Is it biblical to marry for reasons outside of love? For example for children, physical desire, status, family pressure, obligation, it is time, etc?<\/p>\n\t
So many people think that love is something that happens to a person when the truth is that love is something a person chooses to give. That is why Christians are commanded: “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another<\/em>” (John 13:35). People think of love as a mushy feeling that they can’t ignore, but God talks of love as how you treat another person (I Corinthians 13:4-8).<\/p>\n It is perfectly possible to choose to marry a person and because you are marrying that person you choose to love that person. A good example of this is Isaac and Rebekah. They did not meet until their wedding day, for that matter Rebekah had agreed to marry Isaac sight unseen (Genesis 24), and yet they were deeply in love — to the point that others noticed. “Now it came to pass, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked through a window, and saw, and there was Isaac, showing endearment to Rebekah his wife<\/em>” (Genesis 26:8).<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Question: Is it biblical to marry for reasons outside of love? For example for children, physical desire, status, family pressure, obligation, it is time, etc? Answer: So many people think that love is something that happens to a person when the truth is that love is something a person chooses to give. That is why…<\/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,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[65,64],"class_list":["post-30288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-love","tag-marriage"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":90423,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-it-wrong-to-marry-the-person-you-love\/","url_meta":{"origin":30288,"position":0},"title":"Is it wrong to marry the person you love?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 12, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi, I came to your website and followed it for a couple of days. I'm glad that you are helping people with your answers. I want to know if Christians can have a love marriage? Is it against God's word or is it against God's will? If two people,\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":59806,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/so-you-married-the-wrong-person\/","url_meta":{"origin":30288,"position":1},"title":"So You Married the Wrong Person?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 10, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Tanner Campbell The statements: \"I don't love you anymore,\" and \"I think I married the wrong person\" we all recognize. They are commonly said at the end of a failed marriage. It is no secret that many marriages fail in the world and a number of them fail among\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":50267,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-can-the-scriptures-apply-to-me-arent-we-called-to-love-each-other\/","url_meta":{"origin":30288,"position":2},"title":"How can the Scriptures apply to me? Aren’t we called to love each other?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 30, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hello, I was raised Catholic. After trying out a couple of religions, I've come back to the Catholic Church. I also see myself closely identifying as a pansexual. I read in Romans what it says about homosexuality, but it states things that I am not, so how can the\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":9245,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-loving-each-other-at-the-age-of-17-right-or-wrong\/","url_meta":{"origin":30288,"position":3},"title":"Is loving each other at the age of 17 right or wrong?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 4, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Is loving each other at the age of 17 right or wrong? Answer: Your question is too vague for me to give you a good answer. You have a love for your parents from the time you are a small child, and that is certainly right. People are quite\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":53419,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-does-the-bible-teach-about-soul-mates\/","url_meta":{"origin":30288,"position":4},"title":"What does the Bible teach about soul mates?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 6, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Good evening, I'm trying to understand what the Bible teaches on the matter of \"soul mates.\" Could you offer some guidance? A coworker of mine asked me today if I believe in soul mates. She's been married before and divorced for what I understand are unscriptural reasons. She is\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":31157,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/i-keep-pulling-out-of-committing-to-marry-even-though-i-want-to-be-married-what-should-i-do\/","url_meta":{"origin":30288,"position":5},"title":"I keep pulling out of committing to marry even though I want to be married. What should I do?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 1, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I am a man in my thirties. I wanted to settle down for the past few years now. I find it hard to find the right girl that suits me, though I can say that I am quite popular with girls. I am always finding things that I am\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\/30288","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=30288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30288\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}