What’s the biblical key to love and marriage?

Our society is filled with contradictions regarding marriage. On the one hand, we applaud people who have been married a long time. An elderly couple who had been married for 83 years was applauded on network television — and rightly so for that achievement — just this week. Earlier today I saw news articles revealing sexual infidelity on the part of two very prominent, high-level political leaders. But if we applaud marriage and faithful monogamy, why do we have such a history of a thriving, illegal pay-for-sex industry that comes to light when powerful people are caught in legal stings?

The Bible is pretty clear about the relationship God intends for husbands and wifes. There’s really nothing difficult about the matter: “Each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband” (Ephesians 5:33, New International Version). Sounds an awfully lot to me like the sort of relationship we applaud openly, while so many people pull “sneak attacks” to get around faithfulness in private.

In fact, most religious folks I know cannot accept the simplicity of this Scripture passage, really. They feel compelled to explain it one of two ways. Either, 1) this Scripture passage teaches that the husband is head of the household and the wife must submit to his leadership, or, 2) this Scripture merely describes a cultural thing unique to the 1st Century world and violates the proper “all are equal and no one submits” partnership Christ intends in a marriage.

Instead of forcing the Bible into our doctrinal twists and turns, why not take this passage of Scripture as a simple declaration of what Jesus wants husbands and wifes to do: love and respect one another? Throughout chapter 5 of his letter to the Ephesian Christians, the Apostle Paul focuses on how we ought to love and live together as families, both natural family relationships and in our roles as members of God’s “church family.” Instead of sweating all the details, why can’t we apply the love of Christ to the way we treat each other and move on from there in our daily living?

I realize there are issues in Ephesians 5 that have fired up church debates and led to church splits over the authority of husbands, the submission of wives, the role of children in the family and the church, etc., but the essence of God’s teaching about how marriages and families are to function is simply this: Love one another.

If the unfaithful politicians and public figures truly respected and loved their spouse, would they shame their spouse and themselves by committing the unfaithfulness in the first place?

When all is said and done, biblical love and marriage is so simple it’s impossible to get it wrong: Love one another.