Making Sense of Married Life: Bible Verses about Love and Marriage

What is marriage about? What’s the best way to deal with the mistakes that you or your spouse make? What responsibilities do a married couple have toward each other? Does everyone have to be married? What’s the relationship between sex and marriage? A multitude of voices that contradict Bible verses about love and marriage seek to answer each of these questions and others.

Pop music, poetry, novels, documentaries, television shows and movies, experts on daytime and late-night television – are part of the landscape and the many voices that try to shape how we and our culture understand relationships. There are so many perspectives out there, so many in fact that it’s not surprising if you find your head spinning from the effort of trying to make sense of it all.

Marriages are complex things, filled with laughter and tears, bitter arguments and sweet resolution, memories of warmth and recollections of challenges. They are our most intimate relationships because in them we share our bodies, hearts, thoughts, and lives. Being able to make sense of marriage, whether we are married or not, is like figuring out a large part of what life is about. This is where Bible verses about love and marriage can help.

Bible verses about love and marriage.

It’s commonly said these days that there’s nothing to marriage except a contract and that it was invented to facilitate the exchange and management of property. In the culture within which the Lord interacted with people and the Bible was written, some of this is true, though that isn’t the whole story. Marriage for love wasn’t as common as it is today, as arranged marriages were the dominant way marriages came together.

However, we can’t be ignorant of the fact that though these marriages were often arranged, that doesn’t mean that love and chemistry weren’t part of the equation. After all, stories such as the relationship between Jacob and Rachel, the steamy poetry of the Songs of Solomon, and others show us that there’s more going on here than we might think.

In addition to this more complicated biblical picture, we are cautioned by Tim Keller when we think that our modern way of understanding marriage is superior. He wrote in The Meaning of Marriage, “Sociologists argue that in contemporary Western society the marketplace has become so dominant that the consumer model increasingly characterizes most relationships that historically were covenantal, including marriage.”

“Covenant is therefore a concept increasingly foreign to us, and yet the Bible says it is the essence of marriage… In sharp contrast with our culture, the Bible teaches that the essence of marriage is a sacrificial commitment to the good of the other. That means that love is more fundamentally action than emotion. But in talking this way, there is a danger of falling into the opposite error that characterized many ancient and traditional societies.

“It is possible to see marriage as merely a social transaction, a way of doing your duty to family, tribe, and society. Traditional societies made the family the ultimate value in life, and so marriage was a mere transaction that helped your family’s interest.

“By contrast, contemporary Western societies make the individual’s happiness the ultimate value, and so marriage becomes primarily an experience of romantic fulfillment. But the Bible sees GOD as the supreme good – not the individual or the family – and that gives us a view of marriage that intimately unites feelings AND duty, passion AND promise. That is because at the heart of the Biblical idea of marriage is the covenant.”

What the Bible says about marriage ought to shape what believers think of it, and how they perform the intricate dance of marriage. It challenges us regarding whether and how marriages can end, and how we are to be within our marriages so that they can flourish. The following Bible verses about love and marriage paint a remarkable picture of the nature of love and the beauty and sanctity of marriage.

So God created humanity in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’ – Genesis 1:27-28

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. – Genesis 2:24

You have captivated my heart, my sister, my bride; you have captivated my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace. – Song of Solomon 4:9

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. – 1 John 4:18-19

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. – Romans 5:6-8

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. – Song of Solomon 8:6-7

Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate. – Mark 10:9

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. – 1 Corinthians 13:13

And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything.

For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies.

For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. And we are members of his body. As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.” This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. – Ephesians 5: 21-33

He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the LORD. – Proverbs 18:22

Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. – Matthew 22:36-40

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. – 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. – Ephesians 4:2

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. – 1 Peter 4:8

Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man. – Proverbs 3:3-4

Do everything in love. – 1 Corinthians 16:14

Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. – Hebrews 13:4

Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there. Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

“Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery. – Matthew 19:2-9

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. – John 13:34-35

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. – Ephesians 4:32

Christian marriage counseling to enhance married life.

If you’re looking for additional support beyond these Bible verses about love and marriage to improve your married life, contact me or one of the other Christian marriage counselors in the online counselor directory. We would be happy to walk alongside you as you seek to strengthen your marriage with God’s help.