The PAPER COVENANT
As Long As We Both Shall Tolerate
What if the covenant is chiseled into stone and not penned on paper?
What does Scripture actually teach about the permanence of marriage? The Paper Covenant examines the biblical passages most often used to justify divorce, asking whether modern assumptions have obscured the nature of a covenant God intended to endure until death.
A CoveNant, Not A CoNtract
Marriage is often treated as though it were a contract—an agreement that remains in force only so long as both parties continue to accept its terms. Scripture presents something far more serious: a covenant joined by God, not merely negotiated by man.
The ProMise
Two people stand before God and make vows intended not merely for the moment, but for the life that follows.
The CoVenant
Scripture describes marriage as more than an exchange of promises. God joins two lives together in a covenant that creates something neither spouse possesses the authority to dissolve.
The PerManence
If God is the One who joins husband and wife together, the question changes. It is no longer simply whether a marriage can be legally ended, but whether man possesses the authority to separate what God has joined.
God joins a husband and a wife into a one-flesh union. God does that. The world does not know this. Which is one of the reasons why marriage is treated so casually. And Christians often act like they don’t know it, which is one of the reasons marriage in the church is not seen as the wonder it is. Marriage is God’s doing because it is a one-flesh union that God Himself performs.
If That Is TRue, What Else Changes?
If marriage is more than a contract between two people—if God Himself creates the one-flesh union—then some of our most familiar questions about marriage may need to be asked again.
The “EXception CLauses”
Did Jesus really establish circumstances under which a marriage covenant ceases to exist—or have we read something into His words that isn’t there?
DiVorce & REMarriage
If a civil decree ends a legal marriage, does it also end what God joined? And what does Scripture require when divorce has already occurred and another marriage covenant follows?
PoLygamy & The OLd TestaMent
Scripture records men with multiple wives—sometimes among its most prominent figures. But does biblical description constitute divine approval? And what happens when those accounts are examined against God’s original design for the one-flesh union?
SaMe-SeX Marriage
Why does same-sex marriage present such a profound theological problem for Christians? The answer may reach far deeper than the familiar debates over sexuality—and into the very nature, purpose, and authorship of covenant relationships themselves.
When The CoVenant Has AlReady Been BroKen
Theology is easiest when it remains abstract. But divorce is never abstract to the people who have lived through it. What does biblical faithfulness look like for the divorced, the remarried, the abandoned, or those carrying decisions that cannot simply be undone? Truth does not cease to be truth because it is painful—but neither should truth ever be separated from grace.