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00:00:02 Genesis 2:24 says of a man and a woman 00:00:05 who marry that they are 00:00:06 to “become one flesh.” 00:00:08 Now, that raises some questions: 00:00:10 Whose words are those? 00:00:12 What do they mean? 00:00:14 How can we show that we believe them? 00:00:17 And is there a good example in the Bible of a couple who did? 00:00:20 Let’s start with looking at the context. 00:00:23 If you’d open your Bibles, please, to Genesis chapter 2, 00:00:27 and we’ll start with verse 18—Genesis 2. 00:00:31 It reports: “Then Jehovah God said: 00:00:33 “‘It is not good for the man to continue to be alone. 00:00:36 I am going to make a helper for him, as a complement of him.’” 00:00:41 Continuing in verse 21: 00:00:43 “So Jehovah God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, and while he was sleeping, 00:00:48 “he took one of his ribs and then closed up the flesh over its place. 00:00:52 “And Jehovah God built the rib that he had taken from the man into a woman, 00:00:56 “and he brought her to the man. 00:00:58 “Then the man said: 00:01:00 “‘This is at last bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. 00:01:05 “This one will be called Woman, because from man she was taken.’ 00:01:11 “That is why a man will leave his father and his mother 00:01:13 and he will stick to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” 00:01:18 So our first question is, Whose words are these? 00:01:22 Adam’s? 00:01:23 No. 00:01:24 The only words attributed to Adam are when he waxed poetic in verse 23. 00:01:29 And you can see that from the opening and closing quotation marks in that verse. 00:01:34 Well, then it must have been Moses’ words because, 00:01:36 after all, he wrote the Bible book of Genesis. 00:01:38 No. 00:01:40 He was not present at the time of the first marriage. 00:01:43 He did not start writing until some 2,500 years later, 00:01:47 and even then, he was writing what he was inspired to write. 00:01:52 Three Bible writers use this expression, “one flesh” 00:01:56 —Matthew, Mark, and Paul. 00:01:59 And it’s Matthew who gives us the clue as to whose words they are. 00:02:02 So let’s turn to Matthew chapter 19, 00:02:05 Matthew 19 00:02:09 beginning with verse 4. 00:02:14 And here Matthew writes and quotes Jesus; 00:02:18 it says: “In reply he [Jesus] said: 00:02:22 “‘Have you not read that the one who created them 00:02:25 “‘from the beginning made them male and female and said: 00:02:30 “‘“For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother 00:02:34 “‘and will stick to his wife, and the two will be one flesh”? 00:02:38 “‘So that they are no longer two, but one flesh. 00:02:41 Therefore, what God has yoked together, let no man put apart.’” 00:02:45 So Matthew makes it clear that Jehovah said those words. 00:02:50 And shouldn’t that elevate in everyone’s mind 00:02:53 the sanctity of the marital union? 00:02:56 As Jesus said, ‘God created male and female’ —two complementary genders— 00:03:01 and he ‘yoked them together in marriage as one flesh.’ 00:03:05 Now, it’s interesting what The Bible Exposition Commentary 00:03:08 says about this: “God established marriage, 00:03:11 “and therefore only God can control its character . . . 00:03:15 “It is a union between one man and one woman. 00:03:18 “God did not create two men and one woman, 00:03:22 “two women and one man, two men, or two women. 00:03:26 “‘Group marriages,’ ‘gay marriages,’ 00:03:28 “and other variations are contrary to the will of God, 00:03:31 no matter what some psychologists and jurists may say.” 00:03:35 “No court of law can change what God has established.” 00:03:39 And those are comments we can agree with. 00:03:42 Now, our second question is, What do these words mean: “They will become one flesh”? 00:03:47 Well, of course, the one-flesh relationship certainly involves sexual union, 00:03:52 but it goes beyond that because it includes a husband and wife 00:03:56 who have achieved mental, emotional, and spiritual harmony. 00:04:01 They are to have a oneness in their purpose and desires. 00:04:06 As Bible translator William Barclay renders it at Matthew 19:5: 00:04:10 “The husband will be joined inseparably to his wife.” 00:04:14 So in marriage, a man and a woman 00:04:17 are to become each other’s closest partner in life. 00:04:21 Being “one flesh” means that they must always 00:04:25 be thinking more of each other than of themselves, 00:04:27 that they must consider each other in everything they do. 00:04:31 So when single people marry, they need to shift 00:04:34 their thinking from mine to ours, 00:04:37 from me to we. 00:04:39 And so they must stop being single at heart 00:04:42 and come to be married at heart, not just on paper. 00:04:45 Now, our third question is, 00:04:47 How can we show that we believe these words? 00:04:50 Well, sad to say, many people these days 00:04:52 take a very casual attitude toward marriage, 00:04:54 and when the relationship becomes strained, 00:04:57 they just give up and walk out on their mate. 00:05:00 But that is not the Christian way. 00:05:02 Marriage is to be a lifelong relationship. 00:05:05 Just a few verses later on at Matthew 19:9, 00:05:09 Jesus taught that the only Scriptural ground for dissolving marriage 00:05:13 is when an innocent mate 00:05:15 chooses not to forgive an adulterous partner. 00:05:18 And that is because sexual relations outside the marriage bond 00:05:22 are a gross perversion of the one-flesh union. 00:05:26 Now, let’s read Paul’s words about this 00:05:29 at 1 Corinthians chapter 6 00:05:31 —1 Corinthians 6:16; 00:05:38 he said: “Do you not know that anyone who is joined to a prostitute 00:05:42 “is one body with her? 00:05:44 For ‘the two,’ says he, ‘will be one flesh.’” 00:05:48 So the adulterer pulls away from his marriage mate 00:05:51 and makes himself one flesh with a third person. 00:05:55 That, then, is the only Scriptural basis for divorce. 00:05:59 But divorce is a very painful experience. 00:06:02 As one sociologist put it, “Divorce is drastic surgery.” 00:06:06 To sever the one-flesh bond between husband and wife 00:06:10 would be like sawing oneself asunder. 00:06:14 What, though, if no adultery has been committed? 00:06:16 What if, for some reason, two people who are married to each other 00:06:19 just don’t like each other any longer? 00:06:22 Divorce is not an option. 00:06:24 Instead, they need to remind themselves of what attracted them to each other 00:06:28 and work at rekindling those feelings, 00:06:30 while at the same time looking to Jehovah for help 00:06:33 in not only strengthening their marriage 00:06:36 but also their spirituality. 00:06:39 Our fourth question is, 00:06:41 What Scriptural example is there of a married couple 00:06:44 who believed this one-flesh idea? 00:06:48 Turn to Romans 16:3, please, 00:06:51 Romans 16:3; here Paul writes: 00:06:56 “Give my greetings to Prisca [or Priscilla] and Aquila, 00:07:01 my fellow workers in Christ Jesus.” 00:07:03 So, yes, Aquila and Priscilla —what a model of a close and united couple 00:07:08 living up to what Jehovah meant when he said that a husband or wife 00:07:11 should become one flesh! 00:07:13 And Paul, who worked closely with them, 00:07:16 could not think of that dear brother 00:07:18 without recalling the faithful cooperation of his wife. 00:07:22 So it’s a fine example for Christian couples today. 00:07:25 And in every one of the six references to this couple 00:07:28 in the Christian Greek Scriptures, we find them working together, 00:07:31 cooperating without competition or strife. 00:07:34 And never is one mentioned without the other. 00:07:38 They constantly worked together in their home, 00:07:41 in their secular work, in the ministry. 00:07:43 And surely it was the time spent together in Christian activities 00:07:47 that kept their marriage on a high spiritual plane, 00:07:50 working side by side to further the Kingdom work. 00:07:54 Now, you and your marriage mate may be apart 00:07:56 for much of the day due to different work and responsibilities. 00:08:00 But can you find time each day to eat meals together, 00:08:04 to do household chores together, to take walks together, 00:08:09 to be together to get caught up 00:08:11 on what has gone on in your lives during the day? 00:08:14 Aquila and Priscilla proved that being united 00:08:17 in activities related to true worship 00:08:19 can keep a couple’s thinking and goals aligned, 00:08:22 and that does strengthen a marriage. 00:08:25 For example, studying together, 00:08:27 participating in congregation meetings together, 00:08:30 sharing in the ministry together, praying together, 00:08:33 in doing all of that, 00:08:36 a person’s interests, priorities, and habits 00:08:40 will harmonize with those of one’s spouse until, 00:08:44 like Aquila and Priscilla, 00:08:47 we increasingly think, feel, 00:08:49 and act as one flesh. 00:08:52 So now we know who said the words. 00:08:54 It was Jehovah. 00:08:56 We understand what they mean —achieving harmony 00:08:59 in one’s relationship with one’s mate. 00:09:01 And we can certainly prove that we believe these words 00:09:05 by staying close to our mate and maintaining our marriage bond. 00:09:10 And then we have that excellent example of Aquila and Priscilla to abide by.
00:00:02 Genesis 2:24 says of a man and a woman 00:00:05 who marry that they are 00:00:06 to “become one flesh.” 00:00:08 Now, that raises some questions: 00:00:10 Whose words are those? 00:00:12 What do they mean? 00:00:14 How can we show that we believe them? 00:00:17 And is there a good example in the Bible of a couple who did? 00:00:20 Let’s start with looking at the context. 00:00:23 If you’d open your Bibles, please, to Genesis chapter 2, 00:00:27 and we’ll start with verse 18—Genesis 2. 00:00:31 It reports: “Then Jehovah God said: 00:00:33 “‘It is not good for the man to continue to be alone. 00:00:36 I am going to make a helper for him, as a complement of him.’” 00:00:41 Continuing in verse 21: 00:00:43 “So Jehovah God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, and while he was sleeping, 00:00:48 “he took one of his ribs and then closed up the flesh over its place. 00:00:52 “And Jehovah God built the rib that he had taken from the man into a woman, 00:00:56 “and he brought her to the man. 00:00:58 “Then the man said: 00:01:00 “‘This is at last bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. 00:01:05 “This one will be called Woman, because from man she was taken.’ 00:01:11 “That is why a man will leave his father and his mother 00:01:13 and he will stick to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” 00:01:18 So our first question is, Whose words are these? 00:01:22 Adam’s? 00:01:23 No. 00:01:24 The only words attributed to Adam are when he waxed poetic in verse 23. 00:01:29 And you can see that from the opening and closing quotation marks in that verse. 00:01:34 Well, then it must have been Moses’ words because, 00:01:36 after all, he wrote the Bible book of Genesis. 00:01:38 No. 00:01:40 He was not present at the time of the first marriage. 00:01:43 He did not start writing until some 2,500 years later, 00:01:47 and even then, he was writing what he was inspired to write. 00:01:52 Three Bible writers use this expression, “one flesh” 00:01:56 —Matthew, Mark, and Paul. 00:01:59 And it’s Matthew who gives us the clue as to whose words they are. 00:02:02 So let’s turn to Matthew chapter 19, 00:02:05 Matthew 19 00:02:09 beginning with verse 4. 00:02:14 And here Matthew writes and quotes Jesus; 00:02:18 it says: “In reply he [Jesus] said: 00:02:22 “‘Have you not read that the one who created them 00:02:25 “‘from the beginning made them male and female and said: 00:02:30 “‘“For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother 00:02:34 “‘and will stick to his wife, and the two will be one flesh”? 00:02:38 “‘So that they are no longer two, but one flesh. 00:02:41 Therefore, what God has yoked together, let no man put apart.’” 00:02:45 So Matthew makes it clear that Jehovah said those words. 00:02:50 And shouldn’t that elevate in everyone’s mind 00:02:53 the sanctity of the marital union? 00:02:56 As Jesus said, ‘God created male and female’ —two complementary genders— 00:03:01 and he ‘yoked them together in marriage as one flesh.’ 00:03:05 Now, it’s interesting what The Bible Exposition Commentary 00:03:08 says about this: “God established marriage, 00:03:11 “and therefore only God can control its character . . . 00:03:15 “It is a union between one man and one woman. 00:03:18 “God did not create two men and one woman, 00:03:22 “two women and one man, two men, or two women. 00:03:26 “‘Group marriages,’ ‘gay marriages,’ 00:03:28 “and other variations are contrary to the will of God, 00:03:31 no matter what some psychologists and jurists may say.” 00:03:35 “No court of law can change what God has established.” 00:03:39 And those are comments we can agree with. 00:03:42 Now, our second question is, What do these words mean: “They will become one flesh”? 00:03:47 Well, of course, the one-flesh relationship certainly involves sexual union, 00:03:52 but it goes beyond that because it includes a husband and wife 00:03:56 who have achieved mental, emotional, and spiritual harmony. 00:04:01 They are to have a oneness in their purpose and desires. 00:04:06 As Bible translator William Barclay renders it at Matthew 19:5: 00:04:10 “The husband will be joined inseparably to his wife.” 00:04:14 So in marriage, a man and a woman 00:04:17 are to become each other’s closest partner in life. 00:04:21 Being “one flesh” means that they must always 00:04:25 be thinking more of each other than of themselves, 00:04:27 that they must consider each other in everything they do. 00:04:31 So when single people marry, they need to shift 00:04:34 their thinking from mine to ours, 00:04:37 from me to we. 00:04:39 And so they must stop being single at heart 00:04:42 and come to be married at heart, not just on paper. 00:04:45 Now, our third question is, 00:04:47 How can we show that we believe these words? 00:04:50 Well, sad to say, many people these days 00:04:52 take a very casual attitude toward marriage, 00:04:54 and when the relationship becomes strained, 00:04:57 they just give up and walk out on their mate. 00:05:00 But that is not the Christian way. 00:05:02 Marriage is to be a lifelong relationship. 00:05:05 Just a few verses later on at Matthew 19:9, 00:05:09 Jesus taught that the only Scriptural ground for dissolving marriage 00:05:13 is when an innocent mate 00:05:15 chooses not to forgive an adulterous partner. 00:05:18 And that is because sexual relations outside the marriage bond 00:05:22 are a gross perversion of the one-flesh union. 00:05:26 Now, let’s read Paul’s words about this 00:05:29 at 1 Corinthians chapter 6 00:05:31 —1 Corinthians 6:16; 00:05:38 he said: “Do you not know that anyone who is joined to a prostitute 00:05:42 “is one body with her? 00:05:44 For ‘the two,’ says he, ‘will be one flesh.’” 00:05:48 So the adulterer pulls away from his marriage mate 00:05:51 and makes himself one flesh with a third person. 00:05:55 That, then, is the only Scriptural basis for divorce. 00:05:59 But divorce is a very painful experience. 00:06:02 As one sociologist put it, “Divorce is drastic surgery.” 00:06:06 To sever the one-flesh bond between husband and wife 00:06:10 would be like sawing oneself asunder. 00:06:14 What, though, if no adultery has been committed? 00:06:16 What if, for some reason, two people who are married to each other 00:06:19 just don’t like each other any longer? 00:06:22 Divorce is not an option. 00:06:24 Instead, they need to remind themselves of what attracted them to each other 00:06:28 and work at rekindling those feelings, 00:06:30 while at the same time looking to Jehovah for help 00:06:33 in not only strengthening their marriage 00:06:36 but also their spirituality. 00:06:39 Our fourth question is, 00:06:41 What Scriptural example is there of a married couple 00:06:44 who believed this one-flesh idea? 00:06:48 Turn to Romans 16:3, please, 00:06:51 Romans 16:3; here Paul writes: 00:06:56 “Give my greetings to Prisca [or Priscilla] and Aquila, 00:07:01 my fellow workers in Christ Jesus.” 00:07:03 So, yes, Aquila and Priscilla —what a model of a close and united couple 00:07:08 living up to what Jehovah meant when he said that a husband or wife 00:07:11 should become one flesh! 00:07:13 And Paul, who worked closely with them, 00:07:16 could not think of that dear brother 00:07:18 without recalling the faithful cooperation of his wife. 00:07:22 So it’s a fine example for Christian couples today. 00:07:25 And in every one of the six references to this couple 00:07:28 in the Christian Greek Scriptures, we find them working together, 00:07:31 cooperating without competition or strife. 00:07:34 And never is one mentioned without the other. 00:07:38 They constantly worked together in their home, 00:07:41 in their secular work, in the ministry. 00:07:43 And surely it was the time spent together in Christian activities 00:07:47 that kept their marriage on a high spiritual plane, 00:07:50 working side by side to further the Kingdom work. 00:07:54 Now, you and your marriage mate may be apart 00:07:56 for much of the day due to different work and responsibilities. 00:08:00 But can you find time each day to eat meals together, 00:08:04 to do household chores together, to take walks together, 00:08:09 to be together to get caught up 00:08:11 on what has gone on in your lives during the day? 00:08:14 Aquila and Priscilla proved that being united 00:08:17 in activities related to true worship 00:08:19 can keep a couple’s thinking and goals aligned, 00:08:22 and that does strengthen a marriage. 00:08:25 For example, studying together, 00:08:27 participating in congregation meetings together, 00:08:30 sharing in the ministry together, praying together, 00:08:33 in doing all of that, 00:08:36 a person’s interests, priorities, and habits 00:08:40 will harmonize with those of one’s spouse until, 00:08:44 like Aquila and Priscilla, 00:08:47 we increasingly think, feel, 00:08:49 and act as one flesh. 00:08:52 So now we know who said the words. 00:08:54 It was Jehovah. 00:08:56 We understand what they mean —achieving harmony 00:08:59 in one’s relationship with one’s mate. 00:09:01 And we can certainly prove that we believe these words 00:09:05 by staying close to our mate and maintaining our marriage bond. 00:09:10 And then we have that excellent example of Aquila and Priscilla to abide by.
