Marriage and Family: A Biblical Perspective
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About this ebook
Marriage and Family: A Biblical Perspective explores the biblical principles and precepts—rules for living—that are the basis for the practical aspects of being married and raising a family. Along the way it does discuss a few “do this/don’t do that” rules.
Beginning with Adam and Eve, the book presents God’s definition of marriage, what Jesus said about marriage, and clearly defines what marriage is and is not, in terms of how modern society views marriage. The biblical rules for sexual activity, friendship, dating, and courting are discussed. God’s rules for being married and practicing parenting are presented in clear, easy-to-understand terms. God’s view of divorce is thoroughly examined. Seven appendices repeat the rules (without the discussion) and answer questions on related issues.
Anyone may read the book and profit from it, including Bible teachers and pastors preparing marriage and family classes. If you want to know the biblical view of sex, dating, courtship, marriage, parenting, and divorce Marriage and Family: A Biblical Perspective is the book for you.
James D. Quiggle
James D. Quiggle was born in 1952 at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. He grew up in Kansas and the Texas Panhandle. In the early 1970s he joined the United States Air Force. At his first permanent assignment in Indian Springs, Nevada in a small Baptist church, the pastor introduced him to Jesus and soon after he was saved. Over the next ten years those he met in churches from the East Coast to the West Coast, mature Christian men, poured themselves into mentoring him. In the 1970s he was gifted with the Scofield Bible Course from Moody Bible Institute. As he completed his studies his spiritual gift of teaching became even more apparent. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Bethany Bible College during the 1980s while still in the Air Force. Between 2006–2008, after his career in the Air Force and with his children grown up, he decided to continue his education. He enrolled in Bethany Divinity College and Seminary and earned a Master of Arts in Religion and a Master of Theological Studies.As an extension of his spiritual gift of teaching, he was prompted by the Holy Spirit to begin writing books. James Quiggle is now a Christian author with over fifty commentaries on Bible books and doctrines. He is an editor for the Evangelical Dispensational Quarterly Journal published by Scofield Biblical Institute and Theological Seminary.He continues to write and has a vibrant teaching ministry through social media.
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Marriage and Family - James D. Quiggle
Marriage and Family
BOOKS BY JAMES D. QUIGGLE
DOCTRINAL SERIES
Biblical History
Adam and Eve, a Biography and Theology
Angelology, a True History of Angels
Essays
Biblical Essays
Biblical Essays II
Biblical Essays III
Biblical Essays IV
Marriage and Family
Marriage and Family: A Biblical Perspective
Biblical Homosexuality
A Biblical Response to Same-gender Marriage
Doctrinal and Practical Christianity
First Steps, Becoming a Follower of Jesus Christ
A Christian Catechism (With Christopher McCuin)
Thirty-Six Essentials of the Christian Faith
The Literal Hermeneutic, Explained and Illustrated
The Old Ten In the New Covenant
Christian Living and Doctrine
Counted Worthy (with Linda M. Quiggle)
Spiritual Gifts
Why Christians Should Not Tithe
Dispensational Theology
A Primer On Dispensationalism
Understanding Dispensational Theology
Covenants and Dispensations in the Scripture
Dispensational Eschatology, An Explanation and Defense of the Doctrine
Antichrist, His Genealogy, Kingdom, and Religion
God and Man
God’s Choices, Doctrines of Foreordination, Election, Predestination
God Became Incarnate
Life, Death, Eternity
Did Jesus Go To Hell?
COMMENTARY SERIES
The Old Testament
A Private Commentary on the Bible: Judges
A Private Commentary on the Book of Ruth
A Private Commentary on the Bible: Esther
A Private Commentary on the Bible: Song of Solomon
A Private Commentary on the Bible: Daniel
A Private Commentary on the Bible: Jonah
A Private Commentary on the Bible: Habakkuk
A Private Commentary on the Bible: Haggai
The New Testament
The Gospels
A Private Commentary on the Bible: Matthew’s Gospel
A Private Commentary on the Bible: Mark’s Gospel
A Private Commentary on the Bible: Luke 1–12
A Private Commentary on the Bible: Luke 13–24
A Private Commentary on the Bible: John 1–12
A Private Commentary on the Bible: John 13–21
Four Voices, One Testimony
Jesus Said I Am
The Parables and Miracles of Jesus Christ
The Passion and Resurrection of Jesus the Christ
The Christmas Story, As Told By God
Pauline Letters
A Private Commentary on the Bible: Galatians
A Private Commentary on the Bible: Ephesians
A Private Commentary on the Bible: Philippians
A Private Commentary on the Bible: Colossians
A Private Commentary on the Bible: Thessalonians
A Private Commentary on the Bible: Philemon
A Private Commentary on the Bible: Pastoral Letters
General Letters
A Private Commentary on the Book of Hebrews
A Private Commentary on the Bible: James
A Private Commentary on the Bible: 1 Peter
A Private Commentary on the Bible: 2 Peter
A Private Commentary on the Bible: John’s Epistles
A Private Commentary on the Bible: Jude
Revelation
A Private Commentary on the Bible: Revelation 1–7
REFERENCE SERIES
Dictionary of Doctrinal Words
Translation of Select Bible Books
Old and New Testament Chronology (With David Hollingsworth)
(Also in individual volumes: Old Testament Chronology; New Testament Chronology)
TRACTS
A Human Person: Is the Unborn Life a Person?
Biblical Marriage
How Can I Know I am A Christian?
Now That I am A Christian
Thirty-Six Essentials of the Christian Faith
What is a Pastor? / Why is My Pastor Eating the Sheep?
Principles and Precepts of the Literal Hermeneutic
(All tracts are in digital format and cost $0.99)
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Marriage and Family:
A Biblical Perspective
James D. Quiggle
Copyright Page
Marriage and Family: A Biblical Perspective
Copyright © 2018 James D. Quiggle. All rights reserved.
Parts of this book previously appeared in James D. Quiggle, A Biblical Response to Same-Gender Marriage; Adam and Eve, A Biography and Theology; Biblical Homosexuality; Christian Living and Doctrine.
Bible versions that may be cited or quoted are listed below. The HCSB, KJV, NASB, NKJV, NIV, and YLT were sourced from PC Study Bible®, version 5, release 5.2. Copyright © 1988–2008, by BibleSoft, Inc.
Authorized (King James
) Version (KJV). Public Domain.
Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB), Copyright 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, by Holman Bible Publishers. Scripture quotations marked HCSB are from the Holman Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Holman Christian Standard Bible®, Holman CSB®, and HCSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.
New King James Version® (NKJV). Copyright © 1982, 1983 by Thomas Nelson Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
The Holy Bible: New International Version (NIV), Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.
Young's Literal Translation of the Holy Bible (YLT), by Robert Young, Originally Published In 1862, Edinburgh. Revised Edition 1887. Public Domain.
This digital edition contains the same content as the print edition of this work.
Contents
Preface
What Jesus Said About Marriage
Adam and the WomanError: Reference source not found
Sexual Activity
Friendship, Dating, Courtship
Marriage
Parenting
Divorce
Appendix One: Nine Dating Rules
Appendix Two: Principles and Precepts for Marriage
Appendix Three Understanding Women
Appendix Four: Parenting Principles and Precepts
Appendix Five: When Does A Child’s Life Begin
Appendix Six: Concubinage and Polygyny
Appendix Seven: Same-Gender Marriage
Appendix Eight: Levirate Marriage
Sources
Preface
This book is not intended as a do this/don’t do that
manual for any of the things it discusses (see Contents). There are plenty of those books on the market.
The book is intended to provide the basic biblical background and theology that should guide any marriage, or the teacher of any Church marriage class.
Along the way it does discuss a few do this/don’t do that
rules.
Anyone may read the book and profit from it, including Bible teachers and Pastors. I answer the question, What is the biblical view of sex, dating, courtship, marriage, parenting, and divorce?
What Jesus Said About Marriage
Jesus Said Marriage Is
Jesus described marriage in a conversation with the Pharisees at Matthew 19:4–6 and Mark 10:6–9 (combined below). The Pharisees had asked Jesus (Matthew 19:3; Mark 10:2), Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason?
Jesus answered their question using the pronoun them
to refer to the nouns they had used, man
and wife.
Jesus said,
Have you not read, that God who made them at the beginning of creation, made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall be one-flesh?
So then they are no longer two, but one-flesh. Therefore what God has joined together let not man separate.
When Jesus said, have you not read,
and at the beginning of creation,
he was directing the Pharisees to Genesis 1:26–27 and 2:22–24. At Genesis 1:26–27, God said,
Let us create humankind in our image, according to our likeness . . . So God created humankind . . . in God’s image God created humankind, male and female God created humankind.
The translation may look unfamiliar because I have translated the Hebrew noun ’1adam as humankind,
and replaced the pronouns referring to ’1adam with the noun.
Let us create ’1adam in our image, according to our likeness . . . So God created ’1adam . . . in God’s image God created ’1adam, male and female God created ’1adam.
The Hebrew ’1adam, when not used as a proper name, can mean either humankind or a male member of humankind. At Genesis 1:26–27 the meaning is humankind. God created human beings, ’1adam, to be a race of two genders. First God created the male (2:7), and then he formed the female from the male (2:22). We could expand what Jesus said to read, Have you not read in Genesis, that God who made humankind at the beginning of creation, made humankind male and female.
The Pharisees asked if it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife.
In his reply Jesus used the pronoun them
to refer to the nouns man
and wife
in the Pharisee’s question. We can write Jesus’ reply with the nouns replacing the pronouns.
Have you not read, that God who made man and wife at the beginning of creation, made man and wife male and female?
Jesus then quotes Genesis 2:24, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall be one-flesh,
and draws a conclusion from the verse: So then they are no longer two, but one-flesh.
Notice that in his conclusion Jesus uses another plural pronoun, they.
This pronoun refers to the nouns man
and wife
in the quote from Genesis 2:24. We can again replace the plural pronoun with the nouns: So then man and wife are no longer two, but one-flesh.
Putting it all together, we have Jesus’ complete description of marriage, based on what God created and what God said in the beginning.
Have you not read, that God who made man and wife at the beginning of creation, made man and wife male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall be one-flesh?
So then man and wife are no longer two, but one-flesh. Therefore what God has joined together let not man separate.
Jesus has defined marriage as man and wife,
one male with one female, not man and man
or woman and woman.
Jesus also defined marriage as two,
not man and wives, or wife and husbands. By defining what marriage is, Jesus has defined what marriage is not. Marriage is not a same-gender union. Marriage is not bigamy or polygamy or polyamory or any other variation. Marriage is one man with one woman.
In quoting Genesis 2:24, Jesus also defined marriage as a covenant (a formal agreement having legal validity). God said, and Jesus repeated, a man will be joined
to his wife. The man leaves what has up to then been the most important relationship in his life, that of parent and child (a man shall leave his father and mother
) to form a more important relationship, to be joined to his wife.
In a word, marriage: a covenant relationship in which one man and one woman declare their exclusive loyalty to one another above all others.
In the scripture Jesus is quoting, Genesis 2:24, there are two Hebrew words that indicate Jesus was not wrong when he defined marriage as one man with one woman. In the Hebrew language the word for man is the same word for husband: ish. The Hebrew word for woman is the same word for wife: ishshah. God not only created human kind to be male and female, ish and ishshah, Genesis 1:27, he created male and female to be husband and wife, ish and ishshah, Genesis 2:24. No other relationship meets the biblical definition of marriage, as defined by God in Genesis and by Jesus in his answer to the Pharisees. Whether you believe the creation story is historically true (as I do), or a cultural myth (a story to explain an idea or concept), the same truth is evident: God created two genders—male and female, man and woman, ish and ishshah—and established marriage as a covenant relationship of one man with one woman.
Jesus may have been speaking in Hebrew, or perhaps Aramaic, but the written text of Matthew and Mark is in an ancient dialect of Greek known as Koine, spoken throughout the Greco-Roman world of Jesus’ time. In the Greek texts Jesus did not use the Greek word aner, which translates to man or husband. He used anthropos, a generic term that may be used to indicate the entire human race composed of male and female, or to indicate a specific male or female person, or to indicate a male of the human race.
The immediate context tells us which of these possible translations of anthropos Jesus meant. The Greek word translated wife
is gune (sometimes transliterated gyne). This word is used to indicate a woman, a maiden (i.e., a young virgin woman), or a wife. So, Jesus said (if we may start at the end of the verse), a woman (gune) will be joined to a man (anthropos) who leaves father and mother to join with her in a one-flesh relationship. In context the word anthropos must mean a male member of the human race who joins himself in a covenant relationship with a female member of the human race: she to become his wife, he to become her husband
Conclusion: What Jesus Said
Jesus specifically talked about marriage in a way that defined marriage as a covenant relationship between one male and one female, based on the order of things God created. What Jesus said denies the validity of any other kind of relationship which the world may declare to be marriage. This definition of marriage by Jesus leads to certain conclusions:
Marriage is a covenant designed by God.
Marriage is not conditioned by culture or personal perspective but ordained by God from the beginning and expected to continue until ended by physical death.
Marriage is intended to be between one man and one woman as God biologically created them male and female from conception. Hence, any worldly relationships named marriage
that are not the one man-one woman covenant are outside of God's intended design (Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Romans 1:26–27; 1 Corinthians 6:9–11; 1 Timothy 1:9–10).
Marriage is an exclusive loyalty covenant between one man and woman (the two shall be one-flesh). Friendships, parent-child, sibling, or other similar relationships are not excluded, but the husband-wife relationship takes precedence over all others. (Genesis 1:27, 2:23–24; Malachi 2:14; 1 Corinthians 7:1–16; Ephesians 5:22–33; Hebrews 13:4).
Same-Gender Relationships
As a contrast to what Jesus said, let us look at the newest form of worldly marriage,
the same-gender relationship. The world’s objection is, Jesus didn’t talk about homosexuality.
But let us bear this principle in mind: by defining what was right Jesus identified what was wrong.
It is true that during his earthly ministry (AD 30–33), Jesus did not speak the word homosexual,
nor did he mention it during his discourses. The reason why is sensible and rational. The subject did not come up during his ministry. There was no reason it should have come up. Homosexuality was an issue Jews, and Jesus the Jew, knew about—it was all around them in Gentile culture—but homosexuality was not an issue in Jewish culture.
Undoubtedly there were homosexual Jews, but their impact on Jewish culture and society was negligible. The theologians explained the Levitical prohibitions in their writings on the Torah, but the general rule book of Jewish practices, the Mishnah (compiled 200 BC–AD 200), doesn’t mention the Levitical prohibitions. Homosexuality just wasn’t an issue in Jewish society during the first century AD, when Jesus conducted his public ministry. This also explains why homosexual prohibitions are in Paul’s writings. He was the Apostle to the Gentiles. Homosexuality was a cultural issue in Gentile society, which Jesus addressed through Paul.
How did Jesus interact with the biblical prohibitions concerning homosexuality? We have already seen he defined marriage in a way that excluded counterfeits. In regard