Most people treat choosing a husband or wife as the most personal decision they will ever make, the one place where nobody, not even God, gets a vote. But the One who designed marriage, who knows every heart and sees every year ahead, is the best matchmaker there is. Letting Him choose, and letting Him lead the marriage afterward, is not giving up your freedom. It is the most intelligent decision you can make.
A Bible study · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 8 min read
Made In Eden
Marriage was not invented by any culture or church. God created it, before there was any sin:
“And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.”
Genesis 2:18
“And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”
Genesis 2:22-24
As the Marriage page on this site points out, marriage and the Sabbath are the two institutions God gave Adam and Eve before they sinned, and no two institutions have been attacked more fiercely. Jesus honored both. He began His miracles at a wedding.
“He who gave Eve to Adam as a helpmeet, performed His first miracle at a marriage festival. In the festal hall where friends and kindred rejoiced together, Christ began His public ministry. Thus He sanctioned marriage, recognizing it as an institution that He Himself had established.”
Ellen G. White · The Ministry of Healing, p. 356
The Most Personal Choice Of All?
Here is where our human nature pushes back. We may pray about a job or a move, but whom we love feels like our own business. The Bible says otherwise, and not to take something away from us:
“O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.”
Jeremiah 10:23
“There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.”
Proverbs 14:12
Think about what we actually know when we fall in love: a face, a personality, a few months or years of someone at their best. God knows the heart, “for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). He knows who this person will be at fifty and at eighty, in sickness and in trial. Deciding without Him is not independence. It is choosing with our eyes half closed.
“Marriage is something that will influence and affect your life both in this world and in the world to come. A sincere Christian will not advance his plans in this direction without the knowledge that God approves his course. He will not want to choose for himself, but will feel that God must choose for him.”
Ellen G. White · The Adventist Home, p. 43
Ellen White even listed the way most people marry as a sign of the last days:
“The majority of the marriages of our time and the way in which they are conducted make them one of the signs of the last days. Men and women are so persistent, so headstrong, that God is left out of the question.”
Ellen G. White · The Adventist Home, p. 71
Compare that with how she describes a marriage that blesses:
“The family tie is the closest, the most tender and sacred, of any on earth. It was designed to be a blessing to mankind. And it is a blessing wherever the marriage covenant is entered into intelligently, in the fear of God, and with due consideration for its responsibilities.”
Ellen G. White · The Ministry of Healing, p. 356
“Intelligently, in the fear of God.” The two belong together. Letting God guide is the intelligent choice.
“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”
Proverbs 3:5-6
How God Chose A Wife For Isaac
The Bible’s longest chapter in Genesis is a love story, and God is at the center of it. Abraham sent his servant to find a wife for Isaac, and the servant did not start with appearances. He started with prayer:
“And he said, O LORD God of my master Abraham, I pray thee, send me good speed this day, and shew kindness unto my master Abraham. Behold, I stand here by the well of water; and the daughters of the men of the city come out to draw water: And let it come to pass, that the damsel to whom I shall say, Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink; and she shall say, Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also: let the same be she that thou hast appointed for thy servant Isaac; and thereby shall I know that thou hast shewed kindness unto my master.”
Genesis 24:12-14
Before he had finished praying, Rebekah came to the well and did exactly that. Her kindness to a tired stranger and his animals revealed her character. And the servant bowed his head and said:
“And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of my master Abraham, who hath not left destitute my master of his mercy and his truth: I being in the way, the LORD led me to the house of my master’s brethren.”
Genesis 24:27
“I being in the way, the LORD led me.” And the story ends with the words every couple hopes for: Isaac “took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her” (Genesis 24:67).
God still does this. The Marriage page says it plainly: if you are single and looking, “God already knows whom you should marry,” and “He very much enjoys being your ‘matchmaker’.” For a remarkable modern example, read Does God Care Whom I Marry?: a vivid glimpse, in 1987, of a wife not met until 2004.
“House and riches are the inheritance of fathers: and a prudent wife is from the LORD.”
Proverbs 19:14
Wisdom While You Wait
Pray More, Not Less
“If men and women are in the habit of praying twice a day before they contemplate marriage, they should pray four times a day when such a step is anticipated.”
Ellen G. White · The Adventist Home, p. 71
Walk In The Same Direction
“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?”
2 Corinthians 6:14
“Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” (Amos 3:3). Faith is not a detail to sort out after the wedding. It is the direction the whole marriage will walk.
Look At Character, Not Just Chemistry
“Let those who are contemplating marriage weigh every sentiment and watch every development of character in the one with whom they think to unite their life destiny. Let every step toward a marriage alliance be characterized by modesty, simplicity, sincerity, and an earnest purpose to please and honor God.”
Ellen G. White · The Ministry of Healing, p. 359
Singleness Is Not Failure
Paul, who never married, called singleness a gift that frees a person to serve the Lord without distraction (1 Corinthians 7:7-8, 32). And as the Family page on this site says, the time left is very short, and marriage may not be in God’s plan for everyone in this life. That is not a loss. The One who loves you most has not forgotten you.
Letting God Lead The Marriage
Letting God choose is only the beginning. The same God has to lead the marriage every day after the wedding. Paul describes a marriage built on Christ:
“Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.”
Ephesians 5:21
“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;”
Ephesians 5:25
Husbands are to love like Jesus, who gave Himself. Peter adds that husband and wife are “heirs together of the grace of life,” and warns husbands to honor their wives “that your prayers be not hindered” (1 Peter 3:7). God is so involved in marriage that how a husband treats his wife affects his prayers.
The Marriage page puts it simply: “As you both draw closer to God, you will naturally be drawn closer together.” Picture a triangle with God at the top and a husband and wife at the bottom corners. The closer each moves toward God, the closer they come to each other. Solomon saw it too:
“And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”
Ecclesiastes 4:12
(See A Threefold Cord on Ecclesiastes 4.) And the love that holds it together is the love of 1 Corinthians 13:
“Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.”
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
A Picture Of Something Greater
Every Christian marriage is meant to be a small picture of Christ and His church. Paul says so: “This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:32). The faithful love of a husband and wife points to the Bridegroom who is coming for His bride. (See The Marriage Of The Lamb and The Millennium.)
Keep Studying
- Does God Care Whom I Marry?
- Marriage
- God’s Plan For The Family
- A Threefold Cord: Ecclesiastes 4
- The Marriage Of The Lamb
- Baptism And Communion: vows that make us His
