Marriage

Marriage is wholeheartedly celebrated and encouraged at Bethlehem Baptist Church. Pastors frequently refer to their wives in sermons, often including anecdotes about marriage and family life. Bethlehem’s religious leaders utilize two main metaphors to illustrate the centrality of marriage: the covenant metaphor and the head/body metaphor. These metaphors are applied to numerous issues related to marriage, such as singleness, divorce, and remarriage, to give Bethlehem’s congregation a clear picture of the Church’s views.

Piper stresses that marriage and family are temporary and secondary, while relationships in Christ are more permanent and precious.

The covenant metaphor states that marriage is a display of the Gospel, a living drama representing Christ’s covenant relationship to the Church. Former pastor Jason Meyer described that “the Father planned to give his Son a holy bride called the Church, so he designed the institution of marriage for the sake of seeing the gospel.” In Genesis 2:24, it is described that man leaves his parents and holds fast to his wife; John Piper suggests that “Christ [left] his Father and [took] the church as his bride, at the cost of his life.” Despite the parallel made between Christ’s relationship to the Church and marriage, Piper stresses that marriage and family are temporary and secondary, while relationships in Christ are more permanent and precious, and the Church is eternal and primary. Marriage is thus created by God for God’s glory to represent covenant keeping but is not a replacement for the Church nor Christ. 

Through further application of the covenant metaphor, the head/body metaphor is used to describe the separate roles Bethlehem’s leaders envision for husbands and wives. As stated in Ephesians 5:23, Piper and Meyer both subscribed to the belief that “the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church.” The husband as the head is commanded to love as Christ loved, while the wife as the body is commanded to submit as the church is to submit to Christ. Piper describes that sin twisted the concepts of headship and submission into something unintended: sin “twisted man’s humble, loving headship into hostile domination in some men and lazy indifference in others,” and “twisted woman’s intelligent, willing, happy, creative, articulate submission into manipulative obsequiousness or groveling in some women and brazen insubordination in others.” The leadership of Bethlehem encourages husbands and wives to fulfill biblical headship and submission in the manner in which it was intended.

Marriage may represent the covenant between Christ and the Church, but being unmarried is not discouraged at Bethlehem. In a sermon devoted to singleness, Piper explained that being single is “not a falling short of God’s best, but a path of Christ-exalted, covenant-keeping obedience that many are called to walk.” Similarly, Meyer stated that “as great as marriage is, there is something even greater: exclusive, single-minded devotion to the Kingdom of Christ...Singleness is a blazing billboard for the supremacy and sufficiency of Christ. Christ is enough.” Piper devoted several sermons in his time at Bethlehem to debating the paths of marriage and singleness, concluding that, “Objectively, we cannot know ahead of time whether marriage or singleness will sanctify us more or honor God more.”

Divorce raises another complex debate at Bethlehem. In the metaphor of marriage as Christ and his covenant with the Church, Meyer points out that Christ “never divorces his bride”, and that “if God did the joining, then man should not do the separating.” Divorce is thus a misrepresentation of Christ and his covenant. Similarly, as the husband is described as the head and the wife as the body, Meyer likens divorce to decapitation. While Bethlehem categorizes divorce as a sin in the same category as lying, killing, and stealing, Meyer stresses that neither divorce nor adultery is an unforgivable sin. Instead, unbelief and refusing to confess and forsake is the unforgivable sin. Although divorce is considered inadvisable, there are some cases where negotiation is more open. 

In Bethlehem’s "Relational Commitments," church elders outline guidelines about divorce and remarriage in regard to abuse, adultery, and death. They state that divorce may be permitted when a spouse is adulterous or abusive, but that the adulterous or abusive spouse should “repent and be reconciled to God and their spouses” first. Second marriages are generally considered adultery, as God formed the original union, which is only broken by death. Remarriage is thus possible after the death of a spouse, although in certain cases of abuse or adultery, the elders also approve that the victim be remarried. However, those who have been remarried are unable to hold positions of official leadership at Bethlehem.  

Sermons and webpages the above work is based on: 

On marriage: 

John Piper, “Staying Married Is Not About Staying in Love,” Desiring God, January 28, 2007, https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/staying-married-is-not-about-staying-in-love. 

John Piper, “Sexual Intimacy and Rights Over a Spouse's Body in Marriage,” Desiring God, April 29, 2009, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/sexual-intimacy-and-the-rights-over-a-spouses-body-in-marriage. 

John Piper, “Marriage Is Meant for Making Children . . . Disciples of Jesus,” Desiring God, June 10, 2007, https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/marriage-is-meant-for-making-children-disciples-of-jesus-part-1. 

Jason Meyer, “The Next Generation,” Bethlehem Baptist, March 15, 2014, https://bethlehem.church/sermon/the-next-generation/. 

On divorce: 

Jason Meyer, “Divorce and Remarriage,” Bethlehem Baptist Church, September 16, 2018, https://bethlehem.church/sermon/divorce-and-remarriage/. 

“Relational Commitments,” Bethlehem Baptist Church, accessed July 22, 2024, https://bethlehem.church/relational-commitments/. 

On singleness: 

John Piper, “Single in Christ,” Desiring God, April 29, 2007, https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/single-in-christ. 

On headship: 

John Piper, “Lionhearted and Lamblike: The Christian Husband as Head,” Desiring God, March 18, 2007, https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/lionhearted-and-lamblike-the-christian-husband-as-head-part-1. 

On submission: 

John Piper, “The Beautiful Faith of Fearless Submission,” Desiring God, April 15, 2007, https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/the-beautiful-faith-of-fearless-submission.