating others as we would like them to treat us; and perhaps most significantly, not making a religious display of our faith. Jesus said:

Be careful not to practise your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. (Matthew 6:1)

This is the drawback of organised religion.

Practically speaking, we have to work in the system of churches we have at present. However, it is always good to reflect on the simplicity of the way the first Christians lived:

Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts (Acts 2:46)

This was meeting together for friendship and managing one another’s needs. It was not a display of religiosity! They had no formal Holy Communion services then, but remembered the Lord’s death by breaking bread as part of a meal with fellow Christians. It is good to challenge forms of Christianity in which it is possible to attend a church service and never speak to or be spoken to by a single person. The first church would not have recognised this as the gospel in action.

family

In this exposition, I would like to spend some time looking at wisdom for marriage and family. Most people recognise that the family is the building block of successful and healthy societies. In the West, the family is under pressure if not under attack. There are more than enough studies and statistics to demonstrate why successful family life creates successful societies. I will not list any here as this is a biblical treatise. However, marriage and family were created in God’s wisdom for us. The world tries to make out that these are optional. But if we observe the various signposts of social disintegration, we can easily trace the faults to the unravelling of the family.

The importance of family was the first social revelation to Adam, and it was endorsed by Jesus:

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24)

The ‘one flesh’ is an expression of the sexual uniting of husband and wife; from this union, children and family are created. It is one man and one woman. There are many instances of polygamy in the bible with men having several wives. This was not God’s primary wisdom for humans, but it was tolerated as acceptable if there was no adultery. But monogamy was God’s best, and this is why the Christian faith has always maintained that marriage is between one man and one woman.

honour

In the marriage service in the original Book of Common Prayer, it is taught that marriage is important to prevent fornication. Fornication or sexual immorality is considered to be any kind of sexual relationship outside of the marriage bond and vows made between a man and woman. This was made clear by Jesus and reinforced on many occasions in the bible such as this instance:

Marriage should be honoured by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. (Hebrews 13:4)

Sexual sin is not to be trivialised. The easy availability of contraception (which has its place in the modern world), and perhaps more controversially abortion, has led to compromise on this teaching. The euphemism ‘living together’ has now also been adopted as a lifestyle by some professing Christians. It is a compromise which even gets approval from some churches! The bible does not just forbid adultery (as for instance in the Ten Commandments), but also sexual immorality which by definition includes all other forms of sexual activity. This has not just been a Christian teaching; in Islamic culture, pre-marital relationships of any kind between members of the opposite sex are also forbidden.

If we are to follow the bible’s teaching seriously, then we shall have to seek God’s wisdom for us in friendships and relationships between the sexes. This is where we can learn from wise people of the past. Although their wisdom might now be derided by modern people, we can learn wholesomeness from it. Gila Manolson has written about what can be learnt from the Jewish principle of 'cherishing touch'. Judaism has a radical approach to handling pre-marital relationships and it works brilliantly. Christians will benefit tremendously from following these guidelines.

rules

‘Cherishing touch’ essentially means no physical contact of any kind before marriage. Gila writes:

“The most powerful expression of touch is obviously sex. You can maintain more objectivity, filter out undesirable people, and be more likely to know if what you’re feeling is real love if you avoid sex before marriage. And that is a tenet of Christianity as well. But beyond that, let me suggest the following: in your relationship, don’t touch for the first month. With every date that you don’t get physical, you’ll be doubling your chances of knowing if you’re with the right person. And when you do touch, it will be more likely to express the beginnings of a genuine spiritual bond, something that can last. True love requires focusing on, appreciating, admiring, and respecting the other person. It’s far easier to ascertain if this is what you’re experiencing when touch isn’t in the picture. When you don’t get physically involved, you’re more likely to know if what you’re feeling is the beginning of genuine love for the other person - the basis of an enduring relationship.”

Using wise guidelines such as these does not remove the need for God’s grace in our lives. Grace through the presence of the Holy Spirit is what enables us to live in holiness. Rules by themselves are not grace. Rules can easily become a means of trying to impress others by a show of personal religious devotion. Paul wrote this about it:

These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. (Colossians 2:22-23)

Wise rules in our lives are an aid when learning to live in grace. It is only the Spirit who can produce holiness in us.

Dr Nancy Moore Clatworthy spent 10 years studying unmarried couples living together. In her research which involved testing hundreds of couples, married and unmarried, she found that living together does not solve problems in the areas of adjustment, happiness, and respect between partners. Those who lived together before marriage disagreed more often in every area. Concerning commitment, unmarried couples are less than wholehearted in working to sustain and to protect their relationship – knowing it is temporary – resulting in 75% breaking up. Women and any children are specially affected. She concluded that statistically you’re much better off marrying than living together.

personal

The bible gives us wisdom for our inter-personal relationships too. This advice from Paul may seem obvious but it deserves attention:

Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity (1 Timothy 5:1-2)

It was advice written to Timothy who was a younger man. Those older than us deserve respect for their years. Using one’s parents as a measure of how to deal with people may not mean as much to us as it did to those in the first century. Veneration and deference are two qualities which have become despised because the world eulogises youth and beauty. Christians ought to rediscover these virtues which enable the creation of healthy friendships and community. For a younger man like Timothy to be exhorted to treat younger women as sisters is good advice. It is a way to avoid any sexual element in such relationships and the dangers this could give rise to.

Perhaps the biggest thing to note about this advice is that it is based on the family – fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters! It enthrones God’s wisdom for us in creating the family to enable social stability. Along with other secularists, it is notable that Karl Marx in his writings on Communism opposed the family. The fact that family is based on a monogamous relationship in fact creates protection for women and children. As some writers have now come to acknowledge, what has been called the ’Sexual Revolution’ of the past 60 years has not benefited women but men. The encouragement of casual sexual relationships has undermined human flourishing. This has been made clear by the growing body of information showing that children have the best life outcomes when brought up by their biological mother and father and especially if they are married.

gender

In the beginning, it was the Creator’s wisdom to make the human race in this way:

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. (Genesis 1:27-28)

God made us in His image. He also created us male and female with the intention of procreation through monogamous sexual relationships. The primary purpose of sex is procreation. The bonding that comes with a loving sexual relationship is also extremely important; but primarily, being ‘fruitful’ through procreation is the biological purpose of sex. The ‘Sexual Revolution’ has introduced an element into this which was unintended in God’s wisdom: that is, the seeking of pleasure as an end in itself. Sexual intimacy in monogamous marriage produces loving, lifelong, committed relationships – a good outcome from a wise God.

The Sexual Revolution has no doubt served to unravel the relationship between male and female. There have been attempts to say that there are no significant differences between the sexes. The bible teaches that in God’s wisdom, difference is important. Here is an Old Testament indication:

A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the Lord your God detests anyone who does this. (Deuteronomy 22:5)

The point here is that men and women should maintain a difference in their appearance. How this is achieved will depend upon the culture in which people live. Blurring this difference will lead to outcomes that undermine complementary harmony. The first part of 1 Corinthians 11 is a difficult New Testament passage to interpret. However, the importance of gender distinction is an emphasis that is being made, as Paul writes:

Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For long hair is given to her as a covering. (1 Corinthians 11:13-15)

The exact meaning of this within the social context in which it was written is unknown. However, it does imply that men and women should not deliberately blur gender distinction.

complementary

Men and women were created to be biologically complementary for procreation and the raising of a family. This is also true psychologically: the differences in thinking and emotion between men and women can work together to benefit not just their family but everyone. This complementary harmony will develop in a marriage relationship where there is mutual respect and love. John Chysostom was a famous preacher who suggested the following wisdom for married couples. He emphasised that the man should have a positive and respectful attitude towards his wife:

“Your wife is a free woman, not a slave … Never call her simply by her name, but with terms of endearment, with honour, with much love. Honour her, and she will not need honour from others; she will not want the glory that comes from others, if she enjoys that which comes from you. Prefer her before all, on every account, both for her beauty and her discernment and praise her … and all good things will flow from this.”

Human complementarity is also found in the gifts we all have. It is most richly expressed in what Paul calls ‘The Body of Christ’:

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. (1 Corinthians 12:27)

The church of Jesus is here viewed as His Body. As the human body has many different parts, and the whole body needs each part to work well to flourish, so it is with Christ’s spiritual Body. We each have gifts; we all have a vital place; no one is redundant or to be despised. Creating these working relationships is one of the skills of wise leaders. But above all, the Church of Jesus is loved by Him. This is why the relationship between Jesus and His Church is likened to the sanctity of marriage in this way:

Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives (Ephesians 5:25-28)

Christ is the Bridegroom, and His Church is the Bride. Both will be united in relationship for ever at the ‘Marriage Supper of the Lamb’ (Revelation 19:9).