Tom Caldwell - Love, the Bond of Perfection: An Extensive Study of Biblical Passages Pertaining to Marriage and Marriage-Related Issues

LOVE,
The Bond of Perfection

An Extensive Study of Biblical Passages Pertaining to Marriage and Marriage-related issues

By

Tom Caldwell

Copyright 2012 Tom Caldwell

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4497-4808-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-4792-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-4793-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012906736

WestBow Press rev. date: 11/15/2018

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture is taken from New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Other versions cited on a few occasions are:

Passages marked KJV are from the Authorized (King James) Version of the Bible.

Passages marked NASB are Scriptures taken from THE NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Passages marked NIV are Scriptures taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by the International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Scriptures containing words that are bold-face or italics are the authors insertions for purposes of emphasis or instruction.

Tom Caldwell is an ordained Assemblies of God minister and has served as a full-time prison chaplain in Kentucky since 1998. Tom and Kim have been married since 2001; they have two daughters, Emma, born in 2005, and Anna, born in 2007. Tom Caldwell has also written a book entitled Jesus Heals Today .

Contents

Just after the creation of the first woman, God says in Genesis 2:24, Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. Marriage is the first human institution in the Bible. And the institution of marriage is the foundational human relationship in the family unit. So strong marriages are necessary for strong families. And strong families are necessary for a strong society. But it is difficult to have strong families and a strong society when the divorce rate is as high as it is in our country. I have heard people say that marriage is the most difficult part of their lives. This is understandable because each marriage partner is responsible, not only for his or her own level of contentment and peace, but also for meeting certain needs that his or her spouse may have, as well as those of the children. And the difficulties of marriage are compounded if husband and wife are not Christians, or if they are not trained from the Word of God in how to have a loving, victorious marriage and family life. God says in Hosea 4:6a: My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. The destruction that has befallen a high percentage of marriages is due mainly to biblical ignorance and a lack of biblical application. For the married person and for the person anticipating the prospect of marriage in the future, a thorough study of the Word of God pertaining to marriage and related issues is vitally important. That is the purpose of this book. Important topics that are discussed include: What is love, and how does love require sacrifice? How can one sustain positive, romantic feelings for ones spouse year after year? How is meeting certain expectations of ones spouse important to the marriage relationship, and what does Gods love require of a spouse if or when certain expectations are not met? What are the purposes and roles of man and woman, and of husband and wife? What are the main points of Song of Solomon and other biblical passages that focus on marriage, love, parenting, and sexuality? What should singles know about the prospect of marriage? (This includes choosing the right spouse, expectations in marriage, appropriate boundaries with the opposite sex both before and after marriage, and the responsibilities of raising children [note Dt. 6:4; Eph. 6:4]). What does the Word of God say about sexual immorality (including lust, pornography, fornication, adultery, and homosexuality), and how can one avoid these sins?

Marriage is the context for many things, including an intimate male-female relationship, procreation and sexual pleasure within that relationship, the raising of children in the training and admonition of the Lord (Eph. 6:4), faith enhancement, and kingdom-of-God building through corporate Bible study, prayer, ministry, and service (Dt. 6:4-9; Mt. 18:19-20). Moreover, earthly marriage is a type of, or picture of, the ultimate and eternal marriagethat of Christ the Bridegroom to the church, His spotless, beloved bride. Many marriage books deal with just one or a few aspects of marriage. One book might focus on communication, another on honoring ones spouse, and another on meeting the needs of ones spouse. Each of these is an important aspect of marriage, and the advice found in such books, if it agrees with the biblical perspective, can be helpful to any marriage. But the purpose of this book is to be biblically comprehensive when it comes to marriageto offer exposure to a large number and great variety of verses from the Old Testament and New Testament about love, marriage, and related topics. After all, the Bible is Gods holy, inerrant Word for mankind, and it is authoritative and sufficient for the equipping of man and woman to live victoriously in all aspects of life, including marriage. I know this to be true, for I have been a Christian since 1992, when at the age of twenty-four I received Jesus as my Lord and Savior by personal faith in His shed blood on the cross of Calvary and in His bodily resurrection three days later. In this book I have tried to give you, the reader, exposure to and insight on many verses and passages related to marriage and love, and to make them handy for your own further study and frequent review.

I began this writing around June 2010 at the prompting of the Lord. This was not my plan; I was writing on evangelism at the time. So when the Lord impressed this project upon me, my initial vision was to write a booklet, perhaps fifty pages in length, and my initial motive was to obey the Lord as well as to strengthen my own marriage. That initial motive is still the main motive, and my wife, Kim, and I often read portions of this book together as part of our joint devotion time. As I studied and wrote about various passages on love and marriage, more and more passages came to mind. Also, I became even more convinced that I need to pursue expertise on all that the Bible says concerning how to be a godly husband and father, and I need to be a doer of the Word in these matters and not just a hearer (James 1:22). It is my conviction that, in regard to whatever responsibilities and talents the Lord gives a person, that person should pursue excellence. In other words, bloom where you are planted. Colossians 3:23 says it this way: And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men. So if you are married, be married with all your heart! Give your marriage your wholehearted, best effort. And do so as to the Lord, to whom we all must give account.