[Having said about a wedding that glorifies Christ, Albert Martin lays out a few principles to follow.] Please follow closely and think carefully concerning these three lines of vital biblical principles that follow.

1. A Wedding That Is a Service of Public Worship

The Scriptures give no indication that a marriage must be conducted in a house of worship under the leadership of a pastor in order to be legitimate. However, there are many good reasons to consider that such a service conducted in a house of worship and led by a man of God is a wise and godly expedient. It constitutes a wonderful opportunity to glorify Christ and to bear witness to the truth and power of the gospel. Such a service conducted among the gathered people of God also affords you an opportunity to allow them to obey the biblical injunction to “Rejoice with them that do rejoice” (Romans 12:15).

We are convinced that everyone involved in such a service, whether as a participant or an observer, needs to recognize that a truly Christian wedding service is, in a very real sense, a service of public worship. The name and special presence of God will be invoked by prayer; the praises of God will ordinarily be sung by the congregation; and the Word of God will be read and preached. Then, you will exchange solemn vows in the presence of God. Generally, the wedding service will conclude with earnest petitions for God’s blessing to rest upon this newly established relationship. Surely, when these elements are present in a public gathering of the people of God in a building set apart for the worship of God, led by an appointed officer in the house of God, what you have is indeed a service of public worship.

We regard a wedding service to be essentially in the same category as a funeral service for a beloved brother or sister in Christ or a dedication service for a newly acquired building as a house of worship. Whatever may be peculiar to the unique focus in each of these services, all of the elements of worship are generally present, thereby constituting them services of public worship. As such, responsible church leaders are careful to include nothing that would be contrary to a Bible-based, God-honoring, Christ-exalting service of worship. When properly conducted, such services are planned so that they are decidedly characterized by decency of order, dignity of substance, and nobility of conduct and are suffused with biblical and distinctively gospel perspectives. Furthermore, godly and wise spiritual leaders responsible for planning such services are careful to allow nothing to intrude that would dishonor God and invalidate the gospel of the grace of God.

Until you regard your Christian wedding ceremony as a service of public worship, you will not have the framework of reference needed in order to judge precisely what is and is not appropriate and honoring to God. You must keep this principle in mind in planning all the details of your wedding service. In our day, there is a common saying with respect to weddings: “It’s all about the bride.” If you are thinking biblically, you will not be comfortable with the perspectives that have produced that saying. Rather, as you anticipate your wedding, you will both say from your hearts, “It’s all about honoring our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

[Let me quote from Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin’s article, The Reformation Ideal of Marriage. He is professor of church history at and biblical spirituality and director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. He writes, “Our memory of what took place during the sixteenth-century Reformation has been somewhat selective. As heirs of Reformed Protestantism, we have remembered it chiefly as a recovery of the gospel and the biblical way of worship. But we also need to recall it as a great recovery of the biblical understanding of marriage.

Building on the monastic piety of late antiquity—found in authors such as Augustine and Jerome—the medieval church had come to regard the celibate life of the monastery or nunnery as the seedbed of a spirituality far superior to that found in the homes of those who were married. The celibate, it was argued, lived the life of the angels, and thus already experienced in some ways the life of the world to come. With the growing corruption of the church in the late Middle Ages, however, the reality was that far too many of the clergy were celibate but not chaste. 

Although Martin Luther was not the first of the Reformers to marry and have a family, his marriage to Katharina von Bora on June 13, 1525, became in many ways the paradigmatic ideal for the Protestant family. Initially, their marriage was no love match. Katharina had escaped from a nunnery in Nimbsch, near Grimma, with a number of other nuns and wound up in Wittenberg seeking refuge. For a time, Luther acted as a sort of marriage broker, seeking to find husbands for the nuns. Eventually, Katharina alone was left, and Luther married her, he said, to please his father, who had always wanted grandchildren, and also, as Luther inimitably put it, to spite the pope. We also need to recall the Reformation as a great recovery of the biblical understanding of marriage.

These are hardly the best of reasons for marriage, but in time, their marriage ‘blossomed into a partnership of real depth and touching devotion,’ to quote Andrew Pettegree in his recent study of Martin Luther. This ‘joyous success’ of Martin and Katharina’s marriage and the six children who came from their union became, in Pettegree’s words, ‘a powerful archetype of the new Protestant family.’” 

Katharine was 16 years younger than Martin and together they had six children. Luther doted on his large family but was able to devote himself to the simpler pleasures of life, gardening, writing music. Katharine took over the household, particularly the household expenses; it is said that Dr Luther did not have a clue how to run a household. She also proved herself to be a good housewife and gardener. Luther's household included not only his wife and six children, but also one of Katharine's relatives and after 1529 six of Luther’s sister's children. Luther also housed students in his home to help the family's financial situation.

Before we move on, let us once again remember that Marriage is a public union. While the intimacy is, and must be, private, the nature of the union is to be public. The man and the woman promise before witnesses that each will be faithful to the other until one of them dies.]

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