Today I was perusing Facebook and noticed that a couple of those men who often disagree with the Standard Sacred Text position were expressing their heartfelt joy and thankfulness in the wife of their youth. Praise the Lord for that and may their love remain strong as death itself. In a world where marriage is being maligned from every quarter we need to praise the Lord for our spouses at least as loud as those who seek to demean that blessed institution of marriage.
That said, it was interesting to me that these men referred to their beloved as “the most amazing woman in the world” and similar words of praise. But is she? I would disagree. MY WIFE is the “most amazing woman in the world!” They can’t both be the most amazing woman in the world. Are we to believe that men all over the western world who today proclaim the greatness of their respective wives are wrong? I don’t think so, but what makes them right?
A man’s amazing wife is amazing in very meaningful, personal, and soulish ways, ways that you cannot rob him of. And why? Because he has lived life with her. He has experience for better and for worse with her as well as for richer and for poorer. What is more, he and she are said to be one flesh in some mysterious union of two souls which is difficult to quantify, difficult to categorize but it is no less true. And what if someone were to come along and challenge the amazingness of this man’s wife?
One challenger says, “I have multiple wives and they are basically equally amazing. What is more, I can be married to each of them equally. Give up your One-Wife Onlyism and join us Multiple-Wife Only-ists!” Does the man with the amazing wife ditch his amazing wife for supposedly greener pastures? I would think not. Don’t forget that the man with the amazing wife has “the most amazing wife in the world”. Equally amazing wives cannot be the “most amazing” by definition.
Another challenger enters and proclaims the perceived foibles, errors, and faults of the man’s “most amazing wife”. “I could never marry a woman with that color hair,” he says, “or that laugh, or that smile, or that personality, or that height and on and on.” Perhaps this opponent says, “My wife is easier to read, that’s why I chose the wife I did. Your wife on the other hand is difficult to read. I can’t tell when she is serious and when she is joking. It’s time to get a new wife.” Does the man with the most amazing wife trade in his wife because some other guy doesn’t understand or doesn’t like the most amazing wife? I think not.
Yet another challenger claims that this man’s most amazing wife says things that the husband thinks he understands but in the end doesn’t. And the man with the most amazing wife agrees that this happens often. For example, the wife asks, “Do I look fat in this dress?” or “Do you like my new hairstyle?” On their face these questions seem to be asking style questions and could easily be understood as such, but if you fall for these false friends know that you are not alone. These questions are actually tests of how well the husband with the most amazing wife knows his wife, understands her, her motives, her language, the context of the questions, the husband’s capacity for truth telling, and the spirit in which it is told. Does the man with the most amazing wife trade in his wife for one with less false friends? Is it possible that all wives (even the most amazing one in the world) present false friends to their husbands? It seems so, but the challenger who loves to talk about false friends won’t take the time answer that question because he’s too busy cleaning up slanderous remarks in a video he made calling out other people’s supposed slander.
Dear reader I’m having a bit of fun here, but the truth is that words of God abide forever and as amazing as your wife is this Valentine’s Day neither you nor your marriage will abide forever. Nor has God promised to preserve you, your wife, or your marriage from the corruptions of men and the wastes of time. Your marriage is not inspired and neither are you nor is your wife. Marriages will pass away but God’s words will not.
Yet we are told time and time again that multiple versions (as opposed to multiple wives) is better than clinging to the Scripture of your youth, to the most amazing Scripture in all the world. We are told that our Scripture has errors and sounds funny, yet in some ways it is more home to us than the house we live in. We are told that our Bible has “false friends” as if that is grounds to sever our relationship to the most amazing Scripture in all the world.
I hope you can see why such claims and objections are laughable except perhaps for the discontented. If they won’t work in separating me from the most amazing woman in the world (which of course is MY wife), then why believe such claims and objections would separate Christ’s bride from each and every of the Bridegroom’s inspired and preserved words to His most amazing wife in all the world across the millennia of human history?
Standard Sacred Text.com 