Marriage and Family: God's Plan A

By Curtis Phillips and Marc Barnes

It is from the Bible that society obtains its most enduring and successful patterns for the tapestries formed by our social fabric. The institution of marriage is no exception. Given to us by God at the very beginning of His creation, marriage was to be the bedrock of all societies; and over the millennia since God first gave Adam and Eve life in the garden of Eden, this bedrock remains essential to His will for mankind. While this book will neither exhaust the topic of biblical marriage nor address every verse of Scripture or nuance in the union of two unique individuals, it will present practical revelation that we pray you find useful in building your marriage, and thereby empowering your family.

Beginning with the biblical foundation of marriage, a foundation unaltered since God ordained it, this book will take you on a journey that will reveal the genius of God's blueprint for marriage and ultimately His manifestation of the gospel in the institution itself. As with all great institutions, marriage and family are God's idea, not mankind's. He is the Creator and Sustainer, and the purposes for which He creates and sustains a marriage are not mysterious--He desires godly offspring. In perpetuating the gospel of Jesus Christ through all generations and around the world, God reveals time and again in His Word that the primary vehicle for the perpetuation of that Gospel (good news) is family.

Just as no person is perfect, no family is perfect. Here, too, in the ashes of divorce, abuse, and failed families, God wishes to show Himself not only capable but eager to restore and heal. We pray you will enjoy and profit greatly from the revelation God has given us on this important subject.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 2, 2024
• ISBN: 9798886856064

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Marriage and Family

God's Plan A

Curtis Phillips and Marc Barnes

ISBN 979-8-88685-605-7 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88685-606-4 (digital)

Copyright © 2024 by Curtis Phillips and Marc Barnes

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

A Note from the Authors

Introduction

Marriage and Family: God's Way

Chapter 1

Marriage as God Defines It

Chapter 2

Marriage Myths

Chapter 3

Marriage in the Church: A Blueprint for Life

Chapter 4

How Do I Get What I Want from My Marriage?

Chapter 5

Conflict Resolution

Chapter 6

And Then There Were Children

Chapter 7

What Is My Responsibility for Adult Children?

Afterword

A Note from the Authors

First and foremost, thank you for being here! We are so blessed by readers like you, and we hope that this book will bless you in return.

We would like to begin by giving you a brief introduction to our stories so that you have a context within which to understand how our professional training and specific life experiences have contributed to our understanding of marriage, as well as the profound impact our respective marriages have had upon us.

* * * * *

Curtis

My wife, Lorie, and I were married in 1996 after dating for almost two years. Our story together does not follow an idyllically formed script but rather is evidence of the persistent and ongoing work of the grace of God. Lorie was married once before, had two daughters, and I, though a father to my son when we met, was not previously married. Under the leadership of the Holy Spirit—and an infinite supply of God's abundant grace—we blended our families and had two more children together. We became a beautiful testimony of God's redemption, healing, and restoration.

Eventually, I legally adopted our two oldest daughters, from Lorie's first marriage, and thus formed in the law what God had already formed in His kingdom and in our hearts. Our children would all testify of our imperfection as parents. I am confident that they could expound at great length on our errors in parenting—especially mine as a father—and on all the suggestions they might have had along the way to help us parent better. However, I believe that each one of our five children would also state unequivocally that they know at the very core of their souls that I love them all passionately and that I call them all mine—and have since God joined Lorie and me in marriage.

Everything I am going to share in this book has been born out of the study of Scripture, out of experience, or most often, out of a combination of both. Our children are not perfect, but they are all genuinely wonderful people who love God and seek to serve Him. Our oldest daughter is happily married and is now the mother of four precious children. Our second oldest daughter is also very happily married and has two sons. I was able to officiate both of my daughters' wedding ceremonies, and I managed to hold it together and not cry during either one, though the daddy-daughter dances did me in.

Our son too is happily married to his high school sweetheart, and they are the proud parents of two wonderful little boys. Despite the circumstances under which he was conceived, our son is a blessing and a delight to both Lorie and me, as well as to his mom and her husband. While he was raised by his mother and his other father, they have been our friends as our son has grown into manhood. Lastly, our two youngest daughters have graduated from college, and we are watching enthusiastically as God unfolds for them His plan for their futures. None of this would have been possible if it hadn't been for God's abundant work in my and Lorie's marriage, as well as in our hearts.

Like Lorie and me, our children have not followed any conveniently contrived scripts. Our married daughters were both married before their twenty-second birthdays. Our son also married young, and they were all having children at young ages. Their mother and I followed the Holy Spirit as He led us along and as we sought to give Him room to repair our wounded lives—in most cases, wounds we created by our own poor decisions.

There is a great deal of baggage in the church regarding families and relationships; and that baggage, at its core, is completely unnecessary. Most of it comes from religious roots. I'll be the first one to tell you I'm not the perfect dad—just ask my kids—and I'm certainly not the perfect husband. I am just a man humbled to his core by the grace of God and His abundant love and willingness to repair that which I have broken with my own selfishness and immaturity.

Lorie and I began ministering on marriage almost by accident. It started with a nudge in the ribs from that woman You gave me in church one morning. Before I knew what had happened, a smooth-tongued and highly diplomatic associate pastor had drafted us to provide premarital counseling to couples in our church. That season gave birth to our ministry, which is to minister to married and pre-married couples.

While we have never been in full-time, vocational ministry and we've also never been in full-time vocational counseling of any kind, Lorie and I have been in lay ministry since 2005. Along the way, we have dealt with a lot of families, married people, and couples. We have seen firsthand the effects of verbal and physical abuse between husband and wife, as well as between children and parents. We have witnessed the bankruptcy of leadership in the home and the destructive effects when the husband and father or wife and mother (or both) abandon their God-given roles.

We have counseled others through divorce and, thankfully, through marital reconciliation. In short, very little surprises us. But please hear our hearts—we do not pretend to be experts. Through our quest to grow our own marriage, enhance our family relationships, and deepen our understanding of God's plan for our family, we have only sought God's wisdom and watched as He has granted us understanding and insight into His plan for families. Our sincere desire is to lovingly share that insight with you, the reader, in the hopes that the dividends of our mistakes and our successes bless you and allow room for God to be present in your family to heal, restore, redeem, and bless.

* * * * *

Marc

When I met my wife, Merri, she was coming off her second divorce and was in a serious relationship with her childhood sweetheart, who had waited ten years for her. I was in graduate school, in a relationship with a woman who was in a relationship with another man, and not really interested in marriage. It was a fateful day, one when I had just spent all day in a small, cramped lab that smelled of urine as I centrifuged samples for research I was helping a physiologist complete. As I walked back to my office, I noticed a woman walking in front of me who had beautiful blonde hair and nice back pockets on her jeans. When I reached the curb to cross the street, she drove by and flashed the most amazing smile I had ever seen.

Because her smile was so amazing, I decided to put an ad in the university newspaper, telling her that her smile made my day. I looked for her car the next day, and as the Lord would have it, I was able to put a note on her windshield, telling her to read the personals in the school paper.

Her boyfriend encouraged her to respond to my ad, and we were married eleven months later! I was not a Christian and had basically lived my life in the most self-centered manner—until my wife's personal relationship with Jesus drew me into a relationship with Him as well.

I finished my doctoral work in general educational psychology and began the first of many steps in my professional career. I have taught at numerous universities in psychology, business, and education courses. I have been a business consultant. I was the clinical director of an adult community corrections agency. I was in private practice as a counselor, and I was the chair of both psychology and social science academic programs for a university and for a community college. We moved to several different states while pursuing these professional opportunities and, along the way, raised five awesome men of God. Merri homeschooled each one of them.

For the better part of our marriage and family life, I made the mistake of being a hero to strangers but being a stranger to those I love the most. I am so grateful that I married a strong, godly wife who sheltered our children as I created a misplaced emphasis on ministry as a way to try to redeem myself from my past.

When I had my first position at a Christian university, I prioritized my time for students who required my counseling services over being a husband and a father. I would spend up to four hours a day, unpaid, ministering to my students after a full day of teaching and academic meetings. When I would get home, I was exhausted and would have nothing left physically or emotionally for Merri or the boys. Finally, after basically being a single mother, she confronted me and asked why I valued investing my emotional energy into my students over doing the same with my family. I tried guilting and shaming her by telling her that this was what the Lord had called me to do as my ministry, but she knew the Word too well and had too strong of a relationship with the Father to put up with this deception.

I chose to become a better husband and father by letting my wife teach me how to love her in the way she needs to be loved and to renounce my self-centeredness. I am still working on this, as well as on seeing the love of the Father poured out to me through the awesome family He has blessed me with. Our oldest son and his wife have two children. Our next oldest and his wife have one girl and a son on the way. Our next oldest was just married. Our next oldest is in a relationship and finishing his studies in computer engineering. Our youngest was just married. I must thank Merri for holding these amazing men close to her, physically and emotionally, while they were growing up, because if it had been up to me, I would not have any relationship with any of them at all.

The foundation of God's plan for marriage and family is being challenged by the latest social engineers who believe they have a better model for what marriage and family should look like. We strongly disagree, and evidently you do as well, which is why you are reading this book right now. Let's get back to the biblical basis for marriage and family and stand up for what is best for our future generations. Enough is enough! This book will give you the tools from the Word of God that you need to establish a biblically based marriage. It will serve as the bedrock for an awesome family of your own. We invite you to take this journey with us with an open heart and mind.

Introduction

Marriage and Family: God's Way

The premise for this book came from Marc having had the privilege of attending Curtis's marriage and family course in Bible college. After seeing the depth of understanding and practical application Curtis brought to this vital subject, Marc knew that together they could shed so much light on this subject.

As you read the text from Curtis's class in each chapter, both Curtis's and Marc's individual additions have been labeled. It is our hope that this format will enhance your reading experience and in no way detract from it—that it will give you the doubled insight of two different, seasoned perspectives.

Curtis

Let me address a couple of things at the outset of this book so that you understand the context from which we are writing. We recognize that our readers are coming from all walks of life: you may be married now, you may have been married before, or perhaps you've never been married at all. The context and premise of this book will begin with marriage, but we want you to understand that while everything that we're going to cover is relevant to marriage, it's also relevant to every other relationship you have or will have in life. I would make the case that every relationship you have—whether it is with a friend, a sibling, parents, or a spouse—functions based on the relationship tools you learned in the home while growing up. Some of us have good tools. Some of us have bad tools, and most of us have a combination of both. Everything we need to have successful relationships in life, God designed to be learned in the family.

The second thing I would like to address is that the primary description by which we portray the family is a man and woman who marry with the intent of raising children. The husband and father most likely has a job or career that brings income to the family and by which God provides for the family's needs. The wife and mother might work, but while the children are young, she represents the primary caregiver in the home.

This is by no means intended to be proscriptive; each marriage is made up of two individuals. Some couples choose, for a host of reasons, not to bear children. For some couples, the wife may earn more than the husband does. We are not suggesting this is wrong. If familial roles are discussed thoroughly prior to marriage and if the wisdom and leadership that only God can provide is sought and followed, each couple should be free to define for themselves how their marriage functions. We are all fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14), and it is far from our intent to insinuate that marital roles that vary from traditional norms are wrong or inferior. In our generalizations, we do not believe that we are speaking to every single individual who will marry. We are merely simplifying the task of trying to convey our learned knowledge and wisdom in a way from which the reader is free to harvest.

We are all too aware that we live in a fallen world. Not everyone comes from a picture-perfect family environment where the love of God was taught and modeled. (In all truth, there is no such thing as the picture-perfect family environment; it is a mythical place crafted by modern-day storytellers, and its existence only serves to foster and deepen a sense of failure at our own inability to live up to its image.) Yet we do not desire to stir up guilt or remorse over the past. Just because an individual may not have had perfect parents or perfect siblings or raised perfect children or had the perfect marriage does not mean that they have failed. Proverbs 24:16 says that the righteous man falls seven times, but he gets back up.

It is not our failures that doom our marriages and families, it is our unwillingness to keep trying that does it. We know from