Kleinig, The Mystery of Marriage

Transcript (edited for readability).

Hello. Now, I'm to speak to you of the mystery of marriage. What I'm going to speak to you about is very countercultural, because it does touch on many, many of the current issues in our society. If there's one issue in which we have general confusion in Australia, and I gather in America too, it's about marriage, and sex in general. We shouldn't underestimate the difficulties that our people have, that our society has, with the whole issue of marriage. And not just the West, but it's also a problem in Africa and Asia, in traditional societies. I'll touch on that briefly. But what I want to talk about is the mystery of marriage.

Now, my jumping-off point is a simple little proverb with a little hitch in it, in Proverbs 18 verse 22, where we read, "He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favor from the Lord." Now we have here a pun on finding a wife, which is not obvious to us because of our customs. It's a traditional term in societies where you have arranged marriages. So parents would say, "Look, it's about time that we found a wife for our son, a suitable boy." Now, that's a very famous novel by Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy — a suitable partner. So finding a wife has to do with arranging a marriage, the search for a suitable person.

But it also has to do with the discovery, by the guy who's entered into this arranged marriage, that he has a good wife — and not just a good wife, despite his anxieties that he might be lumbered with a woman whom he doesn't like in any way — but he finds that not only is a good thing given to him by his parents and his wife's parents, but also by God himself. That's the one level of finding a wife. But there's a deeper sense here, because this is a proverb which always has a hidden dimension to it. It's to make you think and reflect. The deeper sense is the need to discover the hidden blessing in every marriage. And it's not obvious; it's hidden. It's a mystery. And that hidden blessing is the blessing of a gift from God, divine favor.

Luther, as sometimes happens, can be very waffly, but at times he really nails things. In commenting on this proverb, which was one of his favorites, he says, "Many men have wives, but few find wives." They have a wife, but they never find the wife that they have. Why don't they find it? Because marriage is a lifelong journey of discovery, initiation into marriage, initiation into the life of their wife. It has to do with the mystery of marriage, Luther says, as an estate — the German word is Stand — a state of being, a work of God that is pleasing in his sight. And he says that you need to look, to search, beyond appearances, beyond your wife's attractiveness or her behavior, to receive the delight and love and joy that God wants to provide for you in your marriage. The mystery of marriage: finding the wife, and finding what God gives to you in and through her.

Now I need to say why I've chosen this passage. One of the problems that we have — and it's not just in the church, but particularly it's a problem in the church — is that we automatically assume, when we talk about marriage, we absolutize the customary patterns of our own society. We don't realize that marriage is done in so many different ways, in different cultures, around the world. So if I want to shock you, I can say that, as part of the Lutheran Church of Australia, we have a large number of Aboriginal Christians. And they're very traditional. They live in the traditional Aboriginal communities. And none of them, in Western terms, are married. Even the pastors are not married — not in Western terms.

Because we think about marriage as a personal relationship. You're attracted to a person of the opposite sex and you fall in love, whatever that means. And you choose each other as partners; you ask a woman to marry you, or she asks you to marry her, and you both consent to marriage. And then the core of marriage is the commitment to each other with vows of lifelong faithfulness. Now, none of that happens in a society where you have arranged marriages. And none of that happens in our Aboriginal Lutheran communities, where the marriages are arranged, and the essential feature is not the exchange of vows, but cohabitation.

And that's the way it was in Israel. Marriage wasn't a religious custom, but a family business, a social business. And there were two parts to a valid marriage, as far as we can gather in the Old Testament, and that's carried over to New Testament times in Israel. Two parts to a valid marriage. The most important part was the betrothal. And the betrothal was enacted by the exchange of a dowry, by the husband-to-be, to his father-in-law, to his wife-to-be's family. Which was then usually accompanied by some declaration. If the father of the bride was still alive, he'd say to him, on receiving the dowry, "You shall be my son-in-law." A declaration. And in the presence of witnesses, and with the exchange of dowry, and that declaration, the couple were legally engaged, betrothed. So betrothal was very, very important.

And by the way, the dowry wasn't payment for the wife, but it was an insurance policy, if you like, in modern terms. The money that was given to the father and the father's family — he could make use of it, invest it, he could get the interest from it. And it belonged to his wife. So that if she was divorced, it came back to her. And it would be given to her so that she could support herself, or if she died, the money would go to her children, so that they wouldn't be orphaned, but have support. That's by the way. That's the first part, the betrothal.

Now, that's going to be important in many ways. I can't explore half of them today. The second part was the marriage ceremony. There was a procession of the bride, with her party, all dressed in splendor, to the bridegroom's house, usually the home of his parents. Where you had a declaration, either from one of the fathers — "From now on, you, the man, are the brother of this woman, and she is your sister" — brother, sister. It could have been said by the bridegroom to his bride: "From now on, you are my sister and I am your brother." You have that declaration, and then you have her moving into that house, you have a marriage celebration, sometimes lasting for a week, as you know from the New Testament.

Right. Now, what I want to touch on is the mystery of marriage behind all the customary ways of enacting marriage. And by the way, we are experiencing a huge shift in the West in marriage customs, with the cohabitation of young people with each other. So that both your society and Australia recognize cohabitation as a kind of marriage. No, it's a marriage. It's a customary marriage. And that's become, if you like, particularly during COVID, the way young people enter into marriage — they cohabit. And there's something very important here that this touches on, because marriage has to do with cohabitation, living together in a particular place, under one roof. In fact, in New Guinea, where we have lots of Lutheran Christians, if a single woman goes and lives under the roof where there is a single man, she is regarded as being betrothed to him.

Right, now, what's the mystery of marriage? But before I go to that and unpack that for you, I need to distinguish the difference between a secret and a mystery. We don't really know what mysteries are, because we confuse mysteries with secrets. Now, they have something in common. Both of them describe something that is hidden, unknown, not obvious. So, something unknown. If you like, a secret is a concealed fact. It has to do with the lack of information about a particular matter, your lack of experience of it. So for example, for most of you, my second name is a secret. But let me tell you what it is. It's Wilfrid. Now the secret's no longer a secret. It's no longer hidden. It's not a mystery. Likewise, my date of birth, which I'm not very proud to share with people because I've become so old. But let me tell you. I was born on the 14th of July in 1942, which makes me 80 years old. The secret ceases to be a secret. You have an old codger here in front of you. And that tells in my lack of coherence.

Now, a secret ceases to be a secret once you know its content. But a mystery remains a mystery, even when you get to know about it, either cognitively or in personal experience. It becomes more mysterious the more you get to know about it. In fact, most mysteries don't seem to be terribly mysterious to us. We take them for granted. Like the mystery of life, or the mystery of love, the mystery of a person. But just think about the mystery of love. I reckoned I knew all about it, from reading about it and thinking about it when I was a teenager and a university student. And I reckoned I knew my wife when I married her. You know something? The more I get to know her, the more I realize I don't really know her or understand her. The deeper the mystery. So even on that level, any personal relationship has to do with mystery. And getting to know a person is initiation into a mystery.

Now, as you all know, St. Paul in Ephesians 5:22 says that marriage, the union of husband with wife, the one-flesh union, is a great mystery. It's a great mystery, a profound mystery, a deep mystery. And my word, it's inexhaustible, because it has so many different facets to it. So on the one hand, you talk about marriage and everybody says, "Ho hum, yes, everybody knows what marriage is." You've got to be kidding. If you really want to annoy somebody who thinks they know all about these kinds of things, just ask them to define marriage for you. And then give test cases. Are two people who live together married? Why not? Two men who live together in a sexual partnership — are they married? Well, there you go, a touchy one. A couple who are divorced — are they still married? There's some teasers for you.

What's the great mystery? The mystery that Paul's talking about in Ephesians 5 verse 22 is connected with the creation of man and woman as male and female in God's image, for sexual procreation. So this has to do with both a man and a woman together being made in the image of God, for the procreation of children. Lovely word, procreation, by the way. And the second part of the mystery is the union of them by God as their celebrant in marriage. Now, one of the key verbs that Paul picks up in this passage is that God creates Eve from Adam's ribcage, his side, and brings her in to Adam — Hebrew, he brought her, to introduce, to usher her, to present her, to Adam.

So here you get a window into this mystery. It has to do with the fact that God is the hidden celebrant in every marriage — whether the marriage is a Western companion marriage, or whether it is an arranged marriage, as we have in India, or a tribal marriage, as we have in our Aboriginal communities. Wherever man and woman marry, in inverted commas, God is the one who joins them together. He is the hidden celebrant. And not only by initiating them first of all, but he brings them and he presents them to each other, for their whole life long. So, many of you are married. God joined you to your wife, not only on the day you were married or the day you were engaged, but he continues to do that every day of your life. Whenever you go to bed with your wife, God is there, in bed with you, presenting you to each other. Oh, that's amazing.

And Genesis 2 explains this, and it's a comment by the Holy Spirit. It's not said by God, but it gives the reason for God's union. Why is God the celebrant in this union? It's explained: "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother, and hold fast," or "cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." Now here you get God's own definition of marriage. And it's countercultural. It cuts across all cultures. I could spend the rest of the morning on this, but I'll just touch the tip of the iceberg.

Who normally leaves the family? In traditional society, the wife leaves her family and joins the family of her husband. And that's, in some sense, what happens still in many cultures. But here the accent is not on the wife leaving her parents, her family, but the husband leaving — not "the family," but "father and mother." Okay, very important, for any marriage to work the way God does. So it's not a matter of them going to each other's house, the wife going to the husband's house, the husband going to the wife's house, but the husband leaving father and mother to establish a new house.

Secondly, the accent here is not on the wife's commitment to the husband. That's the case in all societies. That's what's demanded of women in marriage, and that's what they want to do. But here, the accent is turned around, and the emphasis is placed on the husband's commitment to his wife. Why not mutual commitment? Why is that accentuated? And then you get the deepest, strangest statement: and the two shall become — what? — one flesh. Notice the verb, "become." Becoming one flesh. It's a process. It has to do with sexual intercourse, but includes much more than sexual intercourse.

Right, now, what's the mystery that Paul's talking about in the union of husband and wife with each other? Well, it reveals, it manifests, it discloses two things. First of all, it discloses God's — and I've used a technical term — theophanic purpose, both of them. A theophany is a manifestation of God. So the purpose of God to manifest, to show himself: that's part of the mystery of marriage. In every marriage, not just Christian marriage, the purpose is for God to manifest himself. And the second purpose is to manifest their sexual difference. Touchy area these days, where we talk about sameness rather than difference. Okay, it's God-given difference, between male and female, made in the image of God, for marriage. And marriage doesn't override that difference, but, as you know, the difference becomes greater the longer you live with your spouse.

So if I can touch at least on the surface of things: marriage has to do with initiation into a mystery, the mystery of marriage. And in and through this mystery, there is initiation into four other mysteries — and much more, but four basic mysteries. First of all, the mystery of God as the Creator of man and woman, male and female, in his image. Mystery one. Mystery two, the mystery of Jesus as the heavenly bridegroom redeemer. He's not just the bridegroom, but he is the go'el, the redeemer, the savior, but as the bridegroom. Thirdly, the mystery of the union — and I've touched that already — the mystery of marriage as the union of husband and wife, not by society, not by you as a marriage celebrant, not by families, but by God himself. So God is the celebrant of every marriage — not just Christian marriages, but every marriage. God is at work in a hidden way. You didn't see God there, on the day of your marriage, uniting you with your spouse. You don't see God — at least I hope you don't see God — when you're having sexual intercourse with your wife. But he's there.

And then, most wonderfully, the mystery of the church. And notice, it's the church. It's not just each individual, although each individual is included in that. The church. And that includes both men and women, as the body of Christ, the bride of Christ. So that's a female role for you. In the church, we are all women in the church.

Okay, now, one of the most significant passages in the New Testament which has to do with marriage is a deceptively simple, rather matter-of-fact admonition, by the writer to the Hebrews, chapter 13 verse 4. But it's of great importance, because it gives us a snapshot of what I'm talking about, the mystery — not just of marriage, but the mystery of holy matrimony. The mystery of holy matrimony. And it as an honorable — not a relationship, but a state of being. And that's what I want to focus on, and it's totally, utterly countercultural. We see marriage as a personal relationship, and it's that, but that's only one dimension. Now the term for it is "companion marriage," or "romantic marriage." But a marriage is a state of being. It's a place to be, that God brings us into. And it's very important, because it's the basis for Luther's very, very helpful teaching on marriage as an estate, a state of being.

Well, here's the way Hebrews puts it. He says, "Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be kept undefiled, for God will judge fornicators and adulterers." Now here, this is the only place in the New Testament where the Greek word gamos refers to the state of marriage rather than the marriage ceremony. Gamos usually means a wedding. So, "When did your gamos occur?" "That day you were married." No — Paul says, "Let gamos" — which is the married state — "be held in honor by all." And secondly, he refers to the marriage bed, the place for sexual intercourse, the place where most obviously husband and wife are together physically. I mean, you're together physically in your house and in the work you do, in your life together. But the symbol for your union is your marriage bed. Now, normally, koite in Greek — and you can check that up for yourselves — means bedroom. It means just a lying place, a sleeping place. So it's a place to lie down and sleep. And it's also then a euphemistic term for sexual intercourse. You know, the Latin is coitus, and we still have that carried over into English — coitus, sexual intercourse. But he doesn't say, "Let sexual intercourse be kept undefiled," but he says, "Let the marriage bed."

So the state of marriage, the marriage bed. Notice here you have spatial imagery rather than personal imagery. It's a place, a place to be. Now, if there's one thing that modern philosophy and our way of thinking has difficulty with, it's an understanding of states of being. And yet it is so evidently true. To be alive is a state of being. To be dead is a state of being, et cetera. Now there are so many different states that we are in — a state of consciousness, a state of sleep, et cetera. Now, the focus here in this very short, brief admonition is on marriage as God's gift in the order of creation. That's implied in the background. It's not brought out in front.

To put it in Lutheran terms, marriage is an estate. And that's the way it's translated in our confessions. Now, the German is Stand, which means a place where you stand, or you can sit too, but it's a location. It's a location in a particular place. So Luther talks about der Ehestand, the state of marriage. Now, here you get the difference, and the jumping point into the mystery of marriage. Now, marriage is — and here's my definition — an objective state of being. It's a physical state of being. That's there before you contract it. So, in modern terms, my marriage began when I married Claire, on the day of our marriage. But in this way of thinking, marriage exists already before we enter into it. It's objective. It is physical. It's not just a personal relationship; it's not a legal contract or legal entity.

And if it's a state of being, it has its own benefits and it makes its own demands, over and above your personal wishes. You can't make it, shape it, in the way you want it to be. You enter into it, and it, if you like, sets the terms of reference for what happens. It brings its benefits, it makes its demands. And by being married, we in themselves let ourselves in for what we don't realize we are receiving and what's being demanded of us. So quite plainly, looking back, I really didn't have a clue about marriage when I married Claire. And I must say, I've become even more clueless the longer we've been married. It's a state of being. German term, Stand — station, location. Not just a relationship, but a location. The Latin is ordo — order, an order that you enter into, a God-given order. It's an institution, if you like, to use another term.

Now, it's true that in our society, marriage has a very bad press. And many people are contemptuous of marriage, and among the chattering classes, the intellectuals, there's a contempt for marriage — at least traditional marriage — and people disparage marriage. But that's not new. It's as old as the hills. You just read the classics, Greek and Latin classics, and you'll get the contempt being voiced. "Ah, no. Sex — psycho. Oh, yes. Interesting. Marriage — oh, boring." There's the quip that I like, which is, "Yeah, marriage is a wonderful institution — but who on earth wants to live in an institution?" The idea that you're confined in something which somehow diminishes you, and is boring, and unfulfilling.

But contrary to that — and already Hebrews is written to people who have misgivings about marriage, and young men and even women who are reluctant to get married. And that's something common in our whole society, this reluctance to get married. In contrast to that, the writer to the Hebrews says that it is honorable. The Greek is that it is prized, as something valuable. It's a source of great blessing. So on the one hand, you get the common contempt of marriage. On the other hand — and we have lots of these contradictions in our society — we have the desire for marriage with homosexual people. So you have the push for same-sex — what? — marriage. Now, that's a hidden compliment to the divine order — that somehow the relationship won't work unless you recognize it as, not just a relationship, not just sexual intercourse, but as marriage. And even more strangely, oddly, partners in a same-sex marriage designate each other — have you noticed this? — as husband and wife. So I've got to watch out when I invite people to dinner and I say, "Bring your wife with you," because it may be of the same sex. So its value, its importance, is acknowledged, even at the same time as it's disparaged. And, for example, particularly among the sexually confused people, and that includes the homosexual community, traditional marriage is held in contempt, and yet they want to have it, or at least its benefits.

Now, it's doubly precious. Because — and here I'm going to make a distinction — it's clean. It's ritually clean. It doesn't defile you, it doesn't make you unclean and dirty and impure, spiritually, or even, it shouldn't be, physically. It's a good, clean state of being. And that applies to everybody, not just Christians, but also non-Christians — the purity of marriage as a state of being. And secondly, it's precious not only because it's clean in itself — it's human beings that defile it, make it unclean, but in itself it is clean — secondly, it is holy. It's sanctified by the word of God and prayer.

Now here I introduce the main theme of this presentation. It is holy. It is both clean and holy. It's not to be defiled, and it's not to be desecrated. So we have very unfashionable language, at least as far as intellectual discourse is concerned, but it really resonates with people. Everybody, whether they're aware of it or not, thinks in terms of clean and unclean, at least on that level. And people distinguish between holy and what's not holy, common. Now, since it is doubly precious, by being a pure state of being, a holy state of being for Christians, it is polluted by fornication and adultery. They disorder it, by polluting it and desecrating it. So, pollution and desecration.

It's interesting that all of us instinctively resonate or act in terms of clean and unclean when it comes to sex and sexual intercourse. That explains clean and unclean to us in a way that nothing else can. Now, Hebrews says, marriage as a whole, a pure, holy state, is polluted by adultery. God will judge all fornicators and adulterers. Now, people in the ancient world would have some sense of that, but they wouldn't know exactly what the writer of the Hebrews is talking about here. They have no problem with adultery, because they would understand that if I, as a married man, or even as a single man, have sex with a married woman, then I am not polluting myself or my marriage, but I am polluting that marriage. I'm dishonoring her, her husband, her relationship. But here, the writer of Hebrews says that adultery doesn't just defile and desecrate the other party, the married party, but it desecrates the adulterer and his marriage. It makes him and his marriage unclean and desecrated. You get it? So there's a reshaping of traditional thinking.

But then you get fornication. And I've kept that translation because there's no other good English word for it. And here we are in ancient countercultural, modern countercultural territory. More and more, scholars are becoming aware that the prohibition on fornication is a distinctive Christian teaching, and was the most countercultural of all Christian teachings. It is what didn't make any sense at all to pagan people. It made some sense to the Jews, but I won't go on to that, because you have the antecedents there. But it is totally contrary to pagan people, both ancient and modern.

Now, if you look at the New Testament and the term, we have in the New Testament twenty-eight warnings against fornication. Well, okay, if there are so many warnings against it, it's something really important, and it's something contentious. It's a touchy topic, but it's at the intersection between church and world. Okay, now, modern translations say "sexual immorality" or "unchastity." Neither of them really hits the nail on the head. Now, the term itself comes from pornos, which is prostitute. Porneia has to do with prostitution. And it was originally used for a woman who has sexual intercourse with her client. So the focus here is on the woman who is a prostitute and sells herself, or prostitute-like behavior. But a man cannot be guilty of porneia, because he's a man.

So, the use of prostitutes and slaves for sexual intercourse was not only common in the Greco-Roman world, but was condoned by ancient pagans. And we get a hint of this in Paul's letter to the Corinthians, chapter 6, where Paul talks about young men in Corinth visiting the prostitutes, and then saying, "Okay, it's just — oh, you know — if I'm hungry, I eat." So having sexual intercourse with a prostitute is a natural outlet for a healthy appetite, and it has no moral or religious significance. But now you get the new Christian sense of Paul, to refer to any sexual intercourse outside of marriage, whether it is premarital or non-marital. It's the use of a prostitute or any unmarried person for the purpose of sexual intercourse. And it's extended beyond that, not only to actual sexual intercourse, but to imaginative, pornographic thinking. So it has to do with pornographic lust and pornographic behavior.

And Jesus teaches it is one of the main things that defile a person's heart, their conscience. It's a matter of the heart for him, with its pornographic thoughts and desires, and it's the cause of our defilement. It's the mark of paganism, by its association with idolatry. So it's interesting, there's in the Council of Jerusalem — which basically had to do with the intersection of Jewish Christians and non-Jewish, Gentile Christians — there were four prohibitions marking the boundaries, the difficult areas, then, for those two to come together in the church. And it's there, one of the four no-noes for the church, in the decrees of the Council of Jerusalem.

Right, let me now summarize this. God instituted marriage as the context, the place, the location, for God-pleasing, fruitful sexual intercourse, and a whole marital relationship. So for God, sex doesn't just have to do with sexual intercourse, but the whole relationship. And the assumption is — and I'm going to come to this from another passage — if there's one thing that the devil envies human beings of, it is their ability to procreate. And if there's one thing that he will attack, and he finds most disgusting, it is marriage and sexual intercourse. So, if you like, the devil is the sexual killjoy, who wants to defile everything that is clean in marriage, and who desecrates everything that's holy. And he does so by promoting all sorts of weird sexual fantasies. But the upshot of it is that his aim is eroticide — now, that's a term that's used by one of our great Australian poets, as what's happening in our society. That in fact, because of its pornographic sexual explicitness, instead of increasing eros, sexual interest, sexual behavior, it in fact kills it. It destroys it. So he's interested in killing sexual enjoyment, destroying eros, libido, whatever you like to call it.

On the other hand, the assumption here is that God is the guardian of marriage. He protects through his law, by which he judges offenders and calls them to repentance. So what we have here is a call, by the author to the Hebrews, for Christians to honor marriage in its proper context as holy matrimony. Notice the term "honor." Luther picks it up in his Small Catechism. If I have time, I'll touch on that.

Now, here you get a big assertion on my part. Back in the '60s and '70s, we spoke about the sexual revolution. Now, there was nothing revolutionary about the sexual revolution. The only revolutionary thing was contraception. Otherwise, what happened was the same old stuff again. There was nothing revolutionary. Now, the true sexual revolution, I would maintain, is what we have described here in Hebrews. It has to do with the sanctification of marriage — not just the purification of it, making it clean, straightening it out so it works properly, but the sanctification of marriage. And that's going to be my topic for the rest of this presentation.

But I'd like to pause here, and if there are any questions of clarification from any of you. Now, not discussion, but just clarification. Have you made sense of what I've been saying? Now, what's most important is what I've touched on — that marriage is not just a personal relationship, but it has to do with a state of being, a God-given state of being. And it's not just for Christians, but for all people everywhere. And all people everywhere know from experience what marriage is. It's explained differently, it is shaped differently, but behind that you have the same dynamic at work — a man leaving father and mother, cleaving to his wife, and the two becoming one flesh. So it's a state of being that can be defiled, and we can see how it's being defiled, left, right and center, all around us. And that's what you are facing in your own marriage. And that's what you're facing in your pastoral care for your members. It is defiled, and also desecrated. And that's the aim of Satan — with each Christian, with you as pastors, with your members — is not just to defile your sexuality, but to desecrate your holiness, to desecrate holy matrimony. The negative side. Okay, is that clear?

Now, the sanctification of marriage. There are two passages which are particularly important in our Christian tradition, and both of which are interestingly overlooked, largely, despite the interest in sex in the church. The first one is Paul's teaching about the sanctification of marriage in 1 Timothy 4:1–5. He says, "Now the Spirit" — so he's speaking prophetically here, this is a prophetic revelation — "Now the Spirit expressly says that in the latter times, the last days, some will depart from the faith, by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons." And notice the reference here to spiritual deceit and demons. This is demonic stuff, okay? "Through the insincerity," or hypocrisy, "of liars, whose consciences are seared." So it's satanic; it has to do with a bad conscience. That's its dynamic. "Who forbid marriage" — that's the usual translation, but the Greek actually is gamein, which means "marrying," "who forbid marrying" — "and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth." Now you have the key passage for today: "For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received as a gift," implied, "with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer."

What lies behind the rejection of marriage? There are all sorts of reasons. But we are faced at the present with a new kind of Gnosticism. Now, Gnosticism has to do with spiritual consciousness and the desire to reach higher and higher states of consciousness, because states of consciousness have to do with spiritual power. People want spiritual power. And the way you tap spiritual power — this is a very common teaching in our society, and it's not new — you cultivate different states of being. You go from lower consciousness to higher consciousness, up the ladder, to pure consciousness. Now, you see that everywhere in our society.

Now, to do this, according to many people, you've got to be a vegetarian, avoid eating meat, because you become what you eat. If you eat meat, you become more carnal and fleshly. Does it mean that if you eat vegetables, you become a veggie? Joke. And so you get a deliberate rejection of sex, because sex drags you down with its physicality and its physical demands. And you all know that sex has to do with your mind, your consciousness. So, Paul says that people who pursue this kind of higher spirituality are in fact driven by bad conscience. It's because they have a bad conscience — not just a bad conscience, but a conscience that's seared. See, the picture is of flesh being desensitized with red-hot metal, by a coal or red-hot iron. So desensitized, seared — their conscience is seared, they are desensitized. So behind their pursuit of higher consciousness lies a bad conscience, a desensitized conscience. And so they abstain — they abstain from marriage, and from eating certain kinds of food such as meat, or even just fasting, to avoid what is unclean and being contaminated, polluted, in order to become more and more spiritual.

What you have, if you like, is the pursuit of disembodied spirituality. But it's not just disembodied spirituality — Paul is quite blunt. He says, this is demonic spirituality. It is spiritual, but it has to do with evil spirits and demons. It is the spirituality of the devil. The devil is the teacher of common spirituality in our society, especially when it comes to sex and food.

Now, Paul maintains — and I could spend a lot of time just unpacking this whole passage, which is very, very dense, it's a prophetic oracle — Paul implies that sex and marriage are good gifts from God in creation, that are under attack by demons and deceitful spirits. So on the one hand, in our society, you get the quest for enjoyment, physical enjoyment. On the other hand, even stronger, you get the quest to avoid fleshly physical enjoyment, a disparagement of the body and everything to do with the body. I've explored that, as some of you may know, in the book that I've written on the body, Wonderfully Made, in which I touch on a lot of this.

Now, Paul says quite simply — and you don't need to be a rocket scientist to make sense of this, to understand this — he says that anything that God created is good. But everything that God created can be sanctified and is sanctified. It's clean, but it's not holy, and it becomes holy — it becomes holy through the word of God and prayer, particularly the prayer of thanksgiving. Now here you get the heart of Lutheran teaching on sanctification. Everything that God created is good. Is sex created by God? Is sexual intercourse created by God? Is marriage created by God? Okay, it's good. But then Paul doesn't go on to say, "Therefore enjoy it." No, he goes one step further. He says, "And it is sanctified. It is made holy. And it is kept holy, by the word of God and prayer."

Now, once again, it's quite simple what he's referring to. How does this happen? Well, it happened in the Christian rite of marriage. So, what's Christian about marriage? It is that it brings people into holy matrimony, through the word of God and prayer, the use of the word of God and prayer in the rite of marriage. The sexual union of a man with the woman, and a woman with the man, is made holy — how? Through the word of God and prayer. Look at the marriage rite, and you have it all there — the word of God, and prayer. So, how were you sanctified sexually? How was your marriage sanctified sexually, if you are married? Or even, how is your single state sanctified? It's through the word of God and prayer.

But it's not just in the rite of marriage. That's foundational. There was, in Paul's day, no Christian marriage. The old custom still went on. He's talking, then, of the second and third matters — that a Christian marriage is sanctified by the word of God and prayer in the divine service. So a Christian couple goes to church to have their marriage sanctified by the word of God and prayer, to have their sexual life sanctified by the word of God and prayer, to have their sexual bodies, with all their parts, sanctified by the word of God and prayer — and most particularly in Holy Communion. And thirdly — the second and third are really what Paul's talking about here — through daily prayer, daily devotions, which is carried over from the Jewish tradition. But right from the beginning it involved, at its very minimum, the saying of the Lord's Prayer three times a day — at breakfast, at lunch, and then in the evening meal before going to bed.

So, how does God sanctify my marriage? It's through his word, his holy sanctifying word, and the use of that word and his holy name in prayer. It began with the marriage ceremony. It continues every day, by our involvement in worship, and in daily devotions.

Now, can I just add, as a little aside, one of the things that I've discovered and would recommend to you. After many years of trial and error, my wife and I decided to have a rigid custom. It's part of our daily routine, which is that whenever either of us wanted to go to bed — and that was difficult, because she used to be an early bird, my, and because I'm a pastor, I had to work late at night preparing stuff, so I'd hit them, uh, late at night — either of us, when we go to bed, we drop everything, debrief, and then, as a lead-in, to pray with and for each other. Now, that's done more for our marriage than any other single thing. It's far better than anything else I know for sexual therapy. A little aside there. I'd recommend it to you. It's not a law, it's a recommendation. Try it out.

Now, it's through the word of God and the Holy Spirit, through the word, and the use of the word of God, the reception of the word of God, that a common marriage, an ordinary marriage, becomes holy matrimony — a holy estate, that is not only naturally good, but is also spiritually blessed. If you like, it keeps the devil out of your marriage, and out of the bedroom.

And notice the other thing that Paul emphasizes, that I'd like to emphasize very strongly, and lead into the next passage. It mentions it's to be received with thanksgiving. Food, marriage, is to be received with thanksgiving, as a gift from the triune God, and from your spouse, because you receive it from God through your spouse. So it has to do with thanksgiving, a life of thanksgiving. Thanksgiving to God for marriage, wife, sexuality. But also thanksgiving to your spouse. So sanctification has to do with thanksgiving — thanksgiving to God and thanksgiving to your spouse. How often do you thank your wife, explicitly? And thank her because she looks so nice, because she's so attractive, because she gives herself to you in sexual intercourse? How often are you tempted to criticize her, put her down, or, the usual male way, and particularly for pastors, to say nothing, to give her the silent treatment? Thanksgiving. The sanctification of marriage through the practice of thanksgiving. And that begins, as you all know, in church, with Holy Communion, which is the eucharistia, the thanksgiving.

Now, Paul picks this up in another place. Let me see how time's going — yes. He implies that thanksgiving is the fruit of sexual sanctification, in Ephesians 5:3–4. And he says, "But all fornication, and impurity, lust" — better, "covetousness," referring to the last two commandments — "nor foolish talk or coarse joking," sexual innuendo, "foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place — these things must not be named among you," why? "As fitting for the saints." So, since you are saints, holy people, there are six no-noes — three behavioral things, three verbal things. The behavioral things: no fornication, no impurity, sexual impurity, no sexual covetousness, lust — behavior, unholy behavior, unclean behavior. And then there are verbal: no obscenity, obscene talk, foolish talk, and coarse joking, sexual, witty innuendo.

Now, there's one set of evidence about our ambiguous attitude to sexuality. It's the way we talk about sex, and our use of sexual parts as swear words, the whole sexual talking. And the way we, when we talk about it, of course, it's disgusting — as if it is something disgusting and unclean and shameful. And that's a sign of our bad conscience sexually. Particularly, notice that Paul doesn't just touch on those basic sexual behaviors which defile and desecrate, but it's this talk which does. It's inappropriate behavior for saints, because it's a rejection of sex as a good gift from God, and marriage as a good gift from God.

It's a gift from God. I have no right to demand sexual intercourse from my wife. It's a gift from God, by her. I can ask for it, but I cannot demand it. It's a gift, and it only works properly if we receive it as a gift. And likewise, there is no place for any disgust in this. You all know how quickly sexual delight can flip over into sexual disgust. They are so closely connected in our fallen state. In talking to most people, and just from experience, what's common among — let's just say men, because that's where I have privilege, but my wife tells me it's even worse with women — what's common, even for people who seem to be happily married, is that they are disappointed in their marriage and dissatisfied with their spouses. So, what does Paul say this dissatisfaction, this disappointment is to be replaced by? Thanksgiving. To God. As the antidote to lust and all sexual defilement.

Right, next passage, which you should use in your teaching, and when it comes around in the lectionary, make sure you preach on it. Because if there's one thing that has discredited the church, it is the sexual abuse scandal — not just in the Catholic Church, but also in our churches. It mightn't have quite received the prominence, but just listen to what Paul teaches us about the sanctification of marriage. He says, "Finally, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk" — the Greek is actually much stronger, "you must walk, you're required to walk" — "and to please God," that is, God-pleasing, "just as you are doing, that you do so more and more."

Now, he's not giving them anything new. They know this — you know what he's going to mention, your people will know this. This is God-pleasing behavior. "For this is the will of God, your sanctification." Now, what does that involve? Three things. "That you abstain from fornication. That each of you know how to control his own body." The Greek here is skeuos — instrument, tool. Notice that as a sexual innuendo, even in English, at least in Australian English, it's a euphemism for genitalia, the penis. So, "that each of you know how to control his sexual body, his genitalia — how? — in holiness and honor." Notice those two: holiness and honor. "Not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God." Thirdly, "that no one transgress and greedily cheat, or defraud, his brother and sister in this matter. Because the Lord Jesus is an avenger of all these things, as we've told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness." And the implication is also for holiness. He doesn't say sanctification, but for the state of holiness. So it has to do with holiness. He calls us to holiness. "Therefore, whoever disregards this, disregards not a man, but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you."

Now, what would I expect Paul to have said, "the last, who gives"? Marriage to you, or sex to you. But the last surprise is: the Holy Spirit. Okay, this is, I think, fairly straightforward, but it's very, very helpful news. Paul here gives us instruction on honorable, God-pleasing sexual behavior. Now, notice here the positive effort. This is what pleases God. If you're a good husband to your wife, God is pleased with you. He's pleased with the way you treat her and she treats you sexually. He's pleased with your interest in each other sexually. He's pleased with your sexual intercourse, et cetera, et cetera. Okay? But notice, it's a God-pleasing sexual relationship. So the focus is not to be, you know, "What pleases myself?" — that's the track for me, as a man, and I think for every woman: I look for that which pleases me and satisfies me. That short-circuits the God-given order. Things will fall into place if we put God, his will, his word, first, and we aim to please him. Then we will be able to please each other and be pleased by each other. That's the implication.

Now, what's God's will for those of us who are Christians, who know him, who are sanctified by the word of God and prayer? It is that our sexuality is sanctified by him. So the sanctification of our marriages and everything that has to do with our marriages. So what Paul does is that God calls us from sexual impurity — that's what the devil tries to make attractive to us in lurid detail, that's what pornography does for us, very dramatically — to draw us from sexual impurity to sexual holiness. It's not just sexual purity, but sexual holiness. And the implication here is that both sexual chastity, purity, and sexual holiness, holy matrimony, are gifts from God. You can't achieve it by yourself. That's one of the teachings of the Lutheran Reformation — that the desire to purify yourself sexually, and to make yourself sexually holy, ends up trapping yourself in its opposite.

So, we're called then to sexual sanctification. And in this, sexual chastity is a gift from God. It's the result of baptism, and our participation in the divine service, with the presentation of our members for purification and sanctification. Remember that when Paul talks about baptism in Romans 6, he says we are to present ourselves as people who have been brought from death to life, redeemed by Jesus. We are to present not just ourselves, but also our members, our body parts. That means our sexual body parts. We present them to our Lord Jesus, for purification and sanctification. So, even implicitly, if you like, it happens every time we go to Holy Communion. We present our bodies to Jesus, to purify them with his body and blood, and to sanctify them with his body and blood. And that means all the parts of our body — our hands, our mouth, our eyes, our ears, our feet, our stomachs. But also our genitalia.

What I've heard people say again and again is a kind of witty retort — "Oh, you're obsessed with sex. God couldn't care less what we do with our bits." Ah, our bits are not just bits, but they are part of who we are. And we're called to present them for purification and sanctification. So if I've got a problem sexually, here you have the solution. It's not do-it-yourself stuff. It is, "You, Jesus, do it for me, with your Holy Spirit."

Now, there are three parts to sexual sanctification. There's the avoidance of fornication as something that's unholy and shameful. There's the exercise of sexual self-restraint that honors the spouse, rather than the indulgence in sex as a natural, divine, cosmic force, like the Gentiles. The pagan people prized sexuality, because this was the life force, and you became alive by surrendering to this life force, cosmic life force. Thirdly, God prohibits lustful sexual abuse of fellow members in the church, crossing the lines, the boundaries between the sexes. Now, that's what's been happening far too often in our churches. And it's not a new problem. It's an old problem, that is a challenge for us in the church. And it's interesting, even though, sexually speaking, unbelievers out there are ready to condone any forms of sexual abuse with anybody, they won't condone any such behavior in the church. They know instinctively, this is not on. And brothers, it is not on.

And that's what Paul says here. Because the Lord is an avenger of all these things. Even if we can't judge, and are not able to judge sexual abuse, Jesus does — not just in the last judgment, but already in this life. He brings judgment on people who abuse each other sexually. He brings judgment in which he rights what's wrong, by punishing the abuser and vindicating the abused person. Last of all, most importantly, sexual sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit. It's something that we pray for each day — God's Spirit, to make us pure and holy. We pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit, with our spouse, to sanctify our marriage.

Now, the last main passage. And David, I'm just about coming — I'll be about, I'll go — I think I can go fairly quickly through this in the light of what I've done, but okay. Now, holy matrimony. What's holy matrimony all about? Now, holy matrimony has at its core that the union of man and woman is meant to reflect the bodily union of Christ with the church. And it works two ways. The bodily union of Christ with the church shows us what marriage is meant to be, and Christian marriage shows us this mystery.

Now, we have this unpacked for us by Paul in Ephesians chapter 5. And the foundation for this passage is the comment in Genesis 2:22 that after God had created Eve, he brought her, he presented her, to Adam. Now, why did he present her to Adam? That's Paul's question. And this is the way he unpacks that. "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church, and gave himself up for her, to sanctify her" — notice, "to sanctify her" — "having cleansed her" — that's the other side — "having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word." That's what makes clean and holy. "So that he might present the church to himself in splendor" — radiance, beauty; the Greek actually is "in glory" — "without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. Therefore" — and here you get the quotation that I was referring to — "therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, each one of you, love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband."

Now, all of us — even the most shameless of us — have a sense of shame about our appearance, our physical appearance, and our sense of shame focuses particularly on our bodies, and our sexual parts. More generally, all of us know instinctively that if we're called to life with Christ, in union with Christ, we aren't worthy of this. We're called to marriage, but we're unworthy of that marriage. That's a starting point, because of our impurity.

Now, I want to paint the picture here of what Paul presents to us. Paul uses imagery from the normal preparation of a woman in his day for her marriage. The bride prepared herself for her wedding, in the ancient world, just as brides still do, in most cases, today, if it's a proper wedding. She bathed her body with perfumed water. She clothed herself in a bridal gown, a beautiful dress, with veil, et cetera. She applied makeup to cover her spots and wrinkles and blemishes. She put on expensive perfume. She decorated herself with expensive, beautiful jewelry. And all this so that she could be presented by her entourage, and by her father, to her husband-to-be, as a lovely bride, after a procession into the house. And part of the ceremony was the lifting of the veil, so that the face would be revealed. So that's the picture.

And it's used by Paul to initiate us into the mystery of marriage. You see, Christ prepares us like an ugly woman, an unworthy person, an unworthy bride, a Cinderella. He prepares us for union with himself in baptism. He transforms us. He makes us over. And he transforms us by his love for us. His love for the church, to make her lovely despite her appearance. Notice the emphasis here on spot and wrinkles. She's not a perfect specimen of womanhood. He washes us with water in baptism, to cleanse us from sin and make us clean. He clothes us with his own purity and holiness. He adorns us with his righteousness and holiness and his glory. And the result of his makeover of us is that in his eyes, we are unblemished and lovely. We are perfect, in his eyes.

Now, that's a picture, and a wonderful picture that Luther loves, of justification by grace — that covering of us. He undresses us of our old selves, and he puts on a new self. He covers us with his own purity and holiness and righteousness — a great exchange. And the reason is so that he can present us to himself. Now, that's a bit funny. Why does he want to present us to himself? It's for the same reason that God presented Eve to Adam. He presented her for his admiration, for his approval, his acceptance. So Jesus does this to the church, and to us, to show his acceptance, his approval, his appreciation, his admiration of us. And if you want a picture of this, look at the wonderful songs in praise of the bride-to-be, the woman, in the Song of Songs. He demonstrates his love and his regard for the church, by covering her with his holiness. So it's not that we are holy before he marries us, but because he marries us, we are holy, and righteous, and perfect.

And this gives us a picture, then, of how he sees us. He doesn't see us as we are in ourselves. He doesn't see us as we are by nature. But he sees us the way we will be, what he wants to make of us. But he doesn't just present us to himself for his appreciation, his approval, his acceptance, his admiration of us — I like those two words, appreciation, admiration — but he presents us to his Father. He's so proud of us. As his wife, he espoused the church, this old prostitute. He's so proud of her that he presents her to his heavenly Father.

Listen to the way Paul talks about this in Colossians. He says, "And you, who were once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he, Jesus, has now reconciled in his body of death, by his death, in order to do what? To present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach," or "without reproach, in his sight." The picture here changes, not of Jesus as our bridegroom, but of Jesus as our high priest, and his body, the church, as his sacrificial offering. We were God's enemies. Jesus has reconciled us to his Father, by atoning for our sins, and reconciling us with God, and he presents us as a perfect offering to God the Father — for what? For his approval. We are now holy in God's sight, as holy as Jesus is, because we are covered with his holiness. We are blameless, because we are cleansed from impurity by the blood of Jesus. We are, best of all, above reproach. There's nothing at all that God finds to criticize in us, because we've been pardoned, and cleansed of sin.

So what's the mystery of matrimony? Well, there are many mysteries. But what's the mystery of holy matrimony? It is its holiness. That's the mystery of marriage. And for me, the greatest mystery of holy matrimony — you know, I've touched upon this — is that it is a manifestation of justification by grace. And its implications. This is the way Christopher Mitchell puts it in his wonderful commentary on the Song of Songs. He says, "Baptized believers are clothed in Christ, and God sees upon them Christ's perfect righteousness, which is imputed to them. Likewise, the husband and wife are oblivious to any flaws of the other. They see in each other nothing but the handiwork of God." Now, he might be overstating this, and saying that it's actually obvious. But this is the way it's meant to be — that just as we are justified by grace, and through our union with Christ, so we justify our spouse by grace. That's the holiness of marriage. But above all, the holiness of marriage has to do with the presence of Christ in and with it.

Just to summarize now — let's see how time's going, okay, here. I had an amazing conversation some years ago on a flight from Adelaide to Kuala Lumpur, when I happened to be placed next to a really lovely-looking girl. I introduced myself to her. And I asked her name, and it was hard to place her, because she was partly Indian and partly Chinese in appearance. And I said, "John Kleinig." And she said, "Tim Kleinig? Is he your son?" I said, "Yes." She was a medical student. She was in the same class as my son Tim. And that was the beginning of one of the most fascinating conversations I've ever had in my life.

She, her own background, was that she was biracial, partly Chinese, partly Indian. But particularly the Muslim side of her family, previous to her parents' marriage, was polygamous. And it was so problematic that her parents decided that they were going to be exclusively married to each other. But she asked many questions then, and because the link was with my son — one of the things she said. She'd noticed two things in Australia that she couldn't make sense of. One is that you could offend people without automatically expecting vengeance, payback. And secondly, she said, she noticed that there was something different about the relationship between men and women in Australia than in her own culture. And she knew — I mean, she discovered that I was a pastor and teacher of theology. In any case, the word got around that Tim's father was a parson, and she wanted to know whether that had anything to do with Christianity. And I could say yes to both of those. She got some sense of the mystery of marriage, true Christian marriage. That's the way it's meant to be.

One of the tasks that we have is to commend marriage to a younger generation, and a society, which is suspicious of marriage — attracted to marriage, and yet suspicious of it. And that's not new. Luther says in his Large Catechism — this is about, it has to do with, the sixth commandment — he says, "I say these things in order that our young people may be led to acquire a love for the estate of marriage" — der Ehestand, the Latin matrimonium — "and to know that it is a blessed and God-pleasing estate." Marriage, as a state of being, a God-pleasing state of being, a blessed state of being, a beautiful state of being, God-pleasing.

And Luther again, in the Small Catechism, he says — and this is interesting — as you know, the sixth commandment is the only commandment where you only have a positive and no negative. One time people asked Luther, "Well, why don't you say, we should fear and love God so that we don't do this?" And he said, "I don't have to teach that. The world teaches that. What we shouldn't do — but it doesn't teach the second part." So, "We should fear and love God" — and I give the translation in your hymn book — "we should fear and love God, so that we may lead a sexually pure, chaste, and decent" — I'm not happy about that "decent," although it's, if it be a bit modest, sexually modest, or sexually decent — "life in what we do and say. And husband and wife" — love, and look, here's the word — "honor each other." By honoring each other, they honor God. I honor Jesus when I honor my wife. I see her as a reflection of the glory of Christ, which is the glory of God. I just encourage you to reflect on this and to discuss it.

Yeah, okay. Then, a challenge of two things. If there's one thing that the present woke generation, if I can use that term, is fascinated by, it's mystery. Because they live in a society which is totally explicit. It's one-dimensional, it's flat, and it's boring. It's sexually explicit; everything's explicit; you can explain everything. There are no mysteries. There's nothing that can arouse your curiosity. You go to Google and you get an explanation, or anywhere on the internet you get an explanation of everything that you can conceive of. It's all explicit — an explicit society. What they hanker for is beauty, the implicit rather than the explicit. They sense that there is something going on. It's a bit like when you're young, and you notice adults having conversation and doing things, and you're fascinated because there's something going on there that you can't make sense of. But you're drawn to it, because you notice the way they get passionate about it, and the way it engages them. And it washes over you, but you are attracted to it. And it encourages you then to grow up. And many children don't want to grow up, because they see all the problems of being a grown-up, but this is one of the ways in which they're attracted to adult responsibility.

Now, in your teaching — what I do more and more in my teaching, where I get the chance, is, particularly teaching to non-Christians, or on the edge of the church, and even people in churches, to talk about the mystery of the mystery. One of the Australian films that I like immensely is a story about — what's it called — yeah, I think it's Lantana, or a case — it's a story about a young man who grows up in Sydney. Now, Sydney is the most secular, woke part of Australia. And he's at university. His stepfather is an Anglican, an Episcopalian priest, living in inner Sydney. He gets involved in an Aboriginal community, a sub-community there. And then he's drawn into all sorts of weird stuff that happens, that he can't make sense of, but he's fascinated by it, because he's brought up in a materialistic world where everything is scientific, mechanical, et cetera. These people know that there are spiritual realities all around them. And they know that there's good and bad stuff, spiritually. And it's real, and he's drawn into it. And he doesn't know what to make of it.

And one of the pivotal moments in the film is where he visits his stepfather, who is now retired, and he says, "Dad, you never told me that there are any mysteries." And the father's quite indignant. He says, "That's not true, son. I've tried to teach you again and again. I've tried to teach you again and again, and explain, that the Christian faith is nothing but a mystery." And the son said, "Dad, you didn't explain it. You explained it away." Modern secular thinking is explaining stuff away. And the danger for us who prize doctrine and teaching is to explain doctrine away. And without, you know, it's for the best of intentions. And we get the idea that, you know, as long as you understand it cognitively, that's all there is. No, it's not that. That's not what Christianity is about. It has to do with a way of life. It can't be explained. You can't explain it, or why you live it, and you're drawn into it.

And so we are called — one of the ways we do this is counterculturally — and we have the example of very luminous figures in our Christian traditions. That's what Luther does, again and again, but that's also the way that people like C.S. Lewis, and Tolkien, and others like them, have done. And they reach — they continue to reach many young people. Appeal to imagination. Appeal to mystery. Appeal to beauty. And the modeling of the beauty of marriage.

One of the very interesting things that happened back when our children were young and still living at home, is that, in many cases, some of their friends used to love to come and spend time with us, come round for dinner or chat. And I remember asking one of my daughters, "Now, why are they doing this?" She says, "Oh, I like it, they like it. They just like being here, and they like being with you. And they like being with us." When we found out what their own parents' marriages were like, what their own homes were like, that began to make sense. The home was, if you like, in a very mysterious way, a little colony of heaven, a foretaste of heaven, an inkling of heaven — a manifestation of the glory, the presence of God. That's what's going to have a big impact on your society. Not moralistic judgments, judgments of sexual abuse, and against homosexuality and all that kind of stuff, doctrinal ravings about the sanctity of marriage — no, no, no, no. It's the mystery of marriage. And that's presented in word and deed, but best of all by example. So that's what I wanted to recommend to you, and recommend for you, in the people that you minister to.