Quotes about Marriages

We have a thousand machines for making war but none for making peace. We have computers and iPhone apps that can make millions out of a tiny change in exchange rates, but none that can rescue the poorest countries from their plight. We know how to make Internet pornography, but not how to repair marriages. The very objectivity or neutrality of scientific knowledge as commonly conceived has played into the hands of the gods we secretly worship.

Is there any way we can get society right if we don't first get the church right? If that is true, then is there any way we can get the church right if we don't first get families right? If that is true, is there any way we can get families right, if we don't first get marriages right? And if that is true, is there any way we can get marriages right if we don't get men right?

That backsliding generally first begins with neglect of private prayer. Bibles read without prayer; sermons heard without prayer; marriages contracted without prayer; journeys undertaken without prayer; residences chosen without prayer.

It's so natural to think the Presence of Jesus has no greater purpose than to improve the quality of our journey through life—with quality defined as a pleasurable, satisfying, self-affirming existence—a journey where certain things don't go wrong or, if they do, they correct themselves. Marriages should work, biopsies should come back benign, ministry efforts should succeed, and we should feel pretty good about the way most things go.

The Bible does not oppose or forbid interracial marriages but sees them as a positive good for the glory of Christ.

I had begun to comprehend that the Bible's story is about the relationship of God to human beings, and of human beings to one another, and that this meant that it is our friendships, marriages, families, and even church congregations that best reveal what kind of theology we have, who our God is. Or, as Thomas Merton once put it, "because we love, God is present." That is the story.

This debate has repercussions on how we live for God, how we relate to our neighbors both near and far, and how we connect with our Christian brothers. It affects the valuing of women, the quality of our marriages, and the teachings and behavioral patterns we pass on to our children. It shapes our ideas of what it means to be part of the body of Christ, how we develop and use our gifts, and what Jesus asks of us in fulfilling his mission for the world.

A defeatist attitude kills almost as many marriages as do affairs.

Uncontrolled anger is a devastating sin, and no one is exempt from its havoc. It shatters friendships and destroys marriages; it causes abuse in families and discord in business; it breeds violence in the community and war between nations. Its recoil, like that of a high-powered rifle, often hurts the one who wields it as well as its target. Anger makes us lash out at others, destroying relationships and revealing our true nature.

We need better government, no doubt about it. But we also need better minds, better friendships, better marriages, better communities.