Written by Allan C. Carlson |
Wednesday, January 10, 2024
Today, legal marriage is weaker than any contract and—except by coincidence—has no relation whatsoever to procreation and the rearing of children. Accordingly, relatively early marriage—designed to accommodate natural and healthy human fertility patterns—is no longer relevant. Indeed, judged against the Augustinian framework, legal marriage in America today means nothing…which may be why “same-sex marriage” crept in so effectively.

It is surely unhealthy to become depressed over statistics. As the modern proverb has it, there are lies, damn lies, and then come statistics. Still, I went into a funk six months ago after reading the results of a survey on parenting by the reliable Pew Research Center. The researchers asked two thousand active parents if it was important to them whether their children did certain things once they became adults. A stunning 88 percent said it was extremely or very important that they “be financially independent” and “have jobs or careers they enjoy.” In contrast, only 21 percent said it was extremely/very important that their grown children marry, and a mere 20 percent that they have children of their own.
One response is that perhaps the parents being queried will come to appreciate the merits of grandchildren a little later on (for as another modern proverb puts it, the only reason to endure parenthood is to gain grandkids). Or, on a perhaps more troubling note, we see here clear evidence of the triumph of capitalism over familism, of mammon over posterity. However, I prefer to see such numbers as signs of the repudiation of good St. Augustine.
These thoughts came back to me over the past weekend as I attended an extended-family wedding. The bride was lovely and glowing, the groom overflowed with joy, and the wedding was properly conducted, even in a “mainline” church dedicated, according to its pew cards, first and foremost to Diversity. Still, the event was, in a way, post-Augustinian. To begin with, and as is now normal, the couple had already been living together for several years. The post-Augustinian status could also be seen in the ages of the bride and groom: she was 35; he near 40. Today, that is only somewhat above the average for all first marriages. While I was told that they hope to have children, they probably know that for first-timers the biological deck is now stacked against them. In contrast, a half-century ago, when my wife and I were married, in the very last year of the Augustinian dispensation in America, I was 23 and she was 22; even then, we were on the old side for newlyweds. Children, moreover, were a reasonable expectation.
The Augustinian Tradition
Why drag Augustine into this? As in just about everything else of importance, Christian marriage owes its operational definition to his “mental universe” (a phrase borrowed from the legal scholar Charles J. Reid, Jr.). Writing at the end of the fourth century A.D., Augustine faced two challenges: the Manichaeans, a heretical sect which so focused on the spirit that they fully rejected reproductive intercourse; and the pagan Romans, among whom concubinage, adultery, prostitution, homosexuality, and easy divorce were common. Citing the innate “sociability” of humankind and “a natural companionship between the sexes,” the church father defined the “goods” of marriage as procreation, fidelity, and sacramental permanence. Rejecting both extreme asceticism and hedonism, Augustine affirmed that “the marriage of man and woman is something good.”
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On Friday, Jesus was crucified. That’s the first day. On Saturday, Jesus rested on the Sabbath in the tomb. That’s the second day. On Sunday, Jesus rose from the dead. That’s the third day. The Gospel accounts, and subsequent church tradition, confirm this ordering and counting of events.

Not everyone is convinced that Jesus died on a Friday. There is a fringe view that Jesus must have died earlier than Friday (like maybe Thursday or even Wednesday), because Jesus said, “For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matt. 12:40).
Jesus’s words in Matthew 12:40 seem to suggest a 72-hour period (three full days and three full nights) that can’t be placed between a Friday death and a Sunday resurrection. So if Jesus rose on a Sunday morning, he had to die earlier than a Friday afternoon—right?
No. Several important pieces of information are missing here.
First, the use of “three days and three nights” can simply mean a three-day period. Jesus is reading the story of Jonah typologically. Just as Jonah was delivered (after a period of time associated with the number three), so would Jesus be delivered (also after a period of time associated with the number three). The insistence for a 72-hour period of death for Jesus is an unnecessary and overly literal reading of Matthew 12:40.
Second, we know that Joseph of Arimathea needed to wrap Jesus’ dead body and lay it in the tomb before the Sabbath began. The Sabbath is, of course, the seventh day of the week. Logically, if Joseph of Arimathea buried Jesus before the seventh day began (Mark 15:42), then Jesus’s death occurred on the sixth day—Friday. All four Gospels confirm that Jesus was buried after his death and that his burial occurred right before the Sabbath day began (Matt. 27:62; Mark 15:42; Luke 23:56; John 19:31). Let that sink in: all four Gospels confirm this.
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Contentment is the antidote to coveting. It is a state of heart and mind where we rest in God’s provision and plan for our lives. It acknowledges that God, in His infinite wisdom and love, has given us exactly what we need and that we require nothing more. 

17 You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” – Exodus 20:17

The Evil of Coveting
Coveting is a vile sin that festers in our hearts, often hidden yet ever-destructive. It is a cancer that eats away at our souls, leading us down a path of ruin, misery, and despair. For instance, consider the many ways we transgress this command.
When you see your neighbor’s truck, with four-wheel drive, a towing package, and sitting on an 8-inch lift kit, you feel sorrow that you cannot afford what you have coveted. When you look across the street at your neighbor’s home and feel envious that his house has more room than yours, a better layout, or bigger bedrooms, then you have coveted. When you look at how supportive a friend’s wife appears to be, or how handy so and so’s husband is, or how much Joey Bag of Donuts makes at his job, or how many children Sally Homemaker has, or because of the fear of missing out you bolster your record and your accomplishments to fit in with the Joneses, whenever you look with longing upon who someone is or what they posses, while at the same time looking with resentment upon who you are and what you have, then you have coveted. When you see the wealth, blessings, clothing, power, success, or status of others, and it makes you green with envy, bitter about yourself, or frustrated toward them, then you have plunged into the world of coveting and have sinned against your God.
In this way, coveting is not a harmless thought that you harbor quietly in the deepest, murkiest recesses of your mind; it is poison and cancer to the soul, and you must not entertain it for a moment.
Consider the many forms of coveting that plague our daily lives. You see a colleague receive a promotion and feel resentment and jealousy, wishing it were you instead. You hear of a friend’s vacation and feel a pang of envy, thinking, why can’t we afford those trips? You scroll through social media, coveting the curated lives of others, their perfect families, and their endless joy, and you feel the sting of pain knowing your life does not look like that; all of this is coveting.
It is important to remember that coveting is a gateway sin that leads to further sin. It breeds dissatisfaction with what you have, bitterness, and anger at God, who is sovereign over all things.
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