"There is a very
meaningful statement about marriage in the Bible. It is simple and clear and
yet very deep.
"It is like a deep
well, filled with clear drinking water. You can lower your pail into it as long
as you live, and it will never come up empty. You will always draw clear and
fresh water.
"If we listen to this
statement with an open heart, we will discover that God, Himself, is speaking
to us. He speaks as one who wants to help us. He speaks as one who wants to
direct and challenge us. But above all He speaks as one who wants to offer us
something.
"It is the only
statement about marriage which is repeated four times in the Bible. The Bible
does not speak very often about marriage. Therefore, it is all the more
striking that this statement appears four times in very decisive places. First,
it sums up the story of creation in the second chapter of Genesis. Then, Jesus
quotes this statement in Matthew 19:5 and Mark 10:7, after he is asked about
divorce. Finally, the Apostle Paul relates it directly to Jesus Christ in
Ephesians 5:31.
"This statement was
written about a time which was, in many respects, similar to ours. It was a
time of rapid social change ..."
Thus far Daniel had
interpreted my lecture sentence by sentence, without hesitation and almost
without reflection. It was as if 1 heard myself speaking in mother tongue. But
when 1 used the term "rapid social change" he hesitated for the first
time and went into a longer explanation. I continued and tried to describe the
time of David and Solomon.
"New trade routes were
opening up. Foreign cultures came into contact with each other. New ideas
influenced people.
Old traditions were no
longer practiced. Age‑old customs suddenly appeared out of date. Tribes
were broken up. Taboos were destroyed It was a time of complete moral
confusion. Everything was plowed‑up just as today. Therefore, 1 believe
that this statement can serve as a guide for us during these next days. I would like to read it to you now from
Genesis 2:24."
1
Up to this point I had had
no reaction from my listeners. But now they started to open their Bibles which
many of them had on their lips. I waited a few moments and then read:
"'Therefore a man
leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, they become one flesh."'
As I read it, I was again
struck by the simplicity and clarity of this verse. I felt that something was
placed in my hands, something to pass on. 1 continued:
"This verse has three
parts. It mentions three things that are essential to marriage: to leave, to
cleave, and to become one flesh. Let us take up one after the other. First of
all let us talk about
Leaving
"There can be no
marriage without leaving, The word 'leaving indicates that a public and legal
act has to take place in order to make marriage a marriage.
"In former times, when
the bride left her village for the village of her husband, it was a public
procedure.
"Sometimes in Africa, the whole wedding party dances, often
for many miles, from the village of the bride to the village of the bridegroom.
There is nothing secret about it. This public act of leaving mikes marriage
legal at the same time. From that day on, everyone knows, these two are husband
and wife, they arc under 'wedlock.'
"In our day, this legal
act of leaving is replaced in many countries by a public announcement before
the wedding, as well as by an official marriage license. The outward form is
not of primary importance, but what is important is the fact that a public and
legal action takes place.
‑"'Therefore a
man leaves his father and his mother.' Marriage concerns more than just the two
persons who are getting married. Father and mother stand for the family, who
are in turn a part of the community and of the state. Marriage is never a
private affair. There is no marriage without a wedding. This is why weddings
are often celebrated by a great feast.
“’Leaves his father and his
mother’ When I pronounce these words, you will feel a pain in your heart. This
is certainly not something joyful. Where I come from, tears are often shed when
a wedding takes place."
There was a nodding of
heads, especially among the older women. Half out loud, one said, "it's
the same here."
"You would expect that
the teaching about marriage begins with something more joyful and beautiful. But
the Bible is very down to earth and sober It says, 'A man leaves his father and
his mother.' Leaving is the price of happiness. There must be a clean and dear
cut. just as a newborn baby cannot grow up unless the umbilical cord is cut,
just so marriage cannot grow up and develop so long as no real leaving, no
clear separation from ones family, takes place.
"I say, this is hard.
It is hard for the children to leave their parents. But it is just as hard for
the parents to let their children go.
"Parents can be
compared to hens who hatch out ducks' eggs. After they are hatched, the
ducklings walk to the pond and swim away. But the hens cannot follow them. They
stay on the banks of the pond and cackle."
Even before Daniel had
translated the last sentence, there was some laughter in the audience. But it
came mostly from the young people.
“You can't get married
without leaving," I repeated. "if no real leaving takes place, the
marriage will be in trouble. If the young couple have no chance to start their
own home, completely separate from their families, the danger is great that the
in‑laws will interfere continuously.
In Africa, the custom of bride price is sometimes
used as such a means of interference. Some parents, who do not want to let
their daughter go, raise the bride price so high that the young couple remains
in debt for a long time. These debts are then used to prevent a real
leaving."
There was complete silence
in the church now. In that silence I could feel some resistance. I could read
in their faces that they were not able to accept this. Evidently this matter of
‘leaving' was a bitter pill for them to swallow. So I explained
"Now, some of you may
say! 'This is against our African traditions. We are taught to love our
parents, not to leave them. We feel an obligation not only to the small family
or as it is sometimes called, the intimate family, which is made up of father,
mother, and children. We also feel an obligation to the greater family, the
extended family, which takes in all our relatives.’
"This is a very
valuable tradition, which by no means should be destroyed. Yet my answer is
that 'leaving' does not mean to leave in the lurch. Leaving does not mean to
abandon one's parents.
"On the contrary, only
if a couple are given the chance to leave and to start their own home will they
be able to help their respective families later on. Only if they are
independent and without debt will they be able to take responsibility for them
later on and serve them. The fact that they were able to 'leave' creates a
breathing spell in which the love between parents and children can grow and
prosper. In my experience, the extended family can function only so long as the
nuclear family is intact and healthily independent.
"Is this a Western
concept of marriage? It is not. I have not come to you in order to present the
Western concept of marriage. I have come to present the biblical concept of
marriage. This biblical concept presents a challenge to all cultures.
"Everyone has trouble
with 'leaving,' If you ask a Western marriage counselor which problem he has
most frequently to deal with, he will probably answer, 'With the mother‑in‑law
problem.",
'There was laughter again,
the same kind of laughter and smiles which the mere mentioning of this word
causes also in American and European audiences. I continued:
"In America and Europe,
it is usually the mother of the
husband who interferes. She just can't believe that this young girt whom he
married is able to take care of her precious son. Will she be able to wash his
shifts right? Will she know how much salt he likes in his soup? Even if there
is no bride price to pay, money is often used as a means to keep the young
couple dependent and to force them to live in the same house or even apartment
with one of their parents.
“Real leaving and real
letting go -- not only outwardly, but also inwardly ‑ is difficult for
everyone. In Africa, I have heard it is more often the mother of the wife who
causes trouble. In case of a marriage quarrel, the. young wife tries to run
home to her mother.
"So one of my African
friends has claimed that this Bible verse should stipulate expressly that a
woman shall also leave her father and her mother. Why do
African women run home so frequently? The answer is, because the woman has left
her family, while her husband has not. In your country, the man stays in his
home, or close to his home, and his wife has to join him there.
"The man who wrote our
verse lived in the same kind of society. There it was a matter, of course, that
the woman had to leave and become a member of her husband's clan. The
unheard‑of and revolutionary message was that the man also had to leave
his family. This must have hurt the ears of the male listeners at that time as
much as it may hurt your ears today.
"It protects the women's rights. It aims toward
partnership between husband and wife. The message is, in other words: Both have
to leave, not only the wife, but also the husband. And just as both have to
leave, so also must both cleave – not only the wife to the husband, but also
the husband to the wife, as our Bible verse expressly states.
"This leads us to the second part:
Cleaving
"Leaving and cleaving
belong together. One describes more the public and legal aspect of marriage,
the other more the personal aspect. They are intertwined. You cannot really
cleave, unless you have left. You cannot really leave, unless you have decided
to cleave.
"The literal sense of
the Hebrew word for 'to cleave' is to stick to, to paste, to be glued to a
person. Husband and wife are glued together like two pieces of paper, if you
try to separate two pieces of paper which are glued together, you tear them
both. If you try to separate husband and wife who cleave together, both are
hurt ‑ and in case they have children, the children is well.
"Divorce means to take
a saw and to saw apart each child, from head to toe, right through the
middle."
A dead silence fell upon the
audience.
"Another consequence of
this being glued together is that husband and wife are closest to each other,
closer than to anything else and to anyone else in the world,
"Closer than to anything else. It is more important
than the husband's work or profession, more important than the wife's house
clearing and cooking, or, in case she works, than her profession.
"Closer than to anyone
else. It is more important than the husband's friends or the wife's friends,
more important than visitors and guests, even more important than the children.
"When I come home from
a trip, I always make it a point to embrace my wile first, before embracing
my children. I want to show the children also in this way that father is
closest to mother and mother is closest to father.
"Very often, adultery occurs in a young marriage
after the first baby is born. Why? The young wife makes the mistake of becoming
closer to her baby than to her husband. The baby becomes the center of her
life, which makes the husband feel like an outsider."
From the men's side at least
came nodding smiles, showing that they were wholeheartedly in agreement.
"To cleave' in this
deep sense," I continued, "being glued together, is, of course, only
possible between two persons. Our Bible verse was worded purposely as an attack
against the polygamy of David and Solomon. It states, 'Therefore a man ... cleaves
to his wife."
"'This verse also
strikes out against divorce which makes a successive polygamy possible, where
one man does not have several wives at
the same time, but one after the other.
"Perhaps we would use
another word today in place of 'to cleave.' We would no doubt use the word 'to
love.' But it is interesting that the Bible does not use this word here.
"Cleaving means love,
but love of a special kind. It is love which has made a decision and which is
no longer a groping and seeking love. Love which cleaves is mature love, love
which has decided to remain faithful ‑ faithful to one person - and to
share with this one person one's whole life.
"'This leads us to the
third part of out verse:
Becoming
One Flesh
"This expression describes the physical aspect
of marriage."
I remembered that Daniel had
cautioned me to be careful about using the word 'sex.'
"'This physical aspect
is as essential for marriage as the legal and personal aspect. The physical
union between husband and wife is as much within God's will for marriage as is
the leaving of the parents and the cleaving to each other.
"I know that some
people are embarrassed to talk about the physical aspect of marriage. They feel
that it is something unholy, maybe even indecent, something which has nothing
to do with God. I would like to ask these people the same questions which the
Apostle Paul asked the church in Corinth:
'Don't you know that your
body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?' And so, we can talk about it. We must
talk about it, even in church, I might even ask: Where else could we talk about
it, reverently and respectfully, if not in church?"
The silence continued. I
realized that these thoughts were completely new for many. .
"You say, 'It is
against our African tradition to talk about the things of the body. These
things are taboo for us.'
"But it is very
strange. If I talk to parents in Africa and advise them to reach their children
these functions of the body, they say, 'American and European parents may be
able to do that, because these things are more natural to them. For Africans,
this is impossible.' However when I talk to American and European parents, they
say to me, 'Mr. Trobisch, you lived too long in Africa. The people in Africa
are closer to nature. They may he able to do this, but for us it is
impossible.'
"It is my experience
that the embarrassment is worldwide. Parents find it difficult the world over
to give their children a proper education about the physical aspects of
marriage. The reason is that it has either been considered as something so holy
that it cannot even he pronounced, or so unholy that one is ashamed to mention
it. The Bible refutes both positions. It says. It belongs to God and therefore
we can, we must talk about it. 'The physical union of husband and wife is as
dear and as near to God as is their faithfulness and the legality of theii
marriage.
"Of course, 'to become
one flesh' means much more than just the physical union. It means that two
persons share everything they have, not only their bodies, not only their
material possessions, but also their thinking and their feeling, their joy and
their suffering, their hopes and their fears, their successes and their
failures. "To become
one flesh' means that two persons become completely one with body, soul, and
spirit, and yet there remains two
different persons.
===
To read the rest of story (162
pages long), please purchase the
book at the www.quietwaterspub.com
or at any other stores that sell the book. I can assure you that your life
will be greatly enriched by the deep insight into Genesis 2:24 shared by the
author. The book is copyrighted and thus we shared only a portion of the book
(from page 20-27) with the publisher's permission to let
you know what a book it is ....
Richard Yim,
webservant of
http://www.newlifeforum.us
