I have a question. I took your advice and want to get married. My mum, my wife-to-be, and I are cool with getting married in a Lutheran church. Our bone of contention comes from our best man and woman who are born again, like ourselves. They will not do a wedding at a Lutheran church. They say their teachings are not of Christ. They also look like they want to recruit us to attend their marriage classes. I don\u2019t attend the Lutheran church, but I am getting married there because the pastor at my church is American, and I don\u2019t think he has a license to marry people in this country. The Lutheran church is denominational, but I don\u2019t mind. I know who I am in Christ; nothing can change that. But our best man and woman have this talk of idolatry being done at the Lutheran church. I didn\u2019t know there is so much contention between the Lutheran and the spirit-filled churches. I thought God says we are one. I know I am a freeman (Galatians 5:3-15).<\/p>\n\t
A marriage is not made by the place the ceremony is held. That was one of Paul’s points to the Corinthians: “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy<\/em>” (I Corinthians 7:14). If only marriages in Christ’s true church were legitimate, then the majority of the world would not be married. God recognizes all marriage covenants, even the ones made before a justice of the peace in a county courthouse where no preacher is involved.<\/p>\n Your best man and the maid-of-honor are there to be witnesses of your marriage covenant. If they have the mistaken idea that only marriages in their own church are legitimate, then you need to find two people who will serve in the role properly. Tell them they are your first choice, but since they are uncomfortable with your choice of venue, you’ll find others so as not to force them to do what they think is wrong (Romans 14:22-23).<\/p>\n Your friends don’t understand other religions well. I suspect that they are mixing up Roman Catholicism with Lutheranism. In the Roman Catholic church, there are many images of Jesus, Mary, and saints that are used as places of prayer. Most of the world sees this as a form of idolatry, but the Roman Catholics deny it. Lutherans don’t use images in their worship.<\/p>\n Jesus said that his church is one (Ephesians 4:4-6), but that doesn’t mean men haven’t divided the one true church with their various doctrines. Just because a church claims to be following Christ doesn’t mean it actually is. Words are easy to give, but actions often show a difference. See “Cafeteria-Style Religion<\/a>” and “How a Church Loses Its Distinctiveness<\/a>.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Question: I have a question. I took your advice and want to get married. My mum, my wife-to-be, and I are cool with getting married in a Lutheran church. Our bone of contention comes from our best man and woman who are born again, like ourselves. They will not do a wedding at a Lutheran…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[300,924,64,1599,566],"class_list":["post-25471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-denominations","tag-lutherans","tag-marriage","tag-roman-catholic-church","tag-weddings"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":85660,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/religion-in-germany\/","url_meta":{"origin":25471,"position":0},"title":"Religion in Germany","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 15, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Hans H. Waetjen via\u00a0Sentry Magazine, Vol. 16 No. 2, June 30, 1990 Floyd asked me some time ago to write an article on the state of religion in Germany. With all the latest political developments in East Germany, this information may be even more relevant now. So, I will\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":17980,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-church-in-1492\/","url_meta":{"origin":25471,"position":1},"title":"The Church in 1492","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 7, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Kent Heaton The world of 1492 was very small. Men knew very little about the earth as we know it today. Christopher Columbus sailed this important year with a crew of 87 to discover a new world. 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My question concerns something that happened very recently at my congregation; our youth group had two ministers helping and supporting all the activities (spiritual and recreational),\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":61067,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-i-am-a-member-of-the-church-of-christ\/","url_meta":{"origin":25471,"position":3},"title":"Why I am a Member of the Church of Christ","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 29, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"by Irvin Himmel via\u00a0The Voice of West End, Vol. 5, No. 23, Feb. 16, 1964. People have offered a variety of reasons for their religious connections. I am here to present my reasons for being a member of the church of Christ; but, first, some negative thoughts: Not because of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":57799,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/does-it-matter-who-performs-a-wedding\/","url_meta":{"origin":25471,"position":4},"title":"Does it matter who performs a wedding?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 10, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hello, My fianc\u00e9 and I have planned a destination wedding. The wedding package we purchased has an officiant included. I mention this because the planner stated that they have their preferred vendors meaning we potentially cannot reach out to the local church and ask a minister to marry us.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":24333,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-can-a-church-accept-an-improperly-divorced-couple\/","url_meta":{"origin":25471,"position":5},"title":"How can a church accept an improperly divorced couple?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 18, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Your Bible answers make so much sense and I have been wanting to ask this question.\u00a0It might be long, but I need to be detailed.\u00a0OK, here goes.\u00a0This is the truth as I know it.\u00a0You can answer it as though you believe what I am telling you as the truth,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25471\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}