Marriage and Family

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Marriage and Family

MP4 Video - 720p (168.42 MB)
MP3 Audio (4.04 MB)
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Divorce rates are down. That's the good news. The bad news is the family is being redefined.

Transcript

[Darris McNeely] A recent New York Times headline said that “The Divorce Surge is Over, But the Myth Lives On”. What were they talking about?

A viewer sent this article to me, saying that it would make a very good Daily for us to do, and indeed it is. The divorce surge is over – well, the article goes on to show that since the 1970s and 1980s, when divorce rates were well over fifty percent of people who were married actually wound up in divorce – it’s actually dipped below fifty percent, and that in recent years, not as many people are getting a divorce. And yet, as the article headline says, the myth lives on – the idea, that people still report today in many reputable news outlets, is that there are still extremely high – more than 50% – rates of divorce in the United States. But as this article shows from statistical analysis it’s actually dipped lower. Now, that can be good, and indeed it is good that there are fewer divorces. But there’s another myth that could be working here as pertains to the family and the marriage, if we don’t really understand the societal trends that are taking place, and what the statistics and the actual facts do show us.

The article goes into some very interesting background in terms of why the divorce rates are actually lower than they are. The reality is that people are marrying later today. They are actually living together, without marriage, far more – both younger people and older people today – than used to be. Birth control has played into this, as well, and actually fewer people are getting married. In fact, the idea that we all know and understand that there are more single parent families in the United States today also contributes to the statistical decline. And what that does in regards to marriage and the family itself is indeed a mixed blessing.

This article also shows that among college-educated people, there are fewer divorces. But, among those with less education, there are still abnormally high rates of divorce, higher rates of divorce. People who have a college education, it seems, have a different level of expectations and how to even manage those expectations when it comes to marriage. Therefore, their divorce rates are lower. The article also shows that many people are actually marrying for love, marrying their soul mate, than perhaps happened before, as well – which is a good thing, when that love and that bond of love is developed within marriage.

Here’s the bottom line, according to this article, and really, according to what we see in terms of the trends in society: there is less divorce, and that’s good. But as we look at all the other trends that are developing – more people living together without marriage, more single-parent relationships, children being raised in single-parent families without a father or a mother, and we also have the growing acceptance of same-sex marriage, which in itself is redefining the very basic biblical definition of marriage – there are a number, then, of trends that are working to actually redefine the entire concept of family, if you look at really what’s taking place behind these statistics.

Look at the trends. Look at what is happening in our families, in our cities, in your neighborhood, even, to people that we all know – and there we can, I think, gain the understanding of what is taking place. What’s really happening is that there’s becoming a redefinition of the family, what the family is. And this is of major, historic, even biblical proportions.

Because the biblical definition of the family is something that is rapidly being redefined and forgotten in our culture today – not just in the United States – that a family can be of two people of the same sex, that a family can be, in a sense, a single parent, that a family can be of two people living without a commitment to one another before God, and an oath whereby they take each other as God says to do.

The basic Scripture that defines marriage as we understand it and should relate to it is in Genesis 2:24, where God, as He made man and woman, male and female, says, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” The biblical definition of marriage is one man and one woman, committed together in a spiritual relationship, becoming one flesh. And there is the building block of the family as God defines it, and is the basic building block of actually the entire plan of God for all of mankind and for the entire universe, as many other Scriptures show.

And so, when we look at an article like this, it talks about less divorce – we can certainly rejoice that there is. But it’s important to look beyond the headline to understand exactly what is taking place, and help us to understand how God looks at the concept of family and marriage, and make our distinctions and make our own commitments and our own choices, based on God’s word.

That’s BT Daily. Join us next time.