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[Miles Away]

Christians, what does marriage mean to you that it doesn't for non-Christians?

I've been wondering about this ever since I heard a devout Christian girl turn down someone she apparently loved, because they did not share the same faith and she believed he could not give her what she believes a marriage needs.

I might be wording this wrong, I'm not a native English speaker, but I'm simply curious about why this would be.

[jimwalton]

The only difference I know is that a Christian marriage is grounded in a mutual relationship with God.

Marriage is not just sealing the relationship into a permanent commitment, it's a joining to two lives at every point, especially the deepest and most meaningful ones. I think we would all agree that the best marriages, and the one we all dream to have, is a no-holds barred oneness and unity that conquers our differences and creates as much an integration of two persons as is possible in this life. I think it's fair to say that whether you're a believer or a non-believer, you believe in total marriage, involving much more than friendship and romance.

Christian marriage, by definition and practice, has a sacred character and is the joining of two persons with the person of God. Two become one in the Lord, and God is the core of the relationship, through whom two people share their lives as completely as if they're one person. If two people don't share the same Christian faith (what a Christian considers to be their relationship of highest priority—their relationship to God), then a total marriage will never be a reality. A Christian and non-Christian cannot share their most precious values, their ultimate motivations, the source of their moral code, the governing authority in their lives, and the goal for which they live. For the Christian, all these things are God. While your love for each other could be as deep as the ocean, and your desire to be together as strong as gravity, ultimately you'll be two puzzle pieces that don't fit together.

2 Corinthians 6:17 speaks of a distinction of nature between that which is oriented towards God and that which is oriented elsewhere. A Christian marrying a non-Christian is like a farmer hitching an ox on one side of the yoke to a goat on the other. But it's not just the impracticality of direction (which you may claim someone may be able to overcome, and many have), it's the joining of two very dissimilar lives that are dissimilar at the very core of their being. Their directions in life are, for the time being, basically irreconcilable. Christianity is not just a religion, it's all of life. If one of you loves God more than anything else, and the other doesn't, there an impossible incompatibility far deeper than how well you get along and how much you love each other.

[Miles Away]

Thank you for your response, that was very insightful.