Course Objectives
To help cell groups and churches in newly responsive areas to cultivate healthy, strong, satisfying, and godly marriages between Christian men and women, marriages which reflect the relationship between Christ and the church, and which are a witness to the surrounding community.
Course Description
The course begins by looking at God’s plan for marriage as recorded in Scripture, and then goes on to enumerate and explain important aspects of the marriage relationship, such as leaving one’s parents, committing to faithfulness to a single partner for life, and being one while being very different. The next subject is the roles of the husband and wife according to the Bible. Various lessons are dedicated to improving and maintaining the relationship between husband and wife through good communication, effective expression of love, resolving conflicts which arise, controlling one’s anger, and cultivating a satisfying sexual relationship. The last lesson discusses principles of raising healthy and godly children.
Learning Outcomes
Content: By the end of the course, the student will be able:
- To understand a biblical justification for both singleness and marriage as honorable positions before God.
- To identify Christian principles for selecting marriage partners.
- To explain in what way the image of the Christian marriage illustrates other key biblical teachings in the New Testament
- To describe scriptural models of the roles of husband, wife and children (the Christian household code)
- To define Christian teaching and principles regarding divorce
- To communicate ways that Christian families can survive and thrive in a hostile society.
Character: By the end of the course, the student should:
- Embrace a Biblical lifestyle of sexual purity.
- Express and embrace the Christian value of marital faithfulness.
- Begin to prepare him or herself for marriage, if single, through a healthy understanding of Christian marriage.
- Embrace (and if married, begin to practice) a Christian perspective on the relationship between husband and wife.
- Be able to nurture identity for children in a Christian home through devotions and other methods of building faith.
Competency: By the end of the course, the student should:
- Have better communication with other family members.
- Have a healthier marriage relationship as a couple.
- Be better equipped to raise happy, healthy, and godly children.
- Be able to communicate these concepts to others in the church as circumstances permit.