Enjoy Your Wife

Should you enjoy your marriage? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Some secularists have an idea that Christians are a group of people that live with a great fear that somewhere out there, someone might be enjoying themselves.

Sadly, that’s sometimes not too far off.

The Teacher didn’t see it that way. Let’s return to Ecclesiastes 9.

⁷ Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do.

⁸ Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head.

⁹ Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. ¹⁰ Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.

Not only does he tell us to enjoy life, but that includes the finest things in life. Drink wine with a merry heart and God has approved. Yes. God approves of your drinking wine. Psalm 104:15 says He gives wine to gladden.

This does not mean that only wine is to be drunk. I personally abstain from all alcohol and there are plenty of people who struggle with this who should do likewise, but there is nothing in Scripture forbidding us entirely from drinking alcohol. One really has to go through a lot of leaps. Still, if you are an alcoholic or have a history of being alcoholic, you should avoid. If it runs in your family, it could be best to be cautious and avoid. However, if you can drink and control your alcohol, do so happily.

Oil would also be something that would signify wealth. The wealthiest people would have access to oil and this would be used not for essential purposes, but for joy. The Teacher is usually despairing, but here he is commanding joy.

Next we come to a wife and yes, a man should enjoy being married. (Many of us would like to enjoy being married.) Our culture has got to a point sadly where fewer and fewer men are attempting to engage in dating. I place a lot of the blame on this on feminism. Social media has played a part, but the root of the problem is feminism, but that is for another blog.

If you are married, enjoy it. Marriage is supposed to be seen as a gift. It was something that was given to us before the fall and the joy of marriage is meant to be a temporary return to Eden. Man and woman are in a place where shame no longer dwells.

Finally, work hard at all that you do. If you are going to do anything, you might as well put your all into it. This is the Teacher’s secret to a good life. Enjoy what good you have and when you work, work as hard as you can. Here we are around 3,000 years later and it still works.

The Teacher was a wise man.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)