Two Become One

Scripture Texts: Genesis 2; Matthew 19:3-6; Ephesians 5:28-33

Have you ever been working with duct tape and have it stick to itself? If you have then you know the challenge that exists in trying to separate the tape. If you are like many people you simply discard the current piece and get a new one. The other option is to go through the painstaking task of separating the two pieces. It can be done, however when the pieces are apart neither one of them is whole.

It is stated in Genesis, repeated by Jesus in Matthew, and Paul offers the reminder to the church in Ephesus, when a man and woman are joined in marriage they are no longer two but one, "A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one." Ephesians 5:31. The two lives are joined together in a bond much stronger than even the strongest duct tape, and separating them is not only difficult and painful but neither person is whole afterward.

Some marriages seem to be lived in a way that is working to pull the tape apart rather than working to live in the oneness that God has blessed in their marriage. Ephesians offers some helpful ways to live a marriage in a way that celebrates the unity found in God. Step one, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ (Eph. 5:21). Next steps, wives submit to your husbands and husbands love your wife as Christ loves the church.

For those who are still reading, this is where many in the current American culture go a little squirrelly. The idea of submission is not one we really like. It requires that we go outside our own individual will and think about the other person more than ourselves. Even more challenging is to think that we might have to submit our hopes, dreams and desires to Christ who might have different hopes dreams and desires for us, and for our marriage. Yet that is the key, the two become one flesh that is joined together by God, and is submitted to God through Jesus Christ. Rather than thinking about "I" in marriage it is essential to always thing about "us".