Bible Verses About Marriage.
Marriage was God's idea from the beginning. Scripture describes it as a covenant between one man and one woman, meant to last for life and to reflect Christ's love for his church.
These verses cover God's design for marriage, how husbands and wives are called to love each other, and the kind of love that keeps a marriage going.
God's design
Marriage begins in creation, before sin entered the picture.
Genesis 2:18
Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
Genesis 2:24
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
Matthew 19:4-6
He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
Love and respect
Paul describes marriage as a living picture of the gospel.
Ephesians 5:22-25
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,
Paul's call to wives sits inside verse 21's call to mutual submission and next to a call for husbands to love sacrificially.
Ephesians 5:31-33
“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 am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Colossians 3:18-19
Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.
1 Peter 3:7
Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.
Love that lasts
Scripture describes the kind of love that holds a marriage together.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
Song of Solomon 8:6-7
Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the LORD. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised.
Hebrews 13:4
Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.
Write about Genesis 2:18
A short SOAP journal entry: Scripture, Observation, Application, Prayer. No account needed to start. Your words stay in this browser until you choose to keep them.
Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
Related topics
Scripture quotations are from the ESV(R) Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version(R)), copyright (c) 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.