What Charlie taught about marriage
A covenant, not a contract: marriage is not about you, and it comes before everything else at home.
“For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.”
Ephesians 5:31-32 (KJV)
“Obviously your marriage actually comes before your kids. I know it's a provocative thing to say, but it's true. Your relationship with your kids is important, but it's not covenantal. Your marriage is a covenant. Your relationship with your kids is an outgrowth of a covenant. They're under your stewardship, but covenantal relationships are ones that we saw with Abraham and David and Israel, and of course Jesus. That idea of marriage being a covenant is a big, big deal. In fact, only marriage in the Bible is compared to Christ's relationship with the church.”
Ask Charlie what holds a marriage together and he did not start with romance. He started with a word from the Old Testament: covenant. In a conversation about building a strong family, he said marriage comes before the kids, and he knew that sounded provocative. His reason was simple. Your children are under your stewardship, but your marriage is the covenant the whole household grows out of.
He also pointed to something Paul says in Ephesians. Of everything in the Bible, he noted, only marriage is compared to Christ's relationship with the church. That is a high view of a wedding day, and he wanted couples to hold it. A husband and wife are not just two people who get along. They are a picture of something larger than themselves.
“Look, I mean, it's not about you. That's the most important thing that you'll learn really quick. It's about service. It's about, you know, commitment to the other.”
“You enter into marriage as a covenant. Now what is a contract is a thing between two people. I want to buy something from you or I want to lease something. A covenant is something between three people, man, woman, God. A covenant has no expiration date. A covenant is built on love and trust and mutual shared values. A contract is not. So my advice for all of you is enter into marriage covenantally, not contractually. Get married in a church. Do pre-marital counseling.”
That is why he drew the line between a covenant and a contract. A contract is between two people, and it ends when one side stops getting what they bargained for. A covenant has three parties: a man, a woman and God. It has no expiration date, and it is built on love, trust and shared values. He told couples to enter marriage covenantally, to marry in a church and to do pre-marital counseling.
When a newly married young man asked him for the secret to a long, happy marriage, his first answer was short: it's not about you. Marriage is service. It is commitment to the other person, chosen again on the ordinary days when nobody is watching and the feelings are quiet.
None of this is complicated, and that is the point. Protect the covenant. Serve each other first. Keep God in the middle, so that when marriage gets hard, as Charlie said it will, there is something stronger than your mood holding you together. If you are married, take it as an invitation to renew a promise you already made. If you hope to be, it is a way to start preparing now.
Living it today
Do one thing today that is purely service to your spouse, something they will not have to ask for, and do not mention it. If you are not married, pray today by name for the person you may one day marry.
A prayer
Father, thank you for the gift of marriage and for the covenant you keep with us. Teach me to love without keeping score and to serve before I am served. Keep you at the center of my home, and hold us together on the hard days. Amen.