The Bible can be abused in countless ways. We see it every day.
It can be used to justify discrimination, to ratify war, to control behavior, to police sexuality, to sanction violence. It can be commandeered by self-seeking hucksters, to sell anything they want the unsuspecting faithful to consume: like marital advice.
I recently ran into a pastor on social media named Dale Partridge, who posted, “100% of divorces are caused by people who want to do marriage their way and not God’s way.” He declared that any marriage that failed, did so because one or both of the people involved, chose to abandon the Bible (which he matter-of-factly contended was “a marriage guide.”)
This is a familiar trope of Partridge and people like him: Christian pastors, authors, and speakers, offering sermon series and weekend conferences and online courses on how to have a “Biblical marriage,” but this is a reckless and irresponsible use of the text, one ripe with potential injury.
The Bible is not a marriage guide. It simply isn’t.
It was written at a time when women were essential marital property, when they were seen as far less valuable than men, beyond the function of child-bearer or meal-preparer. The only thing we need to do, to see the cracks in the idea of the Bible as any kind of marriage guide—is to open it up.
We can begin in the second chapter of Genesis, where man (Adam) is given life, and out of that life, comes the afterthought and helper in woman (Eve). And it is Eve, who just a short chapter later, is responsible for luring Adam into the first sin that will damn them and all humankind to follow. Not exactly setting up the idea of partnerships of mutual worth, here—especially given what follows beyond this Creation account, which is not exclusive to the Bible.
The Book of Numbers sees the venerable Moses (at God’s instruction) ordering his army (after killing all the men of Midian), to also go back and murder the women there who have previously slept with men, and to take the virgins for themselves as plunder. I’m guessing that isn’t a feature of many flowery weekend marriage conferences.
Deuteronomy 22, declares than a man who is caught raping a woman (not raping her, mind you, but being caught doing so), must pay her and then marry her. This kind of #MeToo-friendly message, likely isn’t featured in many of the glossy marital Bible studies these pastors like to peddle on their websites.
Many of the Biblical patriarchs, the heroic pillars of the faith, had multiples wives and concubines, with the book of 1 Kings describing Solomon’s numerous hundreds—and the only warning he is given by God on the matter, is that these should not be women outside his faith—lest Solomon find himself being swayed by their religion. This doesn’t make a lot of feel-good megachurch Sunday sermons on Marriage God’s Way.
And even if these traffickers in the idea of Biblical marriage want to avoid that whole annoying first half of the Bible altogether, they still don’t have a very compelling case. Jesus and the Apostle Paul, whose voices comprise 90 percent of the New Testament teaching, were not married—and the latter’s teachings are well-documented reflections of a cultural misogyny that valued men above their wives in weighty matters of faith.
To be a marriage guide, the Bible would need to, at the very least, be written by an author or authors, with a singular message—and that is simply not the case. We see monogamy and polygamy, we see women as revered and women as possessions, we see Paul instructing husbands to love their wives—and we see wives commanded to submission.
In fact, there are almost no examples in the Bible, of a married couple whose relationship is unpacked over time, with any detail or nuance or equality, and that’s fine—because the Bible isn’t a marriage guide. The very idea that pastors and authors contend that it is, remind us why fundamentalist churches are places where misogyny and sexual assault are rampant; where women are compelled by pastors, priests, and ministers to stay in abusive relationships so as not to go against God’s will; where a teen purity culture is still propagated that shames women for expressing sexuality beyond the most rigid of requirements; where sexual assault within a marriage is almost never named and opposed; where people are prohibited from and ostracized for marrying someone of the same gender.
The Bible is not a marriage guide.
It is a sprawling library, written by dozens of authors in multiple languages and assembled over thousands of years, reflecting the culture and context these writings were born out of. We can’t ignore this as we read it—especially when it comes to our most intimate and vulnerable relationships, or we risk doing incredible damage in the name of a God who we claim gives us permission to.
The Bible is not a marriage guide any more than it is a geography textbook, a medical journal, or an accurate chronological history of the earth’s creation.
To claim that it contains a uniform ethic regarding living within a marriage, is an irresponsible use of the Scriptures; one that attempts to retrofit the Bible to some Instagram-ready hipster aesthetic, that can be packaged and sold—and in doing so, eliminates the messy, contradictory, uncomfortable parts of it that we should run from in our marriages.
We can read and study the Bible—and we can have loving, meaningful marriages built on mutual worth, true equality, and deep affection.
We just don’t need the former exclusively to create the latter.
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