Two years ago I was reading the letters to the editor in that month’s issue of Money Magazine, and what I read stunned me. A woman in her early fifties described her situation with her boyfriend and asked,
“Would it benefit us financially to get married?”
I feel like the question reveals what the priority is: money.
As a happily married man, this broke my heart. I thought to myself, “Is this the dark ages? What is the bride price? Where is the contract between your father, the king, and the noble, whose son you are marrying?”
It seems that for some, marriage is a game of jockeying and positioning for leverage and/or wealth.
Despite my shock, one fact remains: The Church’s job is proclaiming the Gospel for the reconciliation of God and people, (2 Cor. 5) not enforcing conformity to Christian ways of thinking/behaving, and our job is definitely not sitting around and complaining about the broken moral compass of the world.
As my Pastor put it well in the sermon yesterday, “What’s the point in changing someone’s behavior without the Savior changing their heart and eternal destiny?”
Amen, Pastor Steve.