Preparing for Marriage & Enjoying Marriage

By Kenneth Omeje

This book is conceived to help restore the dignity, sanctity, and glory of Christian marriage. It explores the fundamental issues about how Christians can prepare for marriage and also enjoy a happy marriage. Among the key issues addressed in the book include Christian marriage in biblical context, why and how marriage was instituted by God, what to know and do to find a life partner, how to make marriage pressure-free and ones life partner a partner for life, biblical strategies for handling marital disputes, what the Bible says about divorce and remarrying, is it ever too late to get married, etc. It is hoped that the book will help many Christians to gain a better understanding of the institution of marriage and how to access, operate, and enjoy it from the Bibles perspective.

Written with vast spiritual and practical insight, this book is an essential reading for all Christians, theologians, professional marriage counselors, and indeed for everyone interested in understanding and succeeding in marriage.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Jul 31, 2015
• ISBN: 9781514460931

Book preview

Copyright © 2015 by Kenneth Omeje.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-5144-6094-8

                eBook            978-1-5144-6093-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

Scripture quotations marked RSV are taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission.

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Rev. date: 07/29/2015

Xlibris

800-056-3182

www.Xlibrispublishing.co.uk

716931

CONTENTS

Preface

1. Christian Marriage in Biblical Context

2. Why and How Marriage Was Instituted by God

3. What to Know and Do to Find a Life Partner

4. How to Make Marriage Pressure-free and One’s Life Partner a Partner for Life

5. What the Bible Says about Divorce

6. Handling Marital Disputes: Can a Divorced Christian Re-marry without Being in Breach of Scriptures?

7. Is It Ever Too Late to Get Married? Some Concluding Remarks

DEDICATION

To the comfort of all those feeling the pressure to get married or the tension to quit marriage. May this book equip you with the necessary insight to help you achieve your desire of fulfilling destiny in the area of marriage.

PREFACE

THIS BOOK IS specifically designed to help restore the dignity and glory of Christian marriage by addressing key fundamental issues of how Christians can prepare for marriage and what they need to do to enjoy their marriages. The book is a product of the marriage seminar we held in our church, Crown of Christ Gospel Church in Bradford, from the 12th to 14th December 2014. It was a highly stimulating seminar in which a large number of the issues contained in the book were taught and discussed. Both the seminar and the ensuing book have given me the opportunity to address many of the issues I have recurrently encountered in counselling Christians in the area of marriage and also in mediating in the correlated disputes. I am grateful to the Lord who laid it in my heart to organise a seminar on Christian marriage, an event that has consequently culminated in this book.

Like every other specialised human undertaking, marriage requires a great deal of preparation and specialist knowledge, something that many ignorantly take for granted with the result that they struggle through marriage and even become casualties of it. Ironically, many Christian priests and ministers of the gospel do not seem to know better and therefore are not providing their congregants the vital help they need in order to get married and to succeed in marriage. Marriage is intended by God to be enjoyable but Christians need to gain and apply the necessary biblical knowledge to be able to experience and appreciate it. It is hoped that this book will help many Christians to gain a better understanding of the institution of marriage and how to access, operate and enjoy it from the bible’s perspective.

I am pleased to gratefully acknowledge the support of a number of people in writing this book. My first debt of gratitude goes to the administrative secretary of our church and one of my closest confidants Mansford Asante and my longstanding prayer partner Mrs Florence Oyedele for painstakingly reading through the book manuscripts, making invaluable comments and corrections. I am also grateful to my wider family members and friends, especially Iyke and Joy Omeje, Herbert and Gladys Omeje, Beatrice Omeje, Delphine Arinze, and my spiritual mentor Revd D. K. Onuoha, for their constant encouragement, prayers and support. To all the coordinators and leaders of Crown of Christ Gospel Church in Bradford, I say a big thank you for your supplication and encouragement. Aike and Franca Aimufua, Mansford and Abigail Asante, Pastor Samuel and Florence Oyedele, and Sandra Osahon deserve special mention for their apostolic support. To my strongest partner in ministry and wife of many years Ngozi Omeje, and to our three children Rejoicing, Chibia and Ifediche, I convey an eternal debt of gratitude for your simple faith in the calling of God upon my life.

Kenneth Omeje

CHAPTER 1

Christian Marriage in Biblical Context

WE LIVE IN a world where marriage failure statistics have become palpably frightening. Many unmarried young people are frightened from getting married because of the devastating marital experiences of their parents, relatives and friends. Some are cohabiting in civil partnerships short of legally and spiritually certified marriage for fear of the demons of marriage. Ironically, a significant number of civil partnerships work relatively well for many years but as soon as they become solemnised in legal matrimony, all manner of problems begin to set in, ultimately leading to separation and divorce. Something is fundamentally wrong with the foundation of what the modern world calls marriage, including Christian marriage. Nearly one in every two marriages in many western countries, notably in the United States of America – the hub of Pentecostal and Evangelical Christianity – ends up in separation or divorce. Christian marriages, including the marriages of church ministers and pastors are not spared. Of the proportion of surviving marriages, another half of the couples are trapped in structurally fractured relationships and beleaguered homes. These are couples whose marriages are a nightmare; those who do not enjoy their marriages. Some of the marriage unions are just a time bomb waiting to explode. A similar trend of high level of marriage break up is discernible in many other parts of the Christian world, particularly in places where Pentecostal Christianity seems to be fast displacing and replacing other more traditional and conservative forms of the Christian faith. In fact, marriages among Christians in denominations that do not espouse the biblical born-again doctrine, as well as marriages amongst adherents of Judaism, Buddhism, and a number of other oriental religious faiths are on average significantly more stable and durable than the marriages of bible-believing, born-again Christians. The reasons for the high rate of marriage failure among born-again Christians can certainly be anywhere else but not in the biblical fundamentals of born-again Christianity. This book is devoted to addressing the key issues of how to prepare for marriage and also enjoy marriage as a bible-believing Christian. The bible, which believers in Christ regard as the written word of God, adequately provides for all that Christians are required to do to have a blissful and fulfilling marital destiny. The marital destiny of the unmarried Christian who desires marriage is to be married and enjoy their marriage. Similarly, the marital destiny of the married Christian is to remain married, continue happily in marriage and fully enjoy it.

Christian marriage is a state of two persons of opposite sex being joined together as husband and wife. Jesus reminded the Pharisees that in the beginning God made them male and female, and that "for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother