When Marriage Drifts: From Covenant to Contract

Introduction

In his series on relationships, Tope Koleoso, pastor of Jubilee Church in London, devotes this message to marriage. He presents it as the basic building block of every society: from the very beginning, God created Adam and Eve, and the institution of marriage was born. From the very beginning, too, marriage has been attacked, undermined and redefined.

Some breakups are sudden, when there is betrayal. Most are slow. And the main reason, according to the pastor, is the wrong ideas people hold about marriage. The consequences are heavy: sadness, and wounds carried for years.

This message is for everyone. If you are married, whether your marriage is good, bad or difficult, it is for you. If you are divorced, you can "learn backwards" so you do not repeat the same mistakes. If you are single, you can "learn forwards" what this bond should be. To do this, the pastor goes back to the original plan.

Message outline

1. Why God instituted marriage

First, to fulfil God's mission. God wants his image to fill the whole earth. Rather than keep creating people every day, he made Adam and Eve and told them: multiply. "Before marriage is about your pleasure, marriage is about God's mission."
Second, to represent his nature. The Christian God is three in one, a community, a unity. He wants that image to be displayed on the earth.
Finally, to express love: not the polite "love you", but an unconditional, selfless love that gives itself.
Not everyone will marry, and the Church has sometimes been wrong to make everything revolve around couples. Being married is not a higher status: Jesus was single, and so was Paul.
Still, God wants single people to be connected to families. The pastor invites healthy families to bring single people "into the orbit" of their lives, even taking them on holiday. God sets the lonely in families (Psalm 68:6). "Every marriage should be on mission."

2. Marriage is a covenant

Malachi 2:14: the LORD was a witness between you and the wife of your youth, your companion and the wife of your covenant. The pastor draws several lessons from it: Christian marriage is between a man and a woman, it is made before God, who is the witness, and it is for life.
God hates divorce (Malachi 2:16). "God does not hate divorced people, God hates divorce." According to the pastor, it is for God, before whom the vows were made, to say on what grounds a divorce can take place, and he has done so in his Word. That is why we should enter marriage with far more care than lightness.
Covenants are serious, sacred, binding, sacrificial and exclusive. The pastor laments vows written for the emotion, "all sugar and honey", rehearsed ten times before the ceremony, and recalls the old vows: for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death us do part.
He tells of a marriage preparation session where the fiancé stopped everything on discovering that the couple's money would be pooled. They did get married in the end, but "that day, Christianity became serious" for him.
Most people enter marriage intending to keep the covenant. But when it is only an intention, without a solid inner conviction, the marriage starts to drift.
Marriage reveals who you are. His son once told him that marriage preparation shows everything: the families, the finances, and who the groom and bride really are.
This covenant runs on love, and "love equals forgiveness plus patience. A lot of patience."
To newlyweds (zero to five years), he says: there will be ups and downs. When your car goes over a speed bump, you do not stop to throw it away. Some early years of marriage feel like a small road full of speed bumps, but one day you reach the motorway and everything glides. A woman recently answered him: "We are in such a good season." The hard times pass. Hold on.
Covenant love is the whole fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). "Do trees eat their own fruit?" The fruit is not for the tree. Bring joy into your marriage instead of a bad mood, bring love, forgiveness, gentleness.

3. When the covenant becomes a contract

When this fruit is no longer borne, the marriage drifts from covenant to contract. The couple are still married, live under the same roof and still love each other, but everything runs on transactions.
In a contract, you try to increase your rights and reduce your responsibilities. In a covenant, your rights go down and your responsibilities go up.
A contract makes everything conditional: "I will show you affection when you show me some. I will respect you when you respect me. I will apologise when you apologise." Do you think that is fair? "No. You are married. You will show affection whether the other person does or not."
"God only makes covenants, not contracts." And the pastor adds that a conditional relationship is often how we treat God himself.
If you only want to give affection to someone who will give it back, do not get married. When two people give each other affection without conditions, the marriage works.
In a contractual marriage, love depends on performance. Who would want a spouse who reviews your indicators and puts you "on probation"?
Everything runs on negotiation, and whoever is best at the game gets the most. You become defensive, on guard, and you wonder what the minimum is that you need to provide to keep things going.

4. From cohabitation to a façade marriage

Without correction, the contract becomes cohabitation: parallel lives, schedules, interests, friends and above all parallel finances.
Communication becomes purely functional: who picks up the children, what time you will be home. It passes on information, not the heart. For the pastor, the problem is not first of all communication, it is connection: "When there is real connection, you do not need to say everything."
The couple drift apart in affection, openness and vulnerability. Intimacy is lost: emotional, physical and sexual. Among Christians, they can still pray together, but they are separate in everything else.
Malachi speaks of "the wife of your youth" and "your companion". There is no longer a companion here. "You think he agrees because he says nothing. He does not agree." He recalls Jonah 2:9: I will pay what I have vowed, and that it is better not to vow than to vow and not pay (Ecclesiastes 5:4).
Interdependence is replaced by independence: when the last child leaves for university, someone moves into their bedroom, then come the separate shelves in the fridge, the separate gyms, sometimes even separate churches.
In cohabitation, conflict is avoided. You no longer argue, not because there is peace, but because you no longer care enough about the other person.
Next comes the counterfeit marriage: the connection has gone, but you pretend. United in public, strangers in private, affection in public and rejection in private. The Kingdom of God does not value pretending: your close friends, at least, should know.
Then everything collapses, with anger, resentment and wounds. "It is rare for a marriage to collapse suddenly." It gives way under the weight of unresolved problems that have been swept under the carpet.

5. Be careful about the source of your ideas on marriage

Everything starts at the beginning: whom did you marry, and with what baggage? The pastor has seen several couples marry after three months because "we just get each other". "You do not know that person." It takes time to know someone, because nobody puts their bad sides forward.
"You cannot drink from a poisoned well and expect to be fine." Many draw their ideas about marriage from social media: well-turned phrases, content without context, from people you do not know.
The Bible invites us to know those who labour among us, and not only to follow them (the pastor cites Hebrews 13; see also 1 Thessalonians 5:12).
He mocks slogans such as "you are a princess, he must do this" or "let him know you are the man". "A real man does not talk like that." A man like Jesus. And even if you are the head, be a sensible head.
These voices give "lies disguised as wisdom", greed disguised as ambition, wants disguised as needs. They teach the heart to compare, and it ends in ingratitude, insecurity, anxiety and discontent, to the point of resenting a perfectly good wife who loves you.

6. The husband and the wife in the original plan

"I did not make the rules. The Lord did, and I bow to him." As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD (Joshua 24:15).
The husband has been given the role of head, in partnership, under Christ: Christ is the head of every man, the man is the head of the woman, and God is the head of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:3). If Christ himself has a head and does not feel threatened by it, each of us can learn to take our place.
The key word is responsibility. The husband gives direction, leads the way with his wife, and knows how to make decisions. "If you cannot make decisions, I do not think you have any business being in marriage."
He provides. You can both work, but the stress of the finances should not rest on her. The pastor mentions the husband who has been "starting his business" for five years while his wife earns everything and takes out the loans.
He protects. The Bible speaks of a weaker vessel (1 Peter 3:7). The pastor compares it to an ancient book, so precious that you handle it with gloves: you carry her gently because she is of great value.
He pursues her: she should not doubt your love for a second. Say it. If God says "I love you", do the same. Hold her hand in public: it "preaches a thousand sermons" and reassures her inside. If that is too awkward, start in a city where nobody knows you.
In the evening, he prays with his wife, holding her hand, a short prayer to thank God. Sometimes he adds: "Jesus, thank you for my sexy wife." She still laughs after all these years, and it resets the counter after an argument.
He lifts her up: "Do not let someone else be the one who lifts up your wife." A virtuous woman is the crown of her husband (Proverbs 12:4). Compliment her, reveal her calling.
The wife has been given the role of helper (Genesis 2:18). It is not a demeaning term: the Bible calls God our helper with the same word. A helper who "fits", like the seat belt that finally goes "click" into the right buckle.
To be a helper is to be a companion, a support, an encouragement, and a lover. Paul advises those who cannot control themselves to marry (1 Corinthians 7:9). The pastor warns that refusing your husband affects him disproportionately and feeds resentment.
To men, God says to treat their wives well, so that nothing hinders their prayers (1 Peter 3:7). Of women, he asks that they act so that the word of God will not be dishonoured (Titus 2:5). Honour your husband, speak well of him, do not correct him in front of the children.
His wife, also a pastor at Jubilee, comes to give her testimony. Married for 35 years, they are "best friends". After the birth of two children in sixteen months, their relationship began to drift. With no parents or network around to look after the children, they fought for their friendship: putting the children to bed on time, meeting up over a takeaway.
To support, she says, is to carry part of the other's weight: the finances during a short period when he was finding his feet, the children's activities on Saturdays, then the house so as to free him on Saturday, the day he studies to preach.
"I do not want someone else to be my husband's biggest encourager." Even when he cooks (very badly, she says, laughing), she thanks him and compliments him on the clean kitchen. She honours him in how she speaks to him and about him, and dresses to please him rather than her friends.
They do not agree on everything: she would like to move after more than twenty years in the same house, he would not. She does not sulk or nag: she acknowledges his role as head, because she knows he is a man after God's own heart.

7. Abigail, Nabal and David

1 Samuel 25: David, not yet king, is in the wilderness of Paran with his men. They have protected the shepherds and flocks of a very rich man, Nabal. When David humbly asks him for help, Nabal insults him: "Who is David?"
A servant runs to warn Abigail: these men were "a wall" to us night and day, and disaster is determined against the whole household. Abigail hurries (verse 18), loads donkeys with loaves, wine and figs, and sets off at once. "Be proactive." Do not just complain while things happen around you.
She is wise in her approach: alone, with courage, she bows before David and shows him respect. For the pastor, her speech is one of the finest in the Bible. She takes the blame on herself, explains that Nabal lives up to his name, that of a fool, and suggests that the LORD is holding David back from shedding blood (verse 26).
She reminds him that God will build him a house, that he fights the battles of the LORD and that he will become leader over Israel. Why, then, burden his conscience with blood shed without cause?
Abigail is mature: she distinguishes her husband's mistakes from his destructive habits. She is a peacemaker, loyal to a husband who feasts and gets drunk while she saves his life, and spiritual: she keeps speaking of the LORD. "That is how a wise woman brings a warrior down." If you lack wisdom, ask God for it (James 1:5).
To husbands: do not be Nabal, a fool. Be like David here: he listens, he is reasonable, he lets himself be taught. "Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me" (verses 32-33). Like a GPS that recalculates the route, learn to say: "You are right, I am wrong, I will correct it." You do not lose ground, you gain respect.
Say thank you to your wife, for yesterday and for what she did long ago. And be faithful, which David was not always. Then the pastor goes further: "Do not be like David. Be like Jesus", faithful from beginning to end, head of the Church and husband of the Bride, who reaches out to all who say: "I need you, Lord."

Key takeaways

Marriage serves God's mission first of all, represents his nature and expresses his self-giving love.
Christian marriage is a covenant made before God, for life. Intention is not enough: you need a solid inner conviction.
A marriage drifts in stages: from covenant to contract, to cohabitation, then to façade. It rarely collapses all at once.
The husband is called to responsibility, protection and expressed affection. The wife is called to be a helper, a support and an encouragement. Both are roles of honour, under Christ.
Abigail shows the wisdom that calms. David shows the humility that listens. Jesus shows faithfulness to the end.

Personal application

In your marriage, are there areas where you operate by contract: "I will give when the other gives"?
Does your communication pass on only information, or your heart as well?
What unresolved problem have you swept under the carpet, and what small step can you take this week to address it?
Where do your ideas about marriage come from today: from Scripture and couples you know, or from voices you do not know?
When did you last thank your spouse, or take their hand when they were not expecting it?

Verses cited

Frequently asked questions

What difference does Tope Koleoso make between a covenant and a contract?

In a contract, you try to increase your rights and reduce your responsibilities. In a covenant, it is the opposite: your rights go down and your responsibilities go up. A contract makes marriage conditional ("I will show you affection when you show me some"), whereas a covenant gives without expecting anything in return, like God, who only makes covenants.

How does a marriage drift, according to this message?

The preacher describes stages: the covenant becomes a transactional contract, then a cohabitation in which each partner leads a parallel life, then a façade marriage, united in public and strangers in private, until it collapses. A marriage rarely collapses all at once: it gives way under the weight of unresolved problems that have been swept under the carpet.

What does Abigail teach us about marriage?

In 1 Samuel 25, Abigail acts quickly and wisely to stop David from shedding blood because of the folly of her husband Nabal. Tope Koleoso sees in her a proactive, wise, peacemaking, loyal and spiritual woman. He urges husbands not to be like Nabal, but to listen, to let themselves be corrected and to say thank you, like David, and above all to follow Jesus, faithful from beginning to end.