I Don't Love You That Much
Dear Champions,
The short excerpt is by Tim Keller, and the Scripture is in the excerpt.
The definition of marriage is cleaving. You don't know how to go about deciding whether to be married or who to be married to unless you know what marriage is. Jesus says in Luke 14:28, "Before a man goes and builds a tower, he first counts the cost. Before a king goes off to war, he counts the cost." You can't even make a decision about being married unless you understand something about what the Bible says that marriage is. The definition of marriage is a covenant. It's a public promise. It's a permanent and exclusive legal commitment to share your entire life with someone else. Unless you have someone who is willing to give you a promise like that, and that same person you are willing to give a promise to, you mustn't give yourself to that person. If you don't have a promise like that and you aren't willing to give a promise like that, you don't really love that person enough to be married to them.
The modern way of talking about love is totally different. It's a completely subjective meaning. When people say, "Why don't we live together? Why do we need to be married? I love you. Why do I need a piece of paper to show you that love?" If you define love as feeling, that's right. That's not what the Bible ever means when it means love. Biblically, if somebody says, "I love you, but I don't want to marry you." What they mean is, "I don't love you that much." There's no way around that. A person who says, "I love you, and I want to marry you," loves you more than the person who says, "I love you, but I don't want to marry you." Why? Because love by definition biblically is a commitment. It's the ability to make an exclusive and a permanent commitment. That's what love is. That's what you most want, and you know that. When somebody says, "I don't need a piece of paper to show that I love you," yes you do! If you love a person the way the Bible says that two people are supposed to love one another in order to share their lives together, it means that you have no problem making a legal permanent exclusive commitment to them.
Champions, have a great week!-David Vining
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