Friday, September 26, 2025

Part I

Marriage Comes After Adult Milestones? It’s No Wonder We Face a Delay of Marriage Crisis

We know intuitively that there have been huge shifts in the cultural moral landscape around us, and especially when it comes to the central institution of human society, which is marriage and the family. We know there have been massive transformations. Not only that, but ideological subversion in recent years.

Every once in a while, a piece comes along that crystallizes where we stand, and frankly, how Christians need to lean in very differently than the secular world on the question of marriage and the family, adulthood and expectations. Just recently the Wall Street Journal ran an article. The headline was “Financial Shift Delays Marriage Age.” Rachel Wolfe is the reporter, the subhead: more young people are now looking for financial stability before the wedding.

All right, very interesting analysis here. I think for one thing, we just need to face what we are looking at when it comes to the delay of marriage or the displacement of marriage in our society. Just to state the matter bluntly, throughout virtually all of human history, and western civilization, marriage has come relatively early as a defining issue of adulthood. Adulthood equals married, has been a basic formula.

Now, there were always some persons who weren’t married, clearly were adults, but those were exceptions to the rule. In general, the expectation is that the life cycle would come to a relatively short adolescence. Adolescence, throughout most of human history if recognized at all, and someone had to recognize that period of older childhood transitioning into adulthood, and of course, physical changes that bring on reproductive capacity, all of that coming together.

But the fact is that most societies felt it absolutely necessary to keep that period of life relatively short, not to elongate it. It has certainly been elongated now. The extension of adolescence throughout most of the 20’s, at least when it comes to issues of well, say, marriage and family, that’s come with devastating results.

Now, the results come down to math as well. Listen to this. The estimated median age for a first marriage as of last year was 30 for men, and 29 for women according to census data. That’s up from 28 for the man and 26 for women in 2008. Over the past, say, almost 20 years, you could just say like 17 or 18 years, we’re in a situation in which not only has the delay of marriage been continued, it has now even progressed such that people are waiting longer to get married. Again, the average age at first marriage for men is 30, and for women, 29.

Now, let’s just state the obvious. Before we look at anything The Wall Street Journal has to argue, let’s remember that our authority, first of all, is Holy Scripture. If you look at Scripture, and you look at the expectation about childhood and adulthood, you’re going to see marriage coming very quickly to the center of the horizon. At some point, when you have children, say in double digits, there’s a transition from thinking of them as merely coming from marriage. The new transformation is parents have to see them as headed toward marriage.

Now, I think a lot of Christian parents would be surprised by that, but that’s deeply biblical. That’s deeply rooted in history. At some point, you have to think that this is right now the child as a product of this marriage, but soon to be the central story when it comes to the next generation pairing in their own way. You would look at this, a generation is what? Just something like 25 years, 40 years in terms of, say, encapsulating those who are early and those who are late, putting them together in a generational cohort. Demographers have often looked at about 40 years. But now, we’re talking about delaying marriage until age 30 for men, 29 for women. Let’s just state the obvious. This is getting outside the most fertile reproductive period. It’s also just outside any normal expectation.

Now, when you think about the history of western civilization, two things are pretty well summarized by demographers. These are people who just say, “Let’s look at the sociological reality.” Number one, the first demographic transition. When did that take place? It took place at the end of the 19th into the early 20th century. This was the reduction in the general size of the family. A lot of this had to do with the moving of big populations from an agrarian culture on the farm, where a lot of farm hands were needed, into an urban situation where the place of work was primarily not in the home. You had marriage formalized, and of course, the expectation of children. But the number of children, the size of the household began to be significantly reduced in the late 19th, and into the 20th centuries.

But the next one came, the second demographic transition. This one was far more ideological. This is more about social liberalism. This was about shifting the main expectation in society when it came to adulthood away from marriage itself. It meant to decoupling sex and marriage, which meant the sexual revolution, sex outside of marriage being the norm. It also came with birth control and abortion. It’s deeply ideological. It has vastly transformed the landscape concerning marriage and the family.

You can’t talk about the statistics we’re looking at right here in this story. The average age of first marriage for men being 30, 29 for women without recognizing they’re not saying that their sex lives have held off this long. No, it’s just baked into the cake. That that’s separated from marriage.

Furthermore, childbearing is something that is now a hobby. That explains the radical fall off on the birth rate. It’s a hobby for those couples who are into it once they achieve whatever moment they want to achieve in order to say they’re ready for children. That’s a big part, by the way, of the demand for modern reproductive technologies, is because people who wouldn’t have had trouble getting pregnant in their early 20’s are having trouble getting pregnant in their late 30’s. Who would’ve thought?

The Wall Street Journal points to two different models of marriage, two different understandings of marriage. This is in sociological language. The argument here is that the older model of marriage was a cornerstone model. That is to say that marriage was the cornerstone of adulthood, of adult lifespan, and thus it was definitional. You really weren’t an adult if you weren’t married, being adult meant being married. That was just the cornerstone model.

The argument here is, by sociologists, that that’s gone. Now it’s a capstone model. From a cornerstone model, marriage is central to adulthood to the capstone model, which is marriage is what you put in place if you have enough money, have enough experience, and you have the lifestyle expectations that now you’re ready to settle down, and get married. But in the cornerstone model, you got married in your early 20’s. In the capstone model, you might not get married until your late 30’s. Just to state the obvious, reproduction, having children can’t be one of your central concerns. The other thing is that capstone, in this sense, marriage is redefined so that children are just an option. They’re just a possibility. Again, that explains the plummeting birth rate. It explains a population crisis we’re going to face. Not of too many, that’s hardly going to be our problem, but of too few.

But we’re also looking, as Christians, and the fact that this is a rejection of creation order. The rejection is something as basic as Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. In theological shorthand, this is going to go badly. If you just make marriage a lifestyle issue, economically, the point here is that people are now not marrying until they say they have enough money to get married. Under the cornerstone model, couples got married because it was just right to get married, and then they figured out how to create economic lives together. It was the marital unit creating the economic life.

Now, you have a situation in which young people are saying, “No, I need to satisfy myself in economic terms, and establish myself in vocational career in economic terms, then I might decide to get married.” This comes with all kinds of things.

I think it’s fair to say, and most people in my generation, got married pretty young. We built our economic lives together, husbands and wives together. We bought our first home together. We made our first major purchases together. That was a part of being together. It was a part of growing up together. We didn’t have enough money to get married. We just got married anyway. We made things work. It created an enormous incentive for us to work hard, and very quickly, children are on the horizon. The next thing you know, you’ve gone from being newlyweds to being parents. I think that’s just healthy.

I think fundamentally for Christians, we need to understand that’s biblical. An interruption or a diversion from that, for Christians, it should go off with alarm bells for us. This article is telling us that in American society right now, marriage is becoming a capstone event, a capstone achievement for those couples in their, I’ll say, almost middle adulthood who are at the point where they can decide to get married, because they’ve already established their economic adulthood, they’ve already established their vocational adulthood, they have already established, by the way, ways of life. That, I would also point out from a Christian perspective as a part of the problem.

The biblical understanding of marriage is that you build your life together, not that you build two lives, and then try to bring them together. I think we shouldn’t be surprised that the model of trying to build two independent lives, and then trying to bring them together at some point, say in the 30’s, what could go wrong? A lot of things can go wrong. For one thing, adulthood is also about establishing habits. I think there has to be an enormous challenge for people who’ve established habits of being unmarried, for the better part of a decade or much more than a decade, in terms of their adult vocational lives.

It is really interesting that this particular article is pointing to the fact that this redefines marriage. If now you are wealthy enough to get married, and you only get married if you are wealthy enough, this brings up something else that’s new for one of the first times in human history, not because of plague, war, or some other kind of situation. Now, you have wealthier people more likely to be married. Less wealthy people, less likely to be married. This because of the new economics of marriage. If you have to have all this money in order to get married, a lot of people aren’t going to get married.

There’s another problem. That is that the economy of marriage between men and women, they’ve been different throughout history. Now, you have a situation in which you have many young women who are professionally advanced beyond young men. They may even have larger salaries than young men. Traditionally, women have not wanted to marry men of lower economic, vocational and in income status. But nowadays, they increasingly have nowhere else to go. All kinds of issues here. Alarm bells should be going off all over in terms of the Christian world view.

But this also points to something else. That is the fact that you have divorce rates and marriage rates really very problematic now in blue-collar America. That had been the backbone of moral solidity for decades, generations in the United States. Now, this is where marriage is perhaps most visibly and quickly crumbling. A part of it is because, at least this article would argue, of socioeconomic factors.

Again, I think this gets the cart before the horse, and really confuses issues from a biblical perspective. Krista Westrick-Payne, identified as assistant director of the National Center for Marriage and Family Research, says, “Marriage has become a status symbol.”

Okay, I think Christians would understand that marriage really should be a status symbol. There’s nothing wrong with that. There’s everything wrong with that being the central definition. Marriage, first of all, is supposed to be the basic building block, the basic molecular structure of human society. It is supposed to be the context, in general terms, for most people of adulthood. When you make it just a status symbol, you’re redefining marriage in terms of just money, and a cultural achievement.

I think Christians should be among the first to recognize that is not what God commanded in Genesis. That is not God’s plan. God’s plan is that the husband and the wife build a life together, not that they build two lives, and then see what they can do later on together. Krista Westrick-Payne, I cited her earlier. Later in the article she says, “People don’t want to get married until they have an education, have that job that can support them, and that they can afford a house. They’re also looking for a partner that ticks all those boxes.”

Now, there’s nothing wrong with some of that. But there’s a lot wrong with all of that together. There’s a bigger wrong from a Christian worldview perspective in the biblical realities of marriage that are simply missing from that entire conversation. I think we need to look at this, and recognize that we are living in a society that’s now redefining and messing up just about everything.

We’ve now reached the point of cultural insanity where marriage is seen as a capstone for adults who have become financially stable enough, vocationally, professional enough, you go down the list. They can afford now to think about being married. You can see how this is the crisis in the birth rate. This is why you have so many people who follow this lifestyle who have maybe one child, maybe two children, maybe with the assistance of advanced medical and reproductive technologies. But this is just not a picture of social health. This is not a picture of biblical wholeness.

Alarm bells should be going off here. I want to tell you. The deeper problem is I have to move on, and we’ll get to questions. The deeper problem is this. There are too many Christian parents who are basically communicating to their children that this is their expectation. They want their children to be financially successful, then you can talk about being married. They want their children to be fulfilled. Then you can think about getting married. Don’t be surprised with the damage that comes from that.

Christians ought to have a basic defense mechanism built into us by biblical instinct. That is, that if you’re telling people who are, let’s just say in their 20’s, “You need to delay marriage until you’re ready for it,” that’s backwards. We need to be saying, “Hey, young man, young woman, you need to be getting yourself ready for marriage, and fast.”

Part II

If Charlie Kirk’s Shooter Repents and Turns to Christ, Would the Death Penalty Still Be Needed? — Dr. Mohler Responds to a Letter from a 9-Year-Old Listener of The Briefing

Okay. As always, I’m thrilled to turn to questions. I’m stretched by, encouraged by the questions that come in.

A question from a nine-year-old. This one’s really good. If the man who killed Charlie Kirk were to repent, and turn to Christ, would the death penalty still be needed for justice to be served on earth? Mackenzie is a little girl whose dad sent this question in. He said, “Reworded it for clarity’s sake.” Okay, dad, I appreciate that. I really appreciate you sending this question from a very thoughtful nine-year-old.

This is a good question for Christians to think about. Number one, the shooter of Charlie Kirk. We would certainly hope that he would come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, come to know his sins forgiven, to be given the gift of everlasting life. This is where we understand that that’s exactly how we should pray for this young man.

Now, I’m not going to get into the trial that it’s upcoming, and the investigation. I’m simply going to say, let’s assume we know that this man killed Charlie Kirk. Then we should be praying yes, that he would come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel would reach him. The promise of the gospel is that he, even he, as I, even I, can be forgiven our sins by the atonement achieved and accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ.

Then this very smart nine-year-old says, “Well, if so, would the death penalty still be needed?” This is where I want to come back, and say, okay, we need to separate two things very clearly. This is not just an issue for nine-year-olds. It’s an issue for 90-year-olds, okay?

We need to separate the state’s responsibility from the church’s responsibility. Those are two very different things. The death penalty is not given or withdrawn by the church. It is a function of the state in a rightly ordered penal system. The state does not baptize, does not share the gospel, and does not define Christians. That’s the church’s role.

I just want to say to this sweet nine-year-old, that’s a very good question. But the death penalty is about the crime that this man committed, given the responsibility of the state to uphold the dignity and sanctity of human life by laws against murder, and making the consequences for those laws. Very clear. Repentance is a Christian theological category, which means that we believe even those who are rightly punished by the state, may be forgiven their sins based upon the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and may be with us in heaven with Christ in glory. Those are two very different things.

It’s a smart question from a nine-year-old, as I say, or from a 90-year-old. It’s the one that should make us think. The state and the church have two very different responsibilities, and two very different sovereignties and roles to play in this age.

Part III

What About The Doctrine of Election? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The Briefing

Okay, let me get to another question. This is a different kind of question than I would normally take. It’s not just addressed to me, given The Briefing, it’s addressed to me as the President of the Boyce College and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. That makes it a little bit different. It’s a deep theological question. Here’s a young man, and the mother of this young man is writing in because she and her husband are having conversations with their son about college, and about Boyce College. This mom writes saying, “We have received some pushback from our church regarding Boyce’s statement on election. I anticipate our pastoral staff may not be fully supportive either. While our church encourages him,” that is their son, “to attend Bible college, we’re concerned that such programs may not provide skills applicable outside a church setting.” Visiting Boyce, said, “Boyce’s combination of biblical training and practical degree options is very appealing.” They mentioned other things. They really found attractive about Boyce, and as much as I’d like to read them, but just for the sake of time, I won’t read all those things. That made me very happy.

But they go on to say that they really are trying to figure out where we stand on issues, including what’s described here as Calvinist teaching on election. They say this, “It’s my understanding of this article of election,” that’s Article V in our confession of faith, the Abstract to Principles. Now, this may sound technical, but I guarantee you, it’s interesting.

This mom asked, “Is the understanding of election as it’s presented correct, and that God in his omniscience knows who will accept Christ, and that while we share the gospel, God moves in hearts? I struggle with Calvinist descriptions suggesting the elected favored over the unelected, or that Jesus did not die for all, which seems at odds with John 3:16. Could you please clarify?”

Okay, that’s a lot to take on in this context. But I’ll simply say that we’re unapologetically Baptist and reformed. There’s no doubt that our statement of faith is just really clear. It’s a derivation of the Westminster Confession, which is a very reformed tradition. That’s where the early Baptists in America went for a theological identity. It’s the context in which this school was born. I also think it’s absolutely biblically right.

I just want to say that number one, it’s a doctrine that is often misconstrued. It doesn’t make God merely arbitrary. God for reasons, in his perfection that are grounded in his character, are demonstrated in his sovereignty. At the end of the day, the fact is we all have to explain how some people hear the gospel and others not, and how hearing the gospel, some people respond, believe and are saved and others, do not.

Now, the premise here is maybe God in his omniscience merely knows how they’re going to respond. I’m simply going to say, I don’t think that’s what the Scripture says. The Scripture very clearly puts the responsibility on God himself, in his sovereignty, and the exercise of his sovereignty to his glory. A term like the elect, that just doesn’t come from some human theological system. It’s pervasive in Scripture.

God chose Israel. We believe that God chooses those who will come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Frankly, even people who would say, “Well, we’re not Calvinist.” They have a hard time explaining how they’re going to make God fair when many people don’t hear the gospel by their standard, they’ve created an insoluble problem. Because there are many people who will never hear the gospel. That’s just true, looking throughout history. In that sense, if God is supposed to be fair, then how can there be anyone who has not heard the gospel, the Lord Jesus Christ? 

Furthermore, how is it that the unregenerate sinner comes to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? Is it because the people who come to faith in Christ are smart enough or morally good enough to respond to the gospel, and the others aren’t smart enough or morally good enough to respond to the gospel?

At the end of the day, all I want to say is this. The Scripture presents God as sovereign, and the gospel as a firm and certain promise. “If you confess with your lips that Jesus Christ is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.” I don’t know anything to say other than that. I think most anti-Calvinists are a lot more Calvinists than they want to let on.

One of the hardest questions for any theological system is just this. Obviously, is it biblical? Is it most consistent with biblical teachings? But in theological terms, you ask the question, is God satisfied with the disposition of these things on that day of judgment? I believe that God is presented as being satisfied. That Christ died for his own, and he knew who they were because they’ve been given to him by the Father.

I thank your strong biblical testimony for this, but you know what? I’m not campaigning for Calvinism. We are firmly committed to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I, just as much as anyone else believes, that anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. At the end of the day, we want a very high vision of God in his sovereignty, in his goodness, and his perfection. We want to be faithful to Scripture. I certainly would love to have your son here.

Part IV

The Loss of a Bold and Faithful Brother in the Lord: The Death of Voddie Baucham, Jr.

Finally, for today, a sad news came, the sudden announcement of the death of Dr. Voddie Baucham. This comes as a great sadness, and as very much unexpected. We are reminded of the biblical admonition that no man knows his days.

Voddie Baucham nonetheless died having done what the Lord called him to do. It’s a shock now to know of his death. We’re thankful for the power of his ministry, and the clarity of his convictions. It is a reminder to us that we must work, as Jesus said to his disciples, “While it is day, night is coming, when no man can work.” We’ll pray for Voddie Baucham’s widow, and the entire family.