First of all, I would like to congratulate you on the excellent work! The book and videos have blessed my life and my relationship greatly. I’ve been dating someone for four months, someone who I had a casual relationship with 5 years ago.  I always loved her, and I’m happy that we’ve had this opportunity to get back together and this time our relationship is serious.

I want so much to marry her, and she also shows the same desire; however, in a conversation we had, she questioned me on the point of marriage by law or in court. She asked me where it’s written in the Bible that we need a marriage certificate. I confess I had no words to answer the question, yet it’s one of my wishes to make it formal, besides the fact that I’ll feel very proud to give her my name. I told her we could continue the conversation at a more opportune time, and I hope you can help me, not so I can convince her, but inform her about what God thinks and wishes in regards to marriage.

Ricardo G.

Hi Ricardo,

The answer to your girlfriends question is very simple: it’s not written in the Bible. It’s ridiculous to expect that a book written more than 2 thousand years ago specify what society in the future would require in terms of the legalizing of marriage. Yet saying you don’t need to marry in court because it’s not written in the Bible is like saying we shouldn’t use the telephone because the Bible doesn’t talk about that.

The fact is that the Bible deals with principles, and not with everyday details. One thing’s for sure, the Bible couldn’t be clearer about: marriage being an unbreakable alliance between two people, where God himself testifies. See Malachi 2:14-16. And on this principle, marrying in court doesn’t annul anything, on the contrary, it’s totally in agreement.

What worries me most in her question is not the fact that the Bible doesn’t say “You shall sign a marriage certificate,” but what the question hides. I’m not judging your girlfriend, but the question suggests that in the past there were probably some bad experiences in her love life, or she witnessed some in her family, and it affected her in such a way that she has somewhat of a disbelief towards marriage. This is what you should worry about. Besides that, why would someone who doesn’t accept the Biblical principle of marriage be worried about what the Bible says in respect to marrying in court? It doesn’t make sense.

My advice is that you have a long conversation about how you both view marriage, the union of two people for life, the baggage each of you will bring (as we speak about in the book,) and each others expectations – before entering into a boat with a leak.

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