Effects of Modernist Doctrine on Marriage

There is in some circles today a creeping mistrust for the Holy Scriptures. “Oh, the Bible is unreliable,” some say. “It’s full of mistakes and internal contradictions. It is simply the opinions of fallible men, written down in another time, long after it was spoken, and possibly in a different language than it was originally spoken in. Besides, even if it could have been trusted for its time, times have changed. How can we expect a book thousands of years old to be relevant to us today? How do we know that the copies we translate from closely match the originals?” etc., etc., etc.

Well, you already know which side I am on. I believe that the Bible is the infallible, inerrant, inspired word of the living God, and we can not only trust its account of history to be correct, we can also trust its timeless principles to govern our lives, and most important, we can trust its gospel over man’s personal opinion of how to reach God. Ok, I’m biased, but I can afford to be; the evidence is in my favor.

But I digress... My point is: your view on the inerrancy of the word affects in turn your yardstick by which you measure truth. Either truth has a source outside of yourself, or it is determined by subjective perception of it, each person having a differing perspective, and though contradictory, equally true as another’s. This latter world view slowly erodes a society by attacking absolute standards. And it is to marriage in particular that I wish to apply it, and show you where it is leading us.

Marriage was instituted by God in the Garden of Eden when He took a rib out of Adam, made Eve, and presented her to Adam (Genesis 2). Several basic principles were established at that time:

1. Man needs a helper suitable for him.
2. The only helper suitable for a man is a woman.
3. Marriage must be a lifelong commitment of one whole person (spirit, soul, body) to only one other whole person.

But by tearing away at the credibility of Scripture, we are eroding the significance of the oldest institution in the history of mankind. Then we start to wonder why marriages and families and homes are falling into ruin, why nearly a quarter of households are cohabitants with children out of wedlock, why about half of those who do decide to marry end up divorcing, why a very large percentage of them should have known better than to live together first, and why an increasing number of couples of the same gender are seeking to “marry”?

Of course this all makes perfect sense to the particular person who makes one of those choices based on his/her own subjective view and reasoning, to his/her own personal advantage, or so he/she supposes. But the soundest way to go is to obey the truth and advice of the timehonored word of God.