Sunday, July 9, 2017

July 9

1 Chronicles 7:1-8:40; Acts 27:1-20; Psalm 7:1-17; Proverbs 18:22

God is in favor of marriage.

He thoroughly approves of marriage since He planned for it. From the beginning of creation, the Lord God said it was not good for man to be alone—he needed the companionship and partnership of a wife. And, many centuries later, we read this wisdom in Proverbs 18:22, “He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the LORD.”

In Proverbs, a masculine pronoun, he, and a feminine noun, wife, are used to describe “what is good.” The Hebrew word for ‘wife’ is the word ‘issah’ which is translated ‘woman’ just about as often as it is translated ‘wife’ according to The NIV Exhaustive Concordance. It is quite clear that two different genders are being described in this proverb.

The author of Proverbs goes on to describe in part what some of the ‘good’ is that this male receives by choosing a wife. He receives ‘favor’ from the Lord, according to the Hebrew word ‘rason’. This phrase “receives favor from the LORD” is used several other times in Proverbs. In 8:35, wisdom is being described: “For whoever finds me [wisdom] finds life and receives favor from the LORD.” In Proverbs 12:2, “A good man obtains favor from the LORD, but the LORD condemns a crafty man.”

Marriage is a very good thing. God said this. This is not man’s opinion; this is God’s declaration. We need to agree with that and uphold God’s standard. Let’s encourage our young people to marry, not to delay marriage unnecessarily for schooling or to make more money. God says marriage is good, and a man who marries obtains favor from the Lord!

And God clearly says that marriage is between a male and a female. Let’s not let the culture we live in influence us in any other direction.  A man who finds a woman finds what is good and obtains favor from the LORD (emphasis mine).

Wouldn’t each of us want to obtain favor from the Lord? I know that I do. I want all of His favor I can get!

And who knew it would be so easy to obtain? I received it when Don Sunukjian married me on August 3, 1963, and it continues to this day. Thank you, Lord.


- Nell Sunukjian


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1 comment:

  1. Thank you, mom, for this good and clear post on marriage. We live in a society that is very muddled on marriage. But scripture is not, and it's good to be reminded of that.

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