Describe the biblical models of a healthy marriage and family life, and compare contrast these with models prevalent in contemporary society. Support your findings from a variety of literature sources?
Within this assessment I’ll depict the biblical models of a healthy marriage and family life; compared to other models prevalent in today’s contemporary culture. Within the Christian family the importance of God reins supreme within a contemporary family in most cases, it’s another god the takes prevalence; in most cases this is the reason why marriages, don’t withstand the pressure of time.
Firstly, we should examine what the biblical model for marriage is, in order to gain a perspective of God’s divine intention for marriage; the most significant scripture verses for Christian marriage within a Christian belief are; Jesus Christ as the God head, (Eph. 4:13–16; 1 Timothy 2 1-15) ; do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers, (2 Corinthians 6:14); the husband as spiritual head of the family, (Eph. 5:23); love one another, and preserve spiritual unity in peace, (Eph. 4:1–3).
Balswick and Balswick, (2008) stated; that they build on the marriage and family relationships on four sequential but nonlinear stages which are covenant, grace, empowering and intimacy. They continue to say that that the family relationship will be either dynamic and maturing or dying and stagnant. The underling core is unconditional love.
So, why is it important that within the healthy family context that covenant, grace, empowering and intimacy are functioning, if we once again address scripture we find that the greatest gift is love? (1 John 4:7) love encompasses all of the above (1 Corinthians 13).
It‘s predominant that the relationships within the marriage continues to flourish under the covenant, without the covenant their is no sound structure in which to build the foundations of a healthy family (Eph. 5:33).