Before there was a church, a choir, a pastor, or a prophet, there was the ministry of marriage. Even though marriage is a blessing and a gift from God, ultimately marriage is not primarily about us. Marriage is about God and the advancement of His Kingdom. Marriage is given as a Kingdom resource and blessing to be stewarded by us that God’s love might be made manifest. In this context marriage is an extension and expression of God’s love for us.

The problem is, many people go into marriage to get their individual needs met. Many feel that through marriage they will be loved and rescued from loneliness or a pain injected into them during childhood. We may not have realized it at the time, but we may have gone into marriage a broken person hoping marriage would mend all that. Before we go into God’s “beloved” vision of marriage, we need to become God’s beloved child first. Let me say that this is a word initially to those that are still single. If you are already married, it’s about trusting God to do both at the same time. That is, God can transform an individual into the beloved and a marriage into a beloved Covenant relationship at the same time.

Many times in the Bible, marriage is used as a metaphor to describe the relationship between between Jesus and the church. Jesus in every case is described as the groom and the church as the bride. If you’re looking for Biblical principles for your marriage consider Scriptures that deal with Jesus and the church and reflect on what that might mean for your marriage. Consider reading Ephesians chapter 5 and Philippians chapter 2 .