The Wedding of Isaac & Rebekah
And what we can learn about our modern notions of weddings and marriage
One of my first weddings
Years ago, while still ordained as a minister and newly licensed to officiate weddings, a young couple approached me to perform their ceremony. They were new believers who had lived together for a decade. They were also the proud parents of two lovely daughters.
My practice was to meet with a couple, offer them counsel about marriage from a biblical perspective, and then basically agree to serve them. I believed in saying yes in every instance that would not violate any clear directive either from scripture or my conscience requiring me to decline.
That they had lived together out of wedlock troubled my religious notions. (Though, before becoming a Christian, this would not have bothered me in the least.) My narrow cultural notions also made me somewhat bothered that the woman planned to keep her existing last name. They’d hyphenated the children’s last names to include both the husband/father’s last name and the wife/mother’s ‘maiden’ last name. As an acting minister and wedding officiant, this was my first exposure to the practice.
