Does it really matter whom you marry? Should Christians marry non-Christians? What if there aren’t any good prospects for marriage in your local church or nearby sister congregations? Should you look outside of your tradition to find a suitable spouse?
These questions came to mind recently during our family Bible reading through the historical books of the Old Testament. This seems to be an important theme to the writer of 2 Chronicles. One example is King Jehoshaphat of Judah, who “by marriage…allied himself with Ahab.” Ahab was a godless man who ruled over the Northern Kingdom of Israel alongside his wife Jezebel and led Israel into great idolatry and immorality. This alliance by marriage involved his son Jehoram and Ahab’s daughter, Athaliah. Summarizing Jehoram’s life and reign, the writer of Chronicles says, “And he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, just as the house of Ahab had done, for he had the daughter of Ahab as a wife; and he did evil in the sight of the LORD” (2 Chron. 21:6).
The Bible says nothing good about the kings of Israel after the kingdom divided under Solomon’s son, Rehoboam. This makes the comparison of Jehoram to the house of Ahab especially troubling. In fact, Jehoram’s reign was so corrupt that he received a letter from Elijah – the only writing that has been preserved from the great prophet condemning him to a painful and premature death at age 40. Why would the son of godly Jehoshaphat kill his brothers (v.4) and spur Judah on to commit spiritual adultery (v.11)? Because of the influence of his unbelieving wife.
In fact, Leslie Allen calls this “the grim legacy of a mistake made by his father. Jehoshaphat, for all his virtues, blotted his copybook in the matter of fraternization with the kings of the north. It was a lapse that mushroomed into disproportionate consequences.” Through Jehoram’s widow, the house of Ahab took possession of the throne of David and threatened to cut off the Davidic line entirely when Athaliah murdered her own grandsons in an attempt to consolidate her own hold on the throne. Only the providence of God preserved the covenant line, by which Jesus was to come, from her bloody reign of terror in Jerusalem.
The decision about whom to marry may have effects that linger for generations.
All of this is the fallout from one unequal marriage. Now it is true that there is no evidence that Jehoram was himself a believer, so it may not correspond perfectly to the questions I posed at the beginning, but it should give us pause to think about just where these decisions may lead. The decision about whom to marry is neither small nor insignificant, and it may have effects that linger for generations.
After Chronicles we read the book of Ezra, which describes the return of the exiles from Babylon to rebuild the temple and, later, to restore the worship of the Lord in his temple. It was during this second period that Ezra the priest returned with a group of exiles only to find that the people had begun to return to “the abominations of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites” (Ezra 9:1). Why did they follow the detestable practices of their neighbors? Verse 2 tells us it was the fruit of mixed marriages between God’s people and those of the land, “so that the holy seed is mixed with the peoples of those lands.” This was exactly what God said would happen, when he instructed the Israelites in the law not to intermarry with pagans, “for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and Yahweh’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you” (Deut. 7:3-4).
How did Ezra react to this news? He didn’t ignore it or dismiss it as unimportant. Instead he tore his robe, plucked out some of his hair, and sat down in astonishment for the entire day. That evening he prayed to God and begged for mercy on behalf of his countrymen for their guilt. This display of godly sorrow over sin caused many of the people to come and confess their sin with bitter tears, and under Ezra’s direction they swore an oath to divorce their unbelieving wives and separate themselves from the pagan nations with their detestable practices.
As with the earlier record of the families of Jehoshaphat and Ahab, we recognize that our present situation is not entirely like that of the exiles returning from captivity in Babylon. Christians are not counseled to divorce an unbelieving spouse, although Paul does teach that he should allow his unbelieving wife to divorce him without contest, if she chooses. Still, this account reinforces the seriousness of the question about whom to marry. Believers may be led into sinful and false worship by marrying someone who is from a different faith. Rather than having to deal with the fallout of such a sin, it is far better to avoid it altogether by refusing to marry anyone who does not know and worship the Lord.
Sadly, this problem of intermarriage with foreigners who worshiped other gods continued to plague the Israelites. In the book of Nehemiah the problem is addressed in a covenant made by the people in which they promised to be faithful to keep God’s law. This included separating themselves from unbelievers: “We would not give our daughters as wives to the peoples of the land, nor take their daughters for our sons” (Neh. 10:30).
Later, when Nehemiah returned a second time from Persia, he discovered some men had married foreign women, and their children were losing the ability to speak in the language of the Jews. What was his reaction? He says, “I contended with them and cursed them, struck some of them and pulled out their hair, and made them swear by God” that they would put a stop to these marriages (13:25). While that may seem a bit harsh, it should remind us of just how dangerous sin is in general and how foolish it is for God’s people to become intimately joined with unbelievers. In fact, he reminded them of Solomon, a king like none other, “who was beloved of his God….Nevertheless pagan women caused even him to sin. Should we then hear of your doing all this great evil, transgressing against our God by marrying pagan women?” (13:26-27).
With these passages in mind, let’s come back to the questions we started with: Does it really matter whom you marry? Yes, absolutely! Your spouse will influence you greatly. An unsaved spouse does not worship God and therefore cannot but hinder your Christian walk. Should Christians marry non-Christians? No. These OT examples are clear enough, and the NT agrees: believers are free to marry “in the Lord” (1 Cor. 7:39). What if there aren’t any good prospects for marriage in your local church or nearby sister congregations? Should you look outside of your tradition to find a suitable spouse? I think these questions deserve space for careful reflection and response, so I will plan to address them in another post.