Higher Mathematics

God's mathematics are nothing like ours. You only have to look at Gideon's army or the story of the loaves and fishes to realize that He doesn't think about numbers the way we do. Having said that, I don't think anything is as incomprehensible as the "1 + 1 = 1" mathematics behind a biblical marriage:

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24)

It's a fairly well known verse, and we quote it readily when talking about marriage; but have you ever considered the implications? When Job loses everything he has, all of his possessions are stolen or destroyed, and his children die. But only when Satan is allowed to attack his body do we hear Job's wife say "Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die."

As a man, this is particularly poignant to me; whether I like it or not, discord between me and my wife tears at who I am. For years we've been reading about studies that show how married men live longer than those who are single. Some assert that this is because married men are more likely to take care of their own health. IMHO, that's one reason, but another might be simpler: "It is not good for the man to be alone." (Genesis 2:18).

I've been thinking hard about this for a bit, and I'm convinced that God wasn't correcting a mistake when He made the need for marriage. I think it was part of the original design specification.

This has significant implications for our view of marriage and divorce, but this post has gone on long enough, and I'll have to save those thoughts for another time.