自私與婚姻Selfishness and Marriage
作者/譯者：Shane Lems/ Maria Marta
我讀了提摩太•凱勒(Timothy Keller) 所著的《婚姻解密》The Meaning of Marriage這本深度與智慧兼並的著作已經有一段時間了。我頗欣賞他對我們文化中自私的婚姻觀的剖析。 今天，許多人看待婚姻和浪漫的關系，都是從自我的角度考慮-----他們從中得到什麽。 事實證明，這種自私實際上是許多婚姻（包括基督徒和非基督徒）內的主要問題：
「在今天的西方文化𥚃，你決定結婚的原因是，你覺得被另一個人吸引，你覺得他或她很美妙，但一兩年之後（或如所常見的那樣，在一兩個月之後），有三件事情常常發生。首先，你開始發現這位美好的人多麼自私。其次，你發現這位美好的人也經歷了同樣的事，因為他或她開始告訴你，你多麼的自私。第三，雖然你承認這點的一部份，但你的結論是，配偶的自私比你自己的問題更大。若你覺得曾經生活艱苦、經歷過很多傷痛，那麼這種感受將會更加強烈。你在心𥚃說：『好吧，我是不該那麼多做——但你不理解我。』受傷讓我們淡化自己的自私，而那正是很多已婚夫婦，在過了相對不長的時間之後，就出現的狀況。」
然後凱勒指出，這個時候至少有兩條路可走。首先，你可以決定傷口和傷痛比你的自我中心更根本。你認為假若你的配偶看不到你的傷口並且盡力幫助你，那就沒戲唱了。由於雙方停火和不再談論問題，這段婚姻可能會結束，或者可能繼續下去，但感情距離卻疏遠了。
另一條路徑----更好的路徑----「就是下決心視自己的自我中心為更根本的問題，然後以比起對待配偶問題，更嚴肅的方式去看待它。」
「為什麼呢？因為只有你才能完全觸及自己的自私，也只有你才要為它負起全責。所以每位配偶都應該認真看待聖經，應該做出『捨已』的委身。你應該停止為自私找藉口，應該在它一顯露的時候就把它根除，而且不管你配偶會怎樣做，你都應該如此。若配偶雙方的每個人都說：『我會把我的自我中心，當成婚姻中的主要問題來處理。』你們就有希望得著真正美好的婚姻。」
當然，這樣做是以福音為依據的：耶穌走上十字架，並非出於自私，而是出於無私，為罪人捨己。 我們越明白基督如何以這種方式恩慈地服事我們，我們就能更寬厚地對待我們的配偶------而不是我們自己。
以上引述摘自《婚姻解密：以上帝的智慧來面對委身的複雜性》
The
Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of
God，Timothy Keller,
Kathy Keller著/趙剛譯，74頁，希望之聲文化有限公司，2015。
Selfishness and Marriage
(Keller)
by
Reformed Reader
It’s been awhile since I’ve read a book on
marriage with the depth and wisdom of Tim Keller’s The Meaning of
Marriage. I appreciate how he talks
about our culture’s selfish view of marriage.
Today, many people think of marriage and romantic relationships in terms
of self – what they get out of it. Turns
out that this selfishness is actually the major problem in many marriages
(Christian and non-Christian):
“In
Western culture today, you decide to get married because you feel an attraction
to the other person. You think he or she
is wonderful. But a year or two later –
or, just as often, a month or two – three things usually happen. First, you begin to find out how selfish this
wonderful person is. Second, you
discover that the wonderful person has been going through a similar experience
and he or she begins to tell you how selfish you are. And third, though you acknowledge it in part,
you concede that your spouse’s selfishness is more problematic than your own. This is especially true if you feel that
you’ve had a hard life and have experienced a lot of hurt. You say silently, ‘Ok, I shouldn’t do that –
but you don’t understand me.’ The
woundedness makes us minimize our own selfishness. And that’s the point at which many married
couples arrive after a relatively brief period of time.”
Keller
then notes that at this point there are two paths to take. The first is deciding that your hurt and
woundedness is more fundamental than your selfishness. You believe that if your spouse does not see
your wounds and try to help you, it’s not going to work. The marriage could then end, or it could go
on with emotional distance growing due to a cease-fire and not talking about
the problems.
Another
path – the better one – is “to determine to see your own selfishness as a
fundamental problem and to treat it more seriously than you do your spouse’s.”
Why?
Only you have complete access to your own selfishness, and only you have
complete responsibility for it. So each
spouse should take the Bible seriously, should make a commitment to ‘give
yourself up.’ You should stop making excuses for selfishness, you should begin
to root it out as it’s revealed to you, and you should do so regardless of what
your spouse is doing. If two spouses
each say, ‘I’m going to treat my self-centeredness as the main problem in the
marriage,’ you have the prospect of a truly great marriage.”
Of
course, this is based on the gospel: Jesus went to the cross not out of
selfishness, but out of selflessness, to give his life for sinners. The more we understand how Christ graciously
served us this way, the more we will be able to graciously serve our spouses,
not our selves.
The
above quotes are found on pages 63-64 of Keller’s The Meaning of Marriage.
Shane
Lems