The BIG issues...

with Bishop Jentile

It's a pleasure to be part of the family that seeks to praise the Lord. When I was approached by the editor-in- chief of LET'S PRAISE magazine, Ponko Ka Masiba to be its columnist, I affirmed.
We will deal with different issues that are pertinent to our daily lives. Issues that would position ourselves in a state of being mentally, psychologically, physically and financially fit to be a fully fledged being. This month we begin with a thorny issue of Marriage



The Lets Praise website does not contain all the pages of the magazine. SUBSCRIBE
to enjoy them all.




Marriage is a covenant of belonging

MARRIAGE was intended to be a covenant in which two people belong together. God, in a way we do not fully understand, enters into the marriage covenant and blesses it.
The presence of God nullifies marriage as a "contract for happiness" but as a "covenant of belonging". It results in something better than happiness: maturity, intimacy and the birth of real love. Commitment is an often-heard word today, but covenant is more relevant to marital success. When commitment breaks down, the marriage covenant, like huge divine hands, holds a couple together when they can no longer hold each other.

We were designed to be caught by the covenant when commitment wears thin. During such times, when we have trouble keeping our vows, our vows keep us (Paul Stevens 1990:8). The presence of God makes marriage a covenant, for He understands the permanence if this union better than we do. For God, the marriage covenant fulfi ls his purpose for marriage. There are three things that God accomplishes through marriage that he created us for and with.

(1) Sex: We are created with the longing for the other sex, not merely to satisfy the sex drive but also to fulfil an appetite for intimacy. We need to be in the lasting environment with someone. Short term disposable relationship cannot satisfy this desire. Intimacy is a fruit of lifetime of belonging to another person.

(2) Growth: We are created to grow and marriage is an invitation to grow up. Being in marriage, you position yourself in a state of being mentally, psychologically, physically and financially fit to be a parent to somebody. Being a parent means you cease being a child and accept adult responsibility. This demands growth.

(3) Love: We are created to love, and marriage is a great place to learn to love. To love is to put your partner's needs before your own. To love is to make an unconditional commitment to an imperfect human being. Many people marry to be loved not to love.

Leaving and cleaving
Marriage is for those people who carry it out in God's context, and His context for marriage is permanence. There are three principles, which can be applicable in all cultures, religious groups and ethnicities, of marriage. These principles are found in the book of Genesis 2:24 "for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and they will become one flesh".
Notice the words "Leave" (public part), "Cleave" (personal part), and "One flesh" (private part).





Principle one: You must be ready to leave home. Leaving is symbolized by wedding day, the public celebration. Leaving home is more than transferring residence. It involves transferring one's primary human loyalty from the family of origin to a newly created family. You leave emotionally and physically. It is noteworthy, that before the "cleaving", there is "leaving". By the way, the man is not told to join to his wife's family but to join his wife.

Principle two: Cleaving means the joining of two people in a friendship that will extend throughout their lives. Marriage as God intends it, involves leaving and cleaving. Sometimes the English word "cleave" means to divide or split. But in Genesis 2:24, the opposite is meant: to adhere, to stick, to be attached by strong tie.
It is a verb, and it involves determined action to stay with somebody, out of deep love and commitment.

Principle three: One flesh is when the couple expresses with their bodies the reality of leaving and cleaving. This is about giving and receiving; joining and responding. This is emotional; this is intellectual; this is about love and care and attention. And - only as we leave and cleave and develop closeness in all these other ways - can there be the kind of physical union that's right, ideal and nourishing. The Bible teaches one man and one woman for life with only one exception (Matt. 19:9). The two become one flesh and adultery breaks this bond. The abiding absence of any of the above means there is no covenant at all.