What Marriage Teaches about Worship

God’s jealousy makes perfect sense

I never knew my grandfathers. My paternal grandfather died before I was born, and my maternal grandfather was a mystery figure. He was alive, but we never saw him, never conversed on the phone, never talked about him, never hung photos of him on the wall. He did not reside with my grandmother, who lived an hour away. My parents did not divulge where he lived or why he did not live with my grandmother, and I did not ask. At some point I learned my grandparents had been divorced.

Actually I did see my grandfather once when I was around 10. He came to our home along with others from my mother’s family. I watched him with curiosity but did not speak with him. He was there with a woman who was not identified. I did not learn why my grandparents divorced until I was around 30. My grandfather did well enough in business that he and my grandmother employed a housekeeper. She was the unidentified woman at the family get-together when I was 10. My grandparents divorced because—well, you guessed it.

What a marriage must not tolerate

A husband and wife forbear many things in each other: irritating habits, stubborn flaws, and countless offenses. In love they overlook them. Their marriage vows require that they forbear all wrongs. All wrongs except one. What marriage should not abide is adultery. Romance and marriage are exclusive. Sexual relations are exclusive. If not, the end is near.

What sexual relations are to marriage, worship is to our relationship with God. He requires that we reserve worship exclusively for him, and he is right in doing so, for he alone is worthy.

Ten Commandments

At Mount Sinai God gave the Ten Commandments to the nation he had graciously delivered out of Egypt. The first two of those commands put first things first:

“You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God.” (Exo. 20:3–5)

Early in his relationship with Israel God clearly stated his nature. The message was blunt. I am a jealous God. Worship me exclusively. Do not even think about betraying me.

And God says the same to us. We live in a world of tests and temptations. Will we faithfully honor God above everything he created? In upcoming posts of this series we will examine how Israel, Abraham, and Jesus faced this test in different ways. And thereby we will learn how we can avoid spiritual adultery.