Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. – 1 Corinthians 4
That’s the go-to passage for just about every wedding I’ve attended, even my own. When you read the bible, you really need to read more than a passage or two to get the context. That said, I find that whole letter smacks of Leviticus or even the Koran – Allah prescribes this… There’s all sorts of proclamations in it, although he has more to say in earlier chapters about roles in a marriage. A better passage can be found in a different letter:
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, His body, of which He is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her to sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to Himself as a glorious church, without stain or wrinkle or any such blemish, but holy and blameless.
In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. Indeed, no one ever hated his own body, but he nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church. For we are members of His body.
“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, but I am speaking about Christ and the church. Nevertheless, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. – Ephesians 5:21
That’s the one they avoid at these ceremonies and it’s probably better advice to the newlywed.
Note that nowhere in these letters does it say you need a great house in a nice neighborhood, that you need new cars, or that the husband is in charge of the fun. Nowhere does it say that life will be easy if you follow this. But what it does is remind the reader that there’s a third party involved here, namely God himself.
He keeps it simple. It should be that simple.
Inspected By Pat 