Page 5 - Family Life Student Textbook

Designing your Family Life According to God’s Principles

Study Section 1: God’s three major Purposes for Marriage

1.1 Connect
In our confused world today there is a massive movement away from God’s design for marriage.
Men are marrying men, women with women, or people just live together. There are great
numbers of families with just one parent. The disillusion of marriage has become common place.
Some people say that marriage is not important. You just must love one another, and that is
enough. They say marriage is a man-made invention from the past and is not relevant for today.

Are they right in their thinking? Who invented marriage? Why was marriage designed the way it was? What
is marriage supposed to accomplish? How can we fulfill God’s plan for marriage unless we know His design
and follow it? These are important questions that need to be answered. Let’s see what the Bible says about
marriage.

1.2 Objectives

1. The student should be able to explain how marriage mirrors God’s image to the world.

2. The student should be able to describe how marriage completes a man and woman.

3. The student should be able to explain how marriage has been designed by God to provide a Godly
heritage and to produce offspring who love the Lord.

1.3 God’s three major purposes for marriage
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1. To mirror God’s image: God created mankind in his own image.

Genesis 1:26–27 “Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so
that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock
and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’ So God
created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and
female he created them.”

Because only mankind was created in God’s image, we are different than the animals. Although many in our
world today are trying to give animals equal importance with man, God’s word teaches otherwise. God
created mankind to have personhood like he does. He gave us intellect to think and to reason. He gave us
emotions to feel. And he gave us a will so we can make choices. And because we are created to be a moral
being, he holds us responsible for the choices we make and whether they are in obedience to his word.

Genesis 1:27 also tells us that God created mankind in two sexes - male and female. Unfortunately, some in
our world today are trying to disregard God’s design in this matter. But God created man and woman and
pronounced it “very good”.

1 Some of these concepts have been taken from Dennis Rainey’s “Weekend to Remember” materials.
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