Recovering God’s heart for dads means recovering his heart for moms and healthy marriage too. In God’s ideal and design, dads do their best work together in a loving relationship with mom. To say it another way, women and wives are essential and full partners in raising healthy kids. And marriage is intimately tied to fatherhood. It’s been said that the best way for a man to love his children is to love their mother. After thirty-five of marriage, I whole-heartedly agree and many social scientists like David Blankenhorn also concur:
Scholars who study this issue know full well that . . . the institution of marriage is the essential precondition for, and therefore the most accurate predictor of . . . effective, hands-on, nurturing fatherhood…. ignoring marriage is like wanting the crops without plowing the ground, or wanting the ocean without the roar of its waters.[1]
Further, “American men see marriage and parenting as a package deal; when the marriage breaks up, parenting deteriorates as well.”[2] A simple way to summarize the research on marriage is that it shows that marriage tends to function as the glue that holds the father to his children. indeed, “nearly every negative outcome for children increases statistically without the presence of a committed man in the home.”[3] My friend and the former president of National Fatherhood Initiative, Roland Warren, likens this aspect of marriage to the three rules of real estate: location, location, location. In other words, it’s much harder to be involved, responsible, and committed to your children when you don’t live in the same house.
Marriage is the foundational institution of the human race (Genesis 2:22-25). God designed it to be a creation thing—for society as a whole, not just a Christian thing—for those who identify as Christians. It’s a gift from the Creator of love and life. And although it’s a celebration filled with joy, marriage, as God created it, is a serious decision involving a lifetime commitment.
Along with its benefits, here are…
God’s 7 Purposes for Marriage (and sex within marriage):
- To help overcome individual aloneness (Genesis 2:18).
- To provide a man and woman with the gift of “togetherness,” and a committed context to learn to be “soul mates” (Eccl. 4:9-12; Matthew19:4-6; Ephesians 5:28-29).
- To provide a safe place for enjoying sexual expression (Proverbs 5:15-20; Ecclesiastes 9:9a).
- To grow the human race (Genesis 1:28).
- To provide the best environment for raising healthy children (Psalm 127:1, 3-5).
- To curb the hurt in society caused by pre-marital sex and extra-marital affairs (1 Corinthians 7:1-2; 1Thessalonians 4:3-5).
- To be a picture of the intimacy God desires with us through Christ (Ephesians 5:25-32).
And just for fun, click on the pic below to enjoy a classic song from the sixties related to our topic and title!
[1] March 16, 2009 letter to President Obama.
[2] The Cambridge Companion to Christian Ethics, Second Edition (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2012), 259.
[3] Bruce Wydick, “Married with Benefits,” Christianity Today, 60, no. 6 (July/August 2016), 74.