Daniel P. Barron

Valid reasons why two friends shouldn’t marry:

• They are the same sex. ⁱ
• The woman has already been married, ⁱⁱ whether or not she is now divorced. ⁱⁱⁱ Unless her former husband(s) are now dead. ^iv
• The woman is the man’s daughter-in-law. ^v
• The man is already married to the woman’s daughter or mother. ^vi
• The woman is the man’s sister. ^vii
• The woman is the man’s aunt. ^viii
• The man is already married to the woman’s sister. ^ix
• One believes the Bible and the other doesn’t. ^x

Invalid reasons why two friends shouldn’t get married:

• Parents disapprove. ^xi
• One believes the Bible and the other doesn’t.

The two are supposedly friends, which means they are selected. The believer and the nonbeliever should not want each other as friends. The former should be always troubled that the latter is perishing, eventually to the point that it becomes unbearable. The unbeliever should eventually lose respect for the believer, thinking his faith is silly. Or else, they should both come to agree on the same thing; the believer losing faith, or the unbeliever gaining it.

Differing belief dooms marriage and friendship alike. Two people that can truly be called friends, and who have no valid reason not to get married, should probably just do it. If two friends have only the objection “we don’t believe the same way” to marriage, they should literally beg each other to believe, or else go their separate ways.

1. NKJV:

   Leviticus 20:13 If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them.

    ^

2. NKJV:
   

   Leviticus 20:10 The man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, he who commits adultery with his neighbor’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress, shall surely be put to death.

    ^

3. NKJV:

   Matthew 5:32 But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery.

    ^

4. NKJV:

   1 Corinthians 7:39 A wife is bound by law as long as her husband lives; but if her husband dies, she is at liberty to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.

    ^

5. NKJV:
   

   Leviticus 20:12 If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death. They have committed perversion. Their blood shall be upon them.

    ^

6. NKJV:
   

   Leviticus 20:14 If a man marries a woman and her mother, it is wickedness. They shall be burned with fire, both he and they, that there may be no wickedness among you.

    ^

7. NKJV:
   

   Leviticus 20:17 If a man takes his sister, his father’s daughter or his mother’s daughter, and sees her nakedness and she sees his nakedness, it is a wicked thing. And they shall be cut off in the sight of their people. He has uncovered his sister’s nakedness. He shall bear his guilt.

    ^

8. NKJV:
   

   Leviticus 20:19 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother’s sister nor of your father’s sister, for that would uncover his near of kin. They shall bear their guilt.

    ^

9. NKJV:
   

   Leviticus 18:18 Nor shall you take a woman as a rival to her sister, to uncover her nakedness while the other is alive.

    ^

10. NKJV:
    

    2 Corinthians 6:14 Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? 15 And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever?

     ^

11. NKJV:

    1 Corinthians 7:28 But even if you do marry, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. Nevertheless such will have trouble in the flesh, but I would spare you.

     ^