Ephesians 5:31. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
5:32. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
–NKJ
It’s a mystery, but it happens every day. It’s so natural, yet so strange. Some where today, right now, a man and a woman are meeting, becoming attracted to each other, leaving the security of their families and coming together to be on their own. It’s the natural order, and design by God.
For this reason. Read the preceding verses to see how this natural act fits in with the model asChrist with his church, the head with the body, and a husband and a wife. Verse 32 sums up the whole concept there in that one short phrase. It takes two distinctly different items, with distinctly different functions to make up this unit. Each part doing their job that they were designed for.
One natural feature of living, growing cells, is that they reproduce, knit together, and produce more. The smallest living unit that reproduces more humans is a unit of one man and one woman. It’s simple, natural, and Gods design. Through various situations, people have modified that arrangement. The Bible records families that had more than one wife. I’m not sure it ever describes situations of a wife with more than one husband. People are recorded as being divorced. Today those arrangements still exist, along with the issue of homosexual marriages. A true marriage can honestly only be defined in its most basic terms as a single unit of a man and a woman. It’s the only way to naturally reproduce more humans.
I know that my statement that limits a marriage to man and a woman is unpopular to certain groups in our world today, but to have it any other way is simply not the natural order. I know, with modern technology, a woman doesn’t need a husband to reproduce. Just have a medical professional artificially insemenate her. It still requires a man in the process, whether he is ever seen by her or not. A homosexual couple might adopt, or in some way hire a serogate to give birth. It still involves the interaction of a man and woman, outside their desired relationship to give the impression of being a family.
A living arrangement between two people of the same sex can indeed carry a strong bond, and emotional connection. The Bible records the close relationship between Ruth and Naomi, between David and Jonathan, but even in those they were never married to each other in any sense of what that intimate relationship entails.
A marriage relationship is a complex thing, but its beginnings are the simple matter of attraction to a member of the opposite sex, and the desire to be a function unit. In doing so, we can strike out on our own, leave behind old support systems of family, and make our own, new family.