I remembered from premarital sessions that effective communication centered on speaking the truth in love to edify others (Eph 4:15-29). I realized I needed to repent and make sure that I led my wife in the right direction: that we would submit to God’s sovereign plan for our lives and trust Him to provide what we needed.

Marriage is an institution that predates the fall. God gave marriage to humankind because it was not good for the man to be alone (Gen 2:18). Eve’s creation sparked the first manifestation of an affection that many future men would share: the joy of companionship (see Gen 2:22-23).

Scripture explains that marriage is a covenant that God does not want dissolved flippantly (Mal 2:14; Matt 19:6). But Scripture does not stop there. The Bible is full of passages that teach us about what God desires for Christian marriages.

The Necessity of the Local Church
Believers can read about marriage roles (Eph 5:22-33) or how to love properly (1 Cor 13:1-8a). Such biblical study should not happen without the local church, specifically, among more mature members who are able to teach younger believers how to walk in faith in obedience to God’s Word (Titus 2:1-8; Heb 10:24-25). Premarital counseling is a way to accomplish this inter-generational discipleship.

My wife and I met at our local church. We both sat under Bible teachers who exposited Scripture well. If you asked us where the Bible talked about marriage, we could have pointed to you to passages like Gen 2, Prov 31, Eph 5, 1 Cor 13, 1 Pet 3, and many more.

Once we were engaged, we signed up for premarital counseling with our pastor and his wife because such counseling was a prerequisite for him to officiate our wedding. It was during premarital counseling that we both quickly realized that merely being familiar with the content of the above verses was insufficient for our upcoming marriage.

Premarital counseling is a form of intensive discipleship, intended to prepare engaged couples for marriage God’s way. (Funnily enough, our workbook was titled Preparing for Marriage God’s Way by Wayne Mack, which I cannot recommend highly enough.)

I knew that effective communication is hard for couples—I was already dating! But a few couples who went through the same premarital counseling process asked us how we did on one particular section: communication. It was the only section in the book that was split into two chapters instead of just one.

Effective communication is difficult because it requires the other person receiving and understanding what you are conveying. It requires work from both parties.

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