A few months ago my wife suggested we renew our vows for our upcoming anniversary.

“Great! Whatever you want babe I’d love to marry you again”, I responded. (No honest, that’s exactly what I said!)

Then for several minutes we talked about how for our upcoming anniversary we could invite some family and friends and renew the vows and make a nice anniversary party out of it.

Nice story, very sweet. We all should have such problems right? Well here’s the problem: The Watchtower 10/15/2006 page 19 par 8 states:

“When two Christians marry in a way that is legal and recognized, that union is binding in God’s eyes. Hence, Jehovah’s Witnesses do not repeat a marriage by having multiple legal ceremonies, nor do they renew marriage vows, such as on a couple’s 25th or 50th wedding anniversary.” (Matthew 5:37)

I was aware of the article but didn’t know exactly its location, just that I remembered reading it several years earlier. Once I told her there was a Watchtower forbidding it she was crestfallen. “Really? Are you sure?” she said.

Well I thought there was one, I told her. She proceeded to look it up an sure enough quickly found it. But then she did something wholly unexpected- she said that maybe we could just go to Vegas and get married again on our own. It was certainly fine with me- I love my wife a lot and consider myself blessed to be married to her and have our wonderful children and family. But to have her suggest we “disobey” the Watchtower was what was noteworthy to me.

What could possibly be wrong with two married people reaffirming their love for each other by renewing their vows? What is the reasoning? Well the scriptural citation the magazine gives is Matthew 5:37 where Jesus said “Just let your yes mean yes, your no, no.” This is an interesting scripture to cite, for a few reasons. The context tells us he was in fact talking about marriage. In verse 31 and 32 he had just admonished his apostles and really all mankind not to divorce their wives but to stay with them, mentioning the only Biblical grounds for a divorce is adultery. Jesus is practically making an argument encouraging vow renewal, not against it!

I asked a friend of mine not too long after that what he thought and he said just be careful who we invite and to go forward with it, perhaps at an out of town location. That would be a risk of course because someone could/would
know about the article and be offended. My wife asked a sister she’s friends with in our Hall and she said basically the same thing- run off and get married again! A few weeks later I casually asked an elder from a neighboring area what he thought. He was unaware of the article and said he assumed it was a conscience matter.

Indeed it is friends. Indeed it is.

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5 Comments on Love your wife? Don’t try and marry her again!

  1. GB says:

    I say go for it! Video tape it and put it on youtoob then dare the brothers to DF you! Do you think they would?

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  2. Jess says:

    So did u renew your vows? My husband and I were thinking of renewing our vows but when I looked into it and seen the same watchtower I couldn’t go through with it. What did u decide?

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  3. Anonymous says:

    It is disgraceful for an organization to get it’s nose into business as this that is between a husband and wife ; and it is a blatant violation of the headship principle . Is this what the WTS means by letting “all things take place decently and by arrangement”?

    What a distorted organization !

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