Your marriage has a 100% chance of success when you do marriage according to the Bible. God designed marriage and He never designed anything to fail. God designed marriage to succeed. I’ve never met anyone who got married hoping their marriage would end in divorce. Why do 50% of marriages fail or do they? Is it really true that 50% of marriages end in divorce? I have always been a bit skeptical of this stat regarding divorce. I was doing some research for a marriage conference that I spoke at recently, and I could find no proof of this often-quoted divorce rate.
There’s a great deal of fog today about what the actual divorce rate is in the United States. Most of us have heard that it’s around 50 percent, others—including some notable authors—say it’s nowhere close to that. In the world of sociology of the family, few pieces of seemingly objective data have so many different competing interpretations, as a 2014 study, creatively titled “Breaking Up is Hard to Count,” has noted. The so called “50% divorce rate” is not a statistical snapshot or an actual count at all. It is simply a projection of a calculated risk, much like the projected life span for babies born today.
The good news is that the divorce rate for first marriages is actually around 30% and even better news is that Christians have between a 30% and 50% lower divorce rate than the general population. This means that the actual divorce rate for Christians is around 14%-20%. Of course, a 17% divorce rate in the church still represents a lot of heartbreak and many hurting families, but it also means that the vast majority of marriages are successful.
What about the idea that Christians have just as high a divorce rate?
That came from a study from the Barna Group, where respondents were asked to identify their religion. George Barna himself has disavowed this common interpretation of his study, since if you really want to know the Christian divorce rate, you don’t just ask what religion people claim; you ask about key things, like if they read and believe the Bible, if they pray, or if they regularly attend church. Do that, and the divorce rate plummets.
Why is this important?
Have you ever taken a state exam for something like a Real Estate Agent, Nurse, or Insurance Agent and you were told that less than 50% pass the exam? What did that do for your confidence to succeed? If we believe that 50% of marriages end in divorce, then marriage looks really risky. No wonder fewer and fewer people today are getting married. And once they are married, when problems arise, it’s easy to think, “we’re one of the couples who won’t make it”, and they give up rather than fight for their marriage.
On the other hand, if people realize that most couples do make it, then when troubles come, they think, “most people have problems, but most people get through those problems, and we will, too.”
The biggest threat to marriage isn’t divorce, but hopelessness and a lack of faith?
The apostle Paul told the Hebrews to not cast away your confidence, which has great reward (Hebrews 10:35-36 (NKJV). I believe this verse can apply to marriage. As Christians, we believe that God helps us in every area of our lives. He helps us forgive, God helps us to love, He helps us through grief, then why do we not believe that God will also help us in our marriage? The truth is He will.
Many Christians today have put very little effort into their marriages, and therefore, have gotten very little out of them. Most Christians have never attended a Marriage Conference or even read one book on marriage. Golfers understand that if you want to improve your golf score, then you may need to invest in some instruction. You might have to read books and magazines on how to improve your game. Why do we think that our marriage can’t improve? I think we have had our vision of what a blessing God intended marriage to be, dulled by the bad examples of marriage we see around us today.
The truth is God will help our marriages succeed if we place our confidence in Him. The good news is that most marriages make it and yours can as well. Marriage is still “The LORD’S holy institution which He loves” (Malachi 2:11). God loves you and God loves marriage.
This is encouraging, I too have heard that the divorce rate for Christians was 50%. When you said today that in the churches you have pastored it was no where near that rate that got me thinking about the people I have known over the years. There have been those that choose that route, but many, many more worked through their problems. Cindy and I have had 40 wonderful years and we have had times that were challenging. We both promised God we would stay together and through His grace and our commitment to the covenant that has been what we are doing. Thank you again for the testimony of your life that you share with us.
Thanks Paul. Your 40 years of marriage is encouraging and an example to many. Love and Blessing to you and Cindy.