12 February 2022
The Deti has it right: Marriage is not a mission. "Spouse" is a role, not a divine purpose.
Two things come to mind immediately. One: Men must commit themselves to a mission with or without a wife. Yes, there is a righteous path for doing marriage, but it is not the mission itself. It cannot be, and it's evil to try making it one. Two: The biggest problem is how the mainstream church leadership have been morally compromised by the feminist idolatry.
In American secular law and in religion, women are goddesses. They can get away with anything and men must submit. For women, the world revolves around them and their feelings. They don't even understand the concept of biblical submission in marriage. In this alone, the mainstream churches are worthy of all contempt.
And it is most certainly not good enough to be culturally reactionary. Simply pushing back along the timeline to reassert the days of formal patriarchy is not going to solve anything. The former patriarchy of the past was fake. Feminism has always been the root nature of Western Civilization, acknowledged or not. Do you realize that primordial Germanic tribal culture has always placed women on a pedestal? Look it up: The weregild for a woman of any social rank was always double that of any man of the same social rank. And the Roman Church adopted that sort of mythology shortly after the Fall of Rome in order to sucker the Germanic tribes into taking church leadership seriously.
The solution is rejecting the entirety of Western Civilization. It cannot be amended; its very roots are foul and evil.
The Bible has always been built on Hebrew culture. In Hebrew culture, man was created and woman was built from him. They are not equal; they cannot be. She is inherently subordinate. It's obvious from the very first chapters of Genesis. God made women to support what He called men to do. How she submits to her God-given role can either bless and sanctify, or defile and damn the marriage.
Another issue is the ancient cultural lie that sex is somehow naughty in itself. That is utterly absent in Hebrew culture. For a man to be what God intended he be, even in his fallen condition, he must be interested in sex with attractive women. Yes, there is a problem with the fleshly nature desiring unlimited sexual behavior, but the sexual urge itself is not evil. It is the mark of manhood. What we do with it is another question.
Nor was sex hidden from children. It was assumed they had a limited understanding of what it was all about, but there was no effort whatsoever to shield children from the awareness of human sexuality. Sex was private, but not a secret. By the same token, there was a strong social rejection of perverted sexual behavior. And "perversion" included a lot of things we encourage in the West today. One more time: The problem with sexual attraction to children was virtually absent in Hebrew culture, simply because that culture was fundamentally otherworldly and did not worship youth. Nothing in Scripture directly condemns sex with children because it wasn't an issue.
If you embrace Hebrew culture, and reject the Western culture as pagan and evil, then it follows that you must reject mainstream organized religion. Whatever it is churches do, it's a very long way from what "Christianity" means. Christ was a Hebrew man to the core, and His teaching was a call to restore Hebrew culture on the earth.
If your mission is to remain as a witness in the Western world, then a Covenant marriage is highly unlikely. And it's going to get worse. That doesn't mean God won't grant His servants the blessing of marriage to support and implement that Covenant witness. If your convictions give life to a faith that God will provide, then by all means, forge ahead in full assurance it will happen. Give Him room to provide something you might not expect, but know that it will fall within Covenant boundaries. You might have to do the work to shepherd your woman into the a Covenant faith during the process.
But don't chase; what you desire is not likely a reliable guide. God will bring her to you, just as He did with Adam. If she's yours, she has to figure that out first. But don't hide your interest in women in general. Maybe the hardest thing for men to learn in our culture today is how to do that without seeming creepy. Then again, you cannot afford to cater to the pagan expectations of women in our society. It's a whole book's worth of teaching to counter the lies of our world. What draws worthy women will tend to draw the unworthy, too, so keep your filters in place. Be the man God made you to be and let Him take it from there; genuine faith in your convictions makes you very confident. (Part of what a covenant community does is create an atmosphere that builds up men in fraternity and wisdom. Only a tiny portion of men can do this alone.)
But by the same token of faith, be prepared to serve in celibacy. Yes, by all means, seek the Lord's face in humility to pursue holiness. Make sure you are fit for a Covenant marriage. But don't take it as a mark of His disfavor if He never brings you into a marriage relationship. You are not alone; you will be in good company. In this time and place, everything around you works against the Covenant path. Pagan idolatry is rampant, in the churches as well, and it will be a major miracle to find someone who hasn't bowed the knee to various idols.
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