Quotes about Marriage

A man once told me, "Tony, my wife is killing me." I replied, "Well, you said you wanted to be more like Jesus, didn't you?

The closer God and His rule are tied to the definition of marriage, the more order, productivity, and fulfillment are experienced in our marriages. The further away God and His rule are, the more chaos occurs in the home.

God has commanded us to love our wives even when they don't deserve it—for if we love them only when they deserve it, where would grace be? In fact, we need to love our wives the most when they deserve it the least.

Husbands should not be in the marriage first and foremost to get their needs met, but rather they should first look out for the interests and needs of their wives. A husband's love should be characterized by sacrifice for the good of his wife.

The absence of a kingdom purpose for marriage makes it appear as if many couples have been married by the secretary of war rather than the justice of the peace. A passenger on a plane one day noticed that the man sitting next to him had his wedding ring on the wrong hand, so he asked him why. The husband replied, Because I married the wrong woman.

If you could be a fly on the wall of my office the numerous times I counsel married couples, you would hear the same word I hear over and over and over again: Trapped. I can't tell you how many times I've been asked to help married couples not feel so trapped. One husband came to me after only six months of marriage, already saying he felt trapped and wanted out.

To know whether a man is following God's Kingdom agenda for his home, the best place to look is at his wife. Does she feel loved, known, honored, and spiritually encouraged in her relationship with her husband?

God designed the covenant of marriage to increase the capacity of both partners to carry out their purpose for advancing His kingdom.

The breakdown of the black community, in order to maintain slavery, began with the breakdown of the black family. Men and women were not legally allowed to get married because you couldn't have that kind of love. It might get in the way of the economics of slavery. Your children could be taken from you and literally sold down the river.

Listen to what Peter is saying: men, you may be stronger than your wives, but you had better honor them as fellow heirs, or God won't hear your prayers! Did you get that? God won't listen to your prayers if you don't treat your wife with honor. Women are to be treated with respect and honor, as people who are inheriting the throne along with men.

A message that points to the marriage altar as the starting gate of God's calling for women leaves us with nothing to tell them except that God's purpose for them is not here and now, but somewhere down the road.

Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh' (Genesis 2:24 NRSV). This radically upside-down statement would have shocked the original readers of Genesis and should shock us too. I don't know of any culture where men are depicted as clinging to their wives. Certainly within a patriarchal world, this is getting things backwards. There the wife leaves her parents and is absorbed into her husband's family.