Imagine Ashanti, a pastor’s wife in Tanzania, walking down a path with a beautiful baby on her back, a few other small ones running around or trailing behind her. She serves alongside her husband in ministry, helping with worship. Ashanti endures a swollen eye and a fresh wound on her arm. She has recently been beaten by her husband, the pastor, to show his preferential treatment of her between his two wives.
As we prepare for the coming marriage conference for the pastors on Kome Island, Tanzania, the cultural dynamic stretches our sensitivities to include a great compassion for what people have grown accustomed to there. Women may not just find themselves viewed as objects to be owned or tools for pleasure, they may also learn to expect beatings as a display of love and attention. We would be horrified here in the states by any of these attitudes in a Christian marriage, but cultural norms become engrained and may not send up red flags.
ABH excitedly anticipates presenting Marriage as God Intended, a bite-sized book authored by Dr. Thomas Golding. This book illustrates how marriage came into being as God’s first institution, intended to reflect His relationship with His people. This short piece packs the revolutionary love of God, shown through the marriage relationship, into four chapters. Dr. Golding uses God’s words in Genesis, the Gospels, and Paul’s writings to teach about godly marriage across cultures.
The June ministry team received an invitation to train pastors and their wives in biblical marriage so that their relationships, families, and communities may experience the transforming power of God’s love. Many pastors realize that the culture they have been steeped in lies outside God’s plan, but lack the tools to teach their congregations another way. Now, they will not only have a tool, but an understanding of how God’s Word gives us a picture of how marriages can flourish and point to God.
Wives may learn the difference between the “love” they’ve grown up with and real love brimming from a life saturated with the knowledge of the Holy One. Our God exalts women in a way no other religion or culture does. Women may come to realize the joy of God’s love while living in an unsatisfying earthly marriage, through the picture given to us of Christ as the bridegroom of His church. Or perhaps a woman may experience a changed heart in her husband due to the example of her respectful behavior toward him (I Peter 3:2).
Pray for these couples. And pray for us, that we present the truth of God’s Word in a way that doesn’t create a defensive spirit or sense of injustice or a sense that America’s culture is the right culture. Pray that God’s Word does its work dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow, thoughts and attitudes of the heart (Heb. 4:12) and that we would be His faithful servants.
Now imagine the marriage of Ashanti and her husband changing their community simply by living out their family life in a biblical way. Their marriage shines to their congregation and neighbors. It shines with the light of Christ, demonstrating a sacrificial, mutually submissive love for one another rooted in the joy that real love creates. Fear is replaced with faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love.