Marriage before Mission

Mission before Marriage

Young men, this is why we emphasize mission before marriage. You need to know what your mission is in order to know what your wife is for.

Joel M. Ellis

Mission before Marriage? Is that what God calls us to? What is mission? What is marriage? What is a wife for?

Well, perhaps that is a bit much too much for one post, and I have written quite a bit of ‘what is marriage’ and covered quite a bit of what a wife is for. But ‘mission’, and the relationship between mission and marriage, and the confusion that seems evident in the above quote (full link below) seems worth addressing.

What is Mission?

One problem with the formulation ‘Mission before Marriage’ is that we don’t yet know what they mean by ‘Mission’. Because there are two rather different meanings to that term, and they have a very different relationship to the idea of ‘Mission before Marriage’. And the term ‘mission’ is not specifically in Scripture, so we cannot look there.

Standard Missions

According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:

II Peter 1:3

One meaning of ‘mission’ are those things that every Christian young men are called to. Marriage will be a means for fulfilling them, or will be one of the areas where they are expressed, but they are not things that you need to ‘determine’. You may need to realise them, acknowledge them… you certainly need to commit to them. But you do not need to ‘figure them out’. No long hours in prayer are needed to know them. They are plain, and plainly written

Christian

Everyone, everywhere is called to follow Christ. Failure to do so is rebellion.

Husband

God calls on young men to marry. That is is first job as a man.

Father

Having married, God calls men to have children. As the Lord blesses them. This is not something that the young man should decide before they marry… they should marry asking and expecting the lord to bring them children. A quiver full of children.

Dominion

Man is called to take dominion over the Earth. All men. There is nothing unique in that calling, nothing that needs to be decided before the young man is obedient in marriage.

Teacher, Deacon, Elder

All young men are called to aspire to whatever position in the church they are called to. When they are young, they are in training for eldership. As they get old, they should strive for it. But marriage is a training ground for becoming, not something that needs to wait for it.

Provision

All young men are called to provide for their families. Whether working for yourself or as an employee

Those are some of the things that God calls our young men to… but no waiting is required to know them. No long hours of prayer. Growing up in the church, or learning about the faith, should teach you these things and, knowing them, you should marry.

Unique Mission

What is, I’m afraid, meant when someone says ‘mission’ is a unique mission. Not a mission shared by the overwhelming mass of Christian young men, but a mission specific to a few. Perhaps the opportunity of a mission field in Africa, or a homeless shelter in Seattle.

Here is, where, I am afraid, the crux of this issue. Is a young man to first determine where in the world God will call him to serve, and then pick a wife to suit that calling? Or is a young man to marry, and bring his wife to wherever God calls him?

The answer, Biblically, is clear. Marry.

Marriage over Mission

One of the hardest things to do in logic or Biblical study is to argue against silence. Or, rather, to point out that one side of the argument has countless and constant Biblical evidence and the other has nothing. Because you can’t post their verses… because they don’t exist.

Which is the case here. Verse after verse… after verse after verse… speaks of the importance of marriage, the importance of children. Law after law speaks of marriage, of children, of the father’s name and line. Biblical character after Biblical character marry, bear children, raise the children in Godliness (or not so much) and have their actions praised by God…

But how does one demonstrate that not one single time in all of Scripture is a Godly man called to put ‘Mission before Marriage’? To put off the clear Biblical command to marry in order to ‘determine their mission’ and only then find a wife who fits the mission.

What can one say except to say it? The thesis ‘Mission before Marriage’ is either the obvious statement that Christian young men need to strive to be Christian young men in all that they do, including their marriage… or it is a flat contradiction to all of Scripture.

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Von

Links

https://vonwriting.substack.com/i/139314767/marriage-discussion

Links

Young men, this is why we emphasize mission before marriage. You need to know what your mission is in order to know what your wife is for. She is not there for your entertainment or to make your life easier—she won’t make it easier, she will complicate it in many ways, but that too will be a blessing. She is there to join you on the mission and to make it multi-generational. If you can’t control your lusts, why should you be trusted with the soul of another? If you still do not know what your life is about, if you are wasting it on dead-end jobs and video games, why should you have a wife and raise up a second generation of losers? You need to know why you are here and what you are here to do, then you need to take a wife who will help you move that mission forward and bring blessings of grace and godly labor to future generations.

Joel Ellis