Must I Wait for My Parents to Approve of My Future Spouse?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Podcast listener named Gloria from Nigeria
00:00:07.720 | went to our online homepage and wrote us
00:00:09.200 | this follow-up email on weddings.
00:00:10.880 | Pastor John, thank you for your episode
00:00:13.080 | on A Simple Wedding, episode 875, that was.
00:00:17.160 | I would like to know if parental consent
00:00:19.160 | and involvement is necessary in a marriage
00:00:21.680 | when both parties are up to 30 years old.
00:00:24.720 | Also, is it wrong to not adhere
00:00:27.080 | to Western wedding traditions,
00:00:29.400 | such as a white dress, church ceremony,
00:00:31.480 | and walking down the aisle, et cetera?
00:00:34.520 | Can we not just get our marriage license
00:00:35.960 | from the registry and ask our pastor to bless us
00:00:38.960 | instead of having a ceremony in the church?
00:00:41.360 | What would you say, Pastor John?
00:00:42.660 | - Well, I hear three questions.
00:00:45.000 | Number one, what about permission of parents?
00:00:47.840 | Number two, do you need to follow Western traditions?
00:00:52.320 | Number three, is it legal or isn't legal registration
00:00:57.320 | and pastoral blessing enough
00:00:58.800 | without any kind of Christian church ceremony?
00:01:01.240 | So let me just take these one at a time
00:01:03.240 | and give you a few suggestions,
00:01:05.000 | a few pointers for each one.
00:01:07.440 | First, what about parental blessing?
00:01:09.440 | I think this is the most important one.
00:01:11.520 | And I have five suggestions.
00:01:12.800 | Number one, one of the most basic biblical commands
00:01:17.800 | is honor your father and mother, Ephesians 6:2.
00:01:21.320 | That's a broader, deeper command
00:01:24.160 | than the particular command to obey them.
00:01:26.560 | And therefore, I would encourage a couple
00:01:29.120 | to pray and work and wait for their parents' blessing.
00:01:34.120 | How long they should wait will be determined
00:01:38.600 | by some of the other factors
00:01:39.960 | that I'm gonna mention in just a minute,
00:01:42.060 | but it's worth waiting for,
00:01:44.200 | even if you should wait a long time,
00:01:46.600 | but probably not forever.
00:01:48.080 | And we should communicate to our parents
00:01:51.360 | that we long for their blessing.
00:01:53.860 | Many parents will come your way
00:01:56.160 | and bless you if they sense,
00:01:59.040 | if you show that you are not defiant,
00:02:03.040 | but eager for their blessings.
00:02:04.680 | That's number one.
00:02:05.760 | Number two, obedience to parents
00:02:08.080 | is not absolute in the Christian life,
00:02:11.080 | but rather loyalty to Jesus is.
00:02:14.160 | And I'll base that on Matthew 10, 35 to 37,
00:02:19.080 | where Jesus says,
00:02:20.040 | "I have come to set a man against his father
00:02:23.840 | and a daughter against her mother.
00:02:26.980 | Whoever loves mother or father more than me
00:02:31.520 | is not worthy of me," so on.
00:02:36.520 | In other words, devotion to father and mother
00:02:39.200 | is not absolute.
00:02:41.320 | Jesus is absolute.
00:02:43.120 | Now, that doesn't mean you can do whatever you want to do
00:02:45.840 | without reference to your parents,
00:02:47.920 | but it does mean that there is a new factor
00:02:51.120 | in the world that is greater than allegiance to parents,
00:02:55.200 | namely allegiance to Jesus.
00:02:56.880 | Third, we simply must admit that cultural realities
00:03:01.480 | in various people, groups, and tribes
00:03:04.120 | play a huge role in how to proceed with a marriage.
00:03:08.480 | And I think when Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13, 5,
00:03:11.800 | that love, I'm gonna use King James here,
00:03:14.840 | love does not behave itself unseemly.
00:03:19.680 | Now, that word unseemly means
00:03:22.040 | love doesn't blow off traditions.
00:03:26.360 | Love doesn't blow off customs.
00:03:28.400 | Love doesn't blow off mores.
00:03:30.440 | Love does not unnecessarily despise cultural traditions.
00:03:35.440 | Therefore, the application of these suggestions
00:03:39.800 | that I'm making right now
00:03:41.560 | are going to look very different in different cultures,
00:03:45.400 | and that's not sheer relativism.
00:03:48.480 | It's a discerning application of the principle of love.
00:03:53.440 | Number four, fourth suggestion with regard to parents.
00:03:57.600 | If you believe that your loyalty to Jesus
00:04:01.920 | is leading you to marry someone
00:04:04.880 | and you don't yet have your parents' approval,
00:04:07.720 | you need to ask seriously,
00:04:10.640 | have my parents really proved themselves to be unfit
00:04:16.960 | in making such kingdom judgments?
00:04:19.720 | Perhaps they have.
00:04:22.720 | Maybe they're not even Christians,
00:04:24.680 | but don't fail to be sure.
00:04:27.400 | I mean, that's a big question.
00:04:29.760 | Have my parents, with all their experience
00:04:32.800 | and all their love for me and all their wisdom,
00:04:37.440 | really proved themselves to be, in this case,
00:04:40.520 | unfit for making such kingdom judgments
00:04:44.000 | as the one I'm disagreeing on?
00:04:46.120 | And the last thing I would say with regard to parents
00:04:48.560 | is however you move forward,
00:04:50.920 | don't let there be a spirit of defiance
00:04:54.360 | towards your parents or a spirit of indifference
00:04:57.080 | to what they say as if their opinions don't matter.
00:05:01.000 | Let there be a spirit of humility and prayer and longing
00:05:05.520 | so that they can discern
00:05:07.360 | that your desire is for their blessing.
00:05:09.720 | So that's the first question she asked.
00:05:11.720 | The second question was,
00:05:13.040 | do you need to follow Western traditions in this marriage?
00:05:16.760 | White dress, church ceremony, walking down the aisle.
00:05:19.200 | And the answer is very simple.
00:05:20.560 | No, you don't.
00:05:21.880 | But I would caution that if you live in a culture
00:05:25.960 | where these traditions are cherished,
00:05:28.080 | you need to have good Christ-exalting Bible-based reasons
00:05:33.520 | for doing things a different way.
00:05:35.840 | Third question, can we not just get our marriage license
00:05:39.600 | and get a pastor to bless us
00:05:42.000 | and dispense with the church ceremony?
00:05:44.080 | It might be helpful to point out
00:05:49.000 | that I used to hear the exact reverse question.
00:05:52.440 | Like, can't we just have a Christian ceremony
00:05:54.600 | and skip the legal registration?
00:05:56.320 | It's really funny that things change around.
00:05:58.840 | I think my answer to both of those kinds of questions
00:06:03.840 | is to encourage young couples not to reinvent the wheel
00:06:09.400 | so quickly when dealing with a God-designed chariot
00:06:14.160 | as old and venerable and sacred and God-ordained
00:06:16.880 | and state-sanctioned as the institution of marriage.
00:06:19.960 | I think there's way too much playing around
00:06:24.160 | with wedding ceremonies in the name of personal creativity.
00:06:27.240 | I think couples should pause
00:06:31.000 | and wonder whether they are fit to be so creative
00:06:35.400 | with something so majestic and so holy
00:06:37.760 | and so ancient as God's order of marriage.
00:06:41.280 | It may be that weddings
00:06:44.360 | should not express a couple's uniqueness.
00:06:47.600 | I think most couples just enter,
00:06:48.800 | oh, we gotta show our uniqueness here.
00:06:51.320 | Maybe it's exactly the opposite.
00:06:54.080 | Maybe you're joining something
00:06:57.320 | that has been around for thousands and thousands of years
00:07:00.920 | and has its origin in heaven,
00:07:03.120 | and the last thing you should be thinking
00:07:05.040 | is creativity and uniqueness,
00:07:06.880 | but rather we are being given something here.
00:07:09.920 | We've been giving admission to something here
00:07:12.240 | that God is creating.
00:07:13.880 | Let's make it as holy and sacred
00:07:17.360 | and joyful and rooted as we can.
00:07:21.920 | At least I'd like to change a lot of mindsets
00:07:24.480 | with regard to thinking about weddings in this regard.
00:07:29.480 | The reason we have Christian ceremonies
00:07:32.640 | and legal registrations for marriage
00:07:35.040 | is not because the Bible says we have to,
00:07:37.120 | but because there are aspects of Christian discipleship
00:07:42.120 | which make both of these a matter of wisdom.
00:07:46.680 | On the one hand, we're citizens of this world
00:07:49.360 | called to be subject to the authorities
00:07:51.040 | that exist in Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2,
00:07:53.480 | which means that Christians will not try
00:07:55.680 | to get around the legal dimensions of marriage
00:07:58.600 | if they don't involve sin.
00:08:02.360 | On the other hand, however,
00:08:04.480 | it's not the state, it's not the national state
00:08:09.480 | that creates a marriage.
00:08:11.800 | God does.
00:08:13.440 | Jesus said, "What God has joined together,
00:08:16.840 | "let no man separate."
00:08:18.480 | God is the one who joins in marriage,
00:08:21.640 | not the state, not the couple, for goodness sakes,
00:08:25.000 | not the pastor, not the priest, not the parents.
00:08:28.440 | God does.
00:08:29.360 | God creates a marriage in heaven,
00:08:33.920 | and it is unbreakable except by death.
00:08:37.320 | God made this, let not man separate it.
00:08:41.240 | So it seems wonderfully suitable to me
00:08:44.400 | that there be some kind of Christian solemnizing
00:08:49.400 | of this sacred, holy, divine work
00:08:54.840 | that can only be broken by death.
00:08:57.560 | So my final word to Gloria is cultivate
00:09:01.520 | a Bible-saturated, humble spirit of utter allegiance
00:09:06.520 | to Jesus and guard yourself from any roots
00:09:11.080 | of self-exaltation or defiance towards parents
00:09:14.920 | or towards tradition.
00:09:16.320 | Seek the kingdom first, and God will show you the way.
00:09:20.680 | - That's good.
00:09:22.800 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:09:23.640 | And we talked about simple weddings in episode 875.
00:09:26.600 | You can check that out in the archive.
00:09:28.360 | It's titled Weddings Don't Break the Bank.
00:09:31.680 | It's in the archive of past episodes
00:09:33.360 | in the APJ app for Apple and Android devices
00:09:36.000 | or at our web home at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:09:41.000 | And tomorrow we field a question from a listener
00:09:43.640 | who wants to know if embracing medical technology
00:09:45.880 | and medicine impedes God's will for our lives
00:09:48.600 | and for our suffering.
00:09:50.560 | How do we know?
00:09:51.540 | You don't wanna miss this episode.
00:09:52.920 | This tomorrow on the Ask Pastor John podcast
00:09:54.800 | with longtime pastor and author John Piper.
00:09:57.200 | I'm your host, Tim O'Reilly.
00:09:58.040 | See you then.
00:09:58.880 | (upbeat music)
00:10:01.460 | (upbeat music)
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