Sensational title and something I’ve been thinking about for a long time.

  1. Literally, any two Christians (male and female) can have a godly, successful, happy, and lots of sex marriage.
  2. The only thing it requires is obedience to God’s marital roles and responsibilities.
  3. But this appears to be hard for many or most “professing” Christians in our current culture/world.
  4. Perhaps less difficult in the past when there were various factors that propped up 90-95% marriage rates in most societies, but there was still divorce, cheating, and all of that back then even when it was more frowned upon.

This should be the norm among Christians but sadly it is not, but where do we draw the line on it being realistic for most? How do we help those to where it can be realistic for most?

Here is a list of traits — many of them Biblical and non-exhaustive (add some in the comments if you think they should be here) — that likely contribute to this.

  • Naturally fall into a headship-submission dynamic. Male natural leader / female natural follower.
  • Are inclined toward love-respect (perhaps particular combinations of big 5 personality traits?)
  • Are Christians that are focused on following Jesus and implementing the fruit of the Spirit in their lives
  • Likely being discipled by older men/women in the faith with lasting marriages
  • Very attracted to each other
  • Willing to follow 1 Corinthians 7 on giving each other sex despite feelings (much rarer, I think).
  • Ability to communicate effectively and assertively and not go into passive/passive-aggressive/aggressive communication methods?
  • A good knowledge and practice of who they are in Christ, so they are not looking to their spouse for needs that can only be met by God?

It would be hard to put percentages on these types of things, so I’m not going to try. But what should we be telling single men and women to look for in terms of these? All of them to a good degree? Perhaps as screening for yellow or red flags?

For instance, some level of attraction is probably necessary. It’s one of the strong drivers of the desire to have sex with your spouse which helps significantly in obeying 1 Corinthians 7. Maximizing attraction tends to lead to ruin such as those examples in Proverbs. But how do we counsel men and women on what is good enough to look for? Somewhere between a man or woman’s attraction floor for marriage but below a level where it significantly changes their behavior to not want to obey Christ but their spouse instead? What if their attraction floor is too high?

That seems to have always been one of the big questions of the Christian world as even those in the wrong (“godliness is sexy” or “godliness is attractive”) implicitly know that attractiveness is important.

Another thing is I think the willingness to continue to be faithful to God and love and serve others despite if you feel like it or not is of primary importance. How do we help singles get there?