You Don't Know What You're Talking About

I write a lot about definitions. You see, words are not actual substance. They are symbols for communicating ideas and realities. So if we don't define them, we can't communicate those ideas and realities. The simple fact is if you can't define what you're talking about, you don't know what you're talking about.

One I've long complained about is the word, "marriage." I've long maintained that it has a meaning and that today's version ... does not. Certain elements of our society rallied around "marriage equality" without defining either "equality" or "marriage" and they won ... except no one these days knows what they won. Because they were undefined. All we know it they won the right to call what they were doing "marriage," the term they didn't define but are pretty sure we've been doing all along. Unfortunately it is neither "marriage" nor "equality."

Marriage is ordained by God (Gen 2:18–24; cp Matt 19:4-6; Eph 5:28-32). It's part of God's grand plan (Eph 5:31-32; Rev 19:9). It's God's idea. Not ours. We don't get to decide what it is or what to do with it. He does.

One of God's primary components of marriage is that it is for life (Rom 7:2-3). This only makes sense since it is the union of two people (Gen 2:24; Matt 19:4-6; Eph 5:31). To take that apart is a dismemberment. "What God has joined together let no man separate" (Matt 19:6). Divorce, according to Christ, is only due to hard-heartedness, not a praiseworthy motivation (Matt 19:8).

Marriage is the only relationship allowed by God for sexual relations. That aspect is to be honored and guarded (Heb 13:4). It is heterosexual and monogamous (Gen 2:24). (Note: The original meaning of the term "monogamous" is not "having sex with only one person" let alone "only one person at a time," but "married only to one.") Marital sexual relations are to be enjoyed (1 Cor 7:3-4) and exclusive, because it is a union of bodies that creates a union of people (1 Cor 6:16-17) and illustrates the relationship between Christ and His Bride (1 Cor 6:18; Eph 5:32). Sexual relations in marriage are for mutual giving, for mimicking God's relationship with His own, and for procreation.

If properly defined, "marriage" means something, and anyone who wants to enter that "something" has been able to do so. At times for reasons outside of the definition (and, therefore, incorrectly) it has been blocked (for instance, between races) but in our day anyone who wants to marry, given the definition of marriage, has been able to do so. That's marriage equality. And not everyone who considers themselves married, given the definition of marriage, actually is. That's simply a fact. What we have today is neither marriage nor equality, and the carryover has been to eliminate both for all in the public square. If you wish to talk to me about marriage, be sure we're talking about the same thing. Words mean something. This one means a great deal.