Thursday, November 02, 2006

Wife's Bible Study

I am a 2nd-year resident and my wife of 7 years is a member of a resident spouses' club. Several members of the group are Christian and decided to form a Bible study group. My wife was excited to attend. She considers the Bible study a great way to unobtrusively share her faith with some of her friends.

The Bible study has a focus on strengthening marriages. They are using a small text "Building a marriage that really works," by Kay Arthur, David and BJ Lawson. The book comments on scriptures that relate to marriage and family. The introduction encourages readers to "discover how to establish and maintain the kind of marriage God intended you to have---one that will last "until death do us part.""

Lesson 1 focuses on Gen2:18 and points out, with reference to Eve, that "helper" does not mean slave, or doormat but rather a "divine enabler" equal and complimentary to Adam.

After the fall, Adam and Eve were commanded to subdue the Earth. In the garden they didn't have to work for their temporal welfare, the trees and plants blossomed spontaneously. Now Adam was commanded that"by the sweat of they face shalt thou eat thy bread all the days of thy life." After learning to provide for their temporal support, then Adam and Eve could then refocus on higher spiritual matters. This is the Bible's verson of Maslow's heirarchy of needs.

There is also another spiritual priniciple here. Although we are saved by grace, the Bible also teaches us to "work out our salvation." Just as Adam was required to labor daily for his temporal sustinence, we must likewise labor through prayer and scripture study for our spiritual sustinence.

Matthew 19:3-10 and Malichi 2:13-16 condem divorce.

Hebrews 13:4 condems both fornication and adultary and declares that "marriage is to be held in honor by all."

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