What the Bible says about
marriage
Marriage shows up on the Bible's second page and on its last: it begins in Genesis with two people becoming one flesh, and ends in Revelation as the image used to describe God and his people. Between those two points, the text is remarkably honest about how hard it is.
“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.”
Genesis 2:24 · read the chapter →
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her”
Ephesians 5:25 · read the chapter →
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no account of wrongs. Love takes no pleasure in evil, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 · read the chapter →
“Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.””
Mark 10:9 · read the chapter →
“And though one may be overpowered, two can resist. Moreover, a cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”
Ecclesiastes 4:12 · read the chapter →
“He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the LORD.”
Proverbs 18:22 · read the chapter →
One flesh
Genesis 2:24 describes marriage as leaving, joining, and becoming one. Three things in that order: you step out of an older loyalty to form a new one. A good share of the marital conflict the Bible addresses starts when the first step never happened.
The love commanded of the husband
Ephesians 5:25 tells the husband to love his wife "as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her," which is to say at his own cost. Faithful Christians disagree about how the rest of the chapter applies today, and this page does not settle that debate. Self-giving for the other, though, no side disputes.
When the feeling wavers
1 Corinthians 13 describes love with verbs rather than emotion: patient, not self-seeking, bearing all things. It is the most read text at weddings and the hardest to keep afterward, and that is precisely the point.
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