How to Reconcile with Your Spouse (1 Cor. 7:10-11)

During the creation week, when God declared in Genesis 2:18: “And the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.’” And the subsequent refrain in verse 24, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh,” it became abundantly clear that God intended marriage to be a permanent union.

1 Corinthians 7:10-11 is, simply, an echo of the Genesis account and the reiteration of the original vision, presented in Mark 10:9, 11-12 by Jesus Himself, when He said: “Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate…. So He said to them, ‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. And if a woman divorces her husband marries another, she commits adultery.’”

Marriage is sacred, and God expects His people to treat this institution with the seriousness that He outlines in the Scripture. To be sure, for marriage to be what God expects, husbands and wives will need His help to approach each other with the patience and kindness necessary to nurture and protect marriage as God wants it to be.

Of course, with humans, being what we are, the ideal will not always be reached. Nevertheless, we should be ever mindful of what God requires and strive to live by His will.