be put on the list to be cared for on the basis of the expression that they intend to devote themselves exclusively to Christian ministerial activities, it is better for them to remarry. This is because, he says, their sexual impulses may induce them to go contrary to their expression of faith wherein they might accept the congregation’s financial support as hard workers, while at the same time trying to get a husband and becoming unoccupied and meddlers. They would thereby bring themselves under an unfavorable judgment. To marry, bear children and manage a household, while still maintaining the Christian faith, would effectively occupy them, protecting them against gossiping and talking of things they ought not. This would enable the congregation to relieve those who were actually widows and who qualified for such aid.—1 Tim. 5:9-16; 2:15.

CELIBACY

The apostle Paul warns that one of the identifying features of the apostasy that was to come would be enforced celibacy, “forbidding to marry.” (1 Tim. 4:1, 3) Some of the apostles were married. (1 Cor. 9:5; Luke 4:38) Paul, in setting forth the qualifications for overseers and ministerial servants in the Christian congregation, says that these men (if married) should have only one wife.—1 Tim. 3:1, 2, 12; Titus 1:5, 6.

CHRISTIANS AND CIVIL MARRIAGE LAWS

At the present time, in most lands of the earth, marriage is governed by laws of the civil authorities, “Caesar,” and the Christian should comply with these. (Matt. 22:21) The Bible record nowhere sets out the requirement of a religious ceremony or the services of a clergyman. According to the arrangement in Bible times, the requirement would consistently be that a marriage be legalized according to the laws of the land, and that marriages and births should be registered where such a provision is made by law. Since the “Caesar” governments exercise such control of marriage, the Christian would be obliged to apply to them for the legalizing of a marriage. And even if he should desire to use the adultery of his mate as Scriptural grounds for divorce, he could not properly consider the marriage legally dissolved until a divorce decree was granted by the government. A Christian who remarries without Scriptural and legal freedom, therefore, would be violating God’s laws.—Matt. 19:9; Rom. 13:1.

MARRIAGE AND THE RESURRECTION

A group of Jesus’ opponents who did not believe in the resurrection asked Jesus a question that was calculated to embarrass him. In answering them he revealed that “those who have been counted worthy of gaining that system of things and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.”—Luke 20:34, 35; Matt. 22:30.

SYMBOLIC USES

Throughout the Scriptures Jehovah speaks of himself as a husband. He considered himself as married to the nation of Israel. (Isa. 54:1, 5, 6; 62:4) When Israel rebelled against God by practicing idolatry or some other form of sin against him, this was spoken of as committing prostitution like an unfaithful wife, providing cause for his divorcing her.—Isa. 1:21; Jer. 3:1-20; Hos. chap. 2.

In Galatians chapter 4 the apostle Paul likens the nation of Israel to the slave girl Hagar, the concubine of Abraham, and the Jewish people to Hagar’s son Ishmael. Just as Ishmael was the son of the secondary wife of Abraham, so the Jews were the children of the secondary “wife” of Jehovah. The tie binding Israel to Jehovah was the Law covenant. Paul likens “Jerusalem above,” Jehovah’s “woman,” to Sarah, Abraham’s free wife. Of this freewoman “Jerusalem above,” Christians are the free spiritual children.—Gal. 4:21-31; compare Isaiah 54:1-6.

As the great Father, Jehovah God, like Abraham, oversees the selection of a bride for his son Jesus Christ—not an earthly woman, but the Christian congregation. (Gen. 24:1-4; 2 Thess. 2:13; 1 Pet. 2:5) The first members of Jesus’ congregation were presented to him by the “friend of the bridegroom,” John the Baptist, whom Jehovah had sent ahead of his Son. (John 3:28, 29) This congregational bride is “one spirit” with Christ, as his body. (1 Cor. 6:17; Eph. 1:22, 23; 5:22, 23) Just as the bride in Israel bathed and adorned herself, Jesus Christ sees that in preparation for marriage his bride is bathed so that she is perfectly clean without a spot or blemish. (Eph. 5:25-27) In Psalm 45 and Revelation 21 she is shown as being beautifully adorned for the marriage.

Also in the book of Revelation, Jehovah foretells the time when his Son’s marriage would draw near and the bride would be prepared, arrayed in bright, clean, fine linen. He describes those invited to the evening meal of the Lamb’s marriage as being happy. (Rev. 19:7-9; 21:2, 9-21) On the night before his death Jesus instituted the Lord’s Evening Meal, the memorial of his death, and instructed his disciples to keep observing it. (Luke 22:19) This observance is to be kept “until he arrives.” (1 Cor. 11:26) Just as in ancient times the bridegroom arrived at the house of the bride in order to take her from her own parents to the home he had provided for her in the house of his father, so Jesus Christ comes to take his anointed followers from their former earthly home, taking them with him so that where he is there they may be also, in his Father’s house, in heaven.—John 14:1-3.

MARROW

A soft and fatty vascular tissue that fills the interior cavities of most bones. There are two kinds of marrow, yellow and red. In adults, the long, rounder bones are filled with yellow or inactive marrow composed mainly of fat, and the flat bones of the skull, the ribs, the sternum and the pelvis contain red or active marrow. Red marrow plays an important role in the formation of blood. It yields the oxygen-carrying red blood corpuscles, the important clotting agents called platelets, and a large percentage of white corpuscles, which primarily serve as fighters of infection. As a blood-forming organ, the marrow has a direct effect upon an individual’s health and vigor. Hence, Job (21:24) appropriately alludes to a well-nourished and healthy person under the figure of one whose bone marrow “is being kept moist.”

Bone marrow was apparently used for food by the Israelites. (Compare Micah 3:2, 3.) It has a very high nutritional value, being rich in protein, fats and iron. The banquet prepared by Jehovah for all the peoples, therefore, fittingly includes symbolic “well-oiled dishes filled with marrow.”—Isa. 25:6.

The writer of the letter to the Hebrews compared the “word of God” to a weapon that is sharper than any two-edged sword and can penetrate the very motives of an individual, piercing, as it were, clear to the marrow, the innermost part of the bones.—Heb. 4:12.

MARSENA

(Mar·seʹna) [forgetful man].

One of the seven princes consulted by Ahasuerus on Vashti’s refusal to obey.—Esther 1:14.

MARS HILL

See AREOPAGUS.

MARSHMALLOW

The Hebrew term hhal·la·muthʹ, found only at Job 6:6, has been variously rendered “egg” (AS, AV), “purslain” (AT) and, as defined in a recent Hebrew and Aramaic lexicon by Koehler and Baumgartner, “marsh mallow” (NW). The marshmallow is a perennial plant that is closely related to the hollyhock. Its woody stems commonly measure from two to four feet (.6 to 1.2 meters) in height. The plant’s large, wide leaves are notched and terminate in a sharp point. Both the stems and the leaves are covered with soft downy hair. The pale-pink