The Marriage First Principle

Priorities. Every one of us has any number of greater and lesser priorities in our lives. Marriage is one of those priorities. But where does it fall on the scale of importance? Should it be toward the top, the bottom, or somewhere in the middle?

Marriage came into being as one of the first acts of God’s plan for all of history. After creating the world and the animals, God created the first man, Adam. But, Adam was alone, and God said that was not a good thing (Genesis 2:18). To solve the problem, God created the first woman, Eve, and the first marriage was the result. In establishing marriage God created the first and most intimate human relationship, one which takes highest priority among all human relationships.

That idea is what I refer to as the “Marriage First” principle.

One important point regarding the Marriage First principle.

Your marriage relationship

comes before

all other earthly relationships.

Did you notice that our verse instructs a man to leave his father and mother when he gets married? Why did God command something like this?

Consider this: The relationships that a person has with their mother and father are normally the closest relationships they’ve had prior to adulthood. In teaching us that a man is to “leave” his father and mother, God is saying that once a couple becomes married, they are moving into a new and different stage in life, where the close relationships of the past (with parents) are to take a lesser place of importance in view of the new relationship that has begun (marriage).

There are many applications of this, but it is important to understand that this is the basic idea behind the Marriage First principle. Let’s flesh the idea out a bit.

You have many relationships that fill your life:

and every one of them is important in it’s own way, and to varying degrees.

But what the Marriage First principle teaches us is that as important as those relationships may be, none of them is to rival your relationship with your spouse. Your spouse is to come first…in your thoughts and in your consideration.

Questions for Reflection

• Are you willing to take the time to learn what it will take for your marriage to be that kind of priority?
• Make a quick list of the major relationships in your life. After you’ve compiled your list, rank them in two ways. First, rank them in order of how important they are to you currently. Then go back and rank them in order of how you think God desires them to be.
• Where was your marriage relationship in the first ranking? Where is it in the second ranking?

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