Quesiton
What book in the bible deals with wedding vows?
Answer
There is no passage in the Bible that deals with wedding vows as you hear them today. What passages there are that deal with marriage concern how long a couple should stay together and the reasons one spouse may “put away” (divorce) the other.
In Genesis 2, Moses wrote:
23And Adam said:
“This is now bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.”
24Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. The Holy Bible, New King James Version, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, Inc.) 1982.
This was quoted again in the New Testament by Christ in Matthew 19:
1Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these sayings, that He departed from Galilee and came to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. 2And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them there. 3The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?” 4And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ 5“and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6“So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.” 7They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?” 8He said to them, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9“And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.” The Holy Bible, New King James Version, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, Inc.) 1982.
Basically, the wedding vows you hear today are founded on this belief, although the soaring divorce rate indicates that too many people don’t believe what they’re saying.
By Michael Molloy
