Bonhoeffer on Marriage

“Marriage is more than your love for each other. It has a higher quality and power, for it is God’s holy ordinance…In your love you see only your two selves in the world, but in marriage you are in a link in the chain of the generations which God causes to come and to pass away to His glory, and calls into His kingdom. In your love you see only the heaven of your own happiness, but in marriage you are placed at a post of responsibility toward the world and mankind…Marriage is more than something personal…

God gives you Christ as the foundation of your marriage. Welcome one another, therefore, as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God (Romans 15:7). In a word, live together in the forgiveness of your sins, for without it no human fellowship, least of all a marriage, can survive. Don’t insist on your rights, don’t blame each other, don’t judge or condemn each other, don’t find fault with each other, but accept each other as you are, and forgive each other every day from the bottom of your hearts.

--Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer