Fraternity-Testvériség, 2011 (89. évfolyam, 1. szám)
2011-01-01 / 1. szám
Fraternity i Testvériség The Sanctity of Marriage Rev. Zsolt Otvos, Magyar Reformed Church, New Brunswick, NJ L ove and relationships are a central theme in the Bible beginning in Genesis through Revelations. St. Augustine once said,” Our hearts are restless until we find our rest in Thee.” God designed us for a relationship with Him. The Scriptures speak about our relationship with Him: how to have it, how to hold onto it, how to rest in it, how to communicate it, and how to enjoy it. But God did not want us to just have a relationship with Him alone. He created others that we might also learn to live with and love those He places in our lives. And one of God’s greatest gifts is when He sends a person to us to be a companion for life. God leads us to marriage by making us realize that our life is not complete without another. There is an emptiness in us that we are not able to fill by ourselves. We look for another to complete us. This is what God, who knows our hearts better than anyone else, expresses at the beginning of the creation: “It is not good that man should be alone.” (Genesis 2:18a). God not only states this fact but he provides a companion: “I will make a helper fit for him.” (Genesis 2:18b) God himself performed the first marriage ceremony in the Garden of Eden on the sixth day of creation after He had made the world as a home for man. After God made man, He knew that man needed a helper, so, “He caused a deep sleep to fall upon man, and while he slept, took one of his ribs; and the rib which the Lord had taken from the man, he made into woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man’.” (Genesis 2:21 - 24) Why did God, after making Adam the most wonderful creature in the world, take a rib from his body to make a life companion for him? He wanted man to know right from the beginning that his wife was truly a part of him so that he would treat her as he would treat himself and that they both would realize that they belong to each other. We can see that God’s most important purpose for marriage was to make two peoples’ lives joyful and complete. He knew that by sharing life together, they experience its greatest joys. Even today, as we look for and find someone to share our lives with, it is really God who is preparing two people for one another. Beyond the initial circumstances of two people meeting and getting to know one another, God’s wonderful planning is at work. New couples are God’s gifts as they meet one another’s needs in loving, strengthening, protecting and caring, just as Jesus said, “The two shall become one.” It was God’s perfect plan that the marriage of man and woman unite them completely. It’s the beginning of a lifelong experience of thinking together, planning together, and hoping together “in sickness and in health till death do them part.” Valeria and Rev. Zsolt Otvos Tájékoztató Szerezze Meg Magyar Állampolgárságát! Örömmel tájékoztatjuk olvasóinkat, hogy elérhető a www.allampolgarsag.gov.hu weboldal, amelyen megtalálható az Állampolgársági törvény (1993. évi LV. törvény) módosításával, így az egyszerűsített honosítás lehetőségével és az ehhez fűződő eljárásokkal kapcsolatos minden lényeges információ. A honlap készítői igyekeztek az egyszerűsített honosítással kapcsolatos minden felmerülő kérdést összefoglalni és közérthetően megválaszolni, valamint széleskörű tájékoztatást nyújtani az érdeklődő határon túli magyarok számára, ezzel is megkönnyítve a magyar állampolgársághoz jutásukat, ügyük intézését. 13
