by: Jason Williams
We hear a lot of words these days. The average person says over seven thousand words each and every day. Add to that all the words we hear from our family, those at our jobs, the television, radio, and all the people talking around us, and we hear over fifty thousand words each and every day. With all of those words, it’s difficult to understand the importance and power every word we say has. Words are powerful. Words can start wars and make peace, they can build up or destroy. I think Solomon summed it up best when he said. “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.” Proverbs 25:11) In other words, a word is powerful, and when the right word is spoken at the right time it is a beautiful thing.
Words, like everything else, are changing daily. Consider the word gnarly. When my dad was young, gnarly meant “twisted.” When I was young, it meant “awesome.” Today, it means “dangerous or rough.” In less than fifty years, one word changed in meaning three times. We could go on and on with many words that have changed in meaning since the 1950’s.
Though words are changing, I want to focus on one word and that word is “marriage.” Last month the U.S. Supreme Court ignored the Constitution, overstepped the wishes of the people and decided that the word “marriage” can be changed. Herein lies the problem, our government did not create marriage, God did; therefore, they have no more authority to define marriage than you or I do. A word is only as powerful as what it describes, and marriage defines a union instituted by God Himself. In fact, the very first words uttered in history by man are spoken immediately following the creation of this union.
“And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And 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. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” (Genesis 2:21-24)
God created marriage, and we cannot change it. While our Supreme Court can ignore the wishes of the people, while our legislators can claim they are changing marriage, while our President can force his will on us in this “free society” and demand that we “evolve “ our viewpoint on marriage like he did, and while we can be punished for disagreeing with them, nothing changes. Marriage is from God! Marriage, like God, will not change regardless of what we say. Simply put, all our words together cannot undo what God defined in one word, and no one word is more powerful than that.
Jason Williams
Assistant Pastor
High Street Baptist Church
Columbus, OH
churchonhigh.wordpress.com