“For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:2-3 ESV).
In the Jewish culture of the New Testament era, parents typically arranged marriages for their children. Once the right marriage partner was agreed to by their respective parents, a young man and woman of marriageable age then entered a period of “betrothal.” This was something like the modern-day engagement that exists between couples who are planning to marry today but was much more formal.
You see, a betrothal represented a binding legal agreement within the culture of that day. While couples are often free to break off an engagement with no legal ramifications today, a betrothed couple of that era had to engage in a type of divorce proceeding before they could dissolve their relationship.
This betrothal period generally lasted for up to a year. Although the young couple had legal recognition as husband and wife during that time, they were not permitted to engage in marital relations prior to their wedding ceremony. The groom often spent this period working to prepare the couple’s future home, a responsibility that usually involved building an addition onto his father’s house. When everything was complete, the groom would bring the bride back to the home he had prepared for them. A priest then presided over a wedding ceremony and the couple would begin their new life together.
Paul the Apostle made use of this imagery to communicate his intent for the members of the Corinthian fellowship. Just as a first-century father sought to present his daughter to her husband in honor, so Paul also sought to present the Corinthian church to Christ as a congregation that was pure and undefiled by the doctrines promoted by the false teachers who had infiltrated their fellowship.
This image of a virtuous marriage was so powerful that Paul also used it in his Biblical letter to the church at Ephesus to illustrate the intimacy that God seeks to enjoy with His people on a spiritual level: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery-but I am talking about Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:31-32 NIV).