Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 39:4 (Autumn 2025)
Article: God’s Wisdom For Cultivating A Marriage
Author: Janet Galante

PP 39:4 (Autumn 2025) p. 27

God’s Wisdom For Cultivating A Marriage

Janet Galante

A Sermon

Janet Galante is Groups Minister and a member of the preaching team at First Christian Church in Johnson City, Tennessee. She holds an MDiv from nearby Emmanuel Christian Seminary.

Wisdom For Life

We’re in a series on the book of Proverbs called “Wisdom for Life.”1 We’ve been talking about how God has wisdom for our lives. The world pulls us in all sorts of directions, offering various paths we could take. We can feel unsure of which way to go. So, we’re looking together to the book of Proverbs, and we’re learning that God has wisdom for how we can live. God has direction for us.

The book of Proverbs was written long ago, of course, and it speaks from the perspective of a godly Israelite father advising his son over and over again why wisdom is so important.2 Here are two examples:

2:6–8: “For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He holds success in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless, for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones.” (NIV)

3:21–22: “My son, do not let wisdom and understanding out of your sight, preserve sound judgment and discretion; they will be life for you, an ornament to grace your neck.” (NIV)

I love that reminder: don’t let wisdom out of your sight! And to do that, we need to be immersed in Scripture, to keep Scripture in front of us. The wisdom in Proverbs covers a lot of areas, and today we’ll be talking about God’s wisdom for marriage.

Now, I know that as soon you hear me say the word “marriage,” there are reactions throughout the room. Maybe it’s a good reaction; you’re married and would love to hear God’s wisdom for marriage. But maybe it’s a negative one. It might bring up painful memories, a picture of inequality, or reminders of brokenness. Or maybe you’ve lost someone, and this stirs up your grief and pain. Maybe you’re happily unmarried. Some of you are single but wish you were married.

Before we go any further, I want to be clear about a couple preliminaries:

First, Christians sometimes act like marriage is the goal of life, like it’s this pinnacle that we’re all supposed to be working toward. Yet I want to say clearly: that’s not true. In the Bible, the Apostle Paul speaks highly of being unmarried (You must have a subscription and be logged in to read the entire article.
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