Acts20.com

I have been informed that a number of my acquaintances have been performing legal weddings for family members without ministry ordination or being an allowable court member such as a judge or justice of the peace.

Anybody

Christian weddings

We may have to do as the Russian Pentecostals did under communism. There were so many state marriages and divorces, the Pentecostals only recognized church marriage (before a Christian minister) as binding.

In Florida - you get a piece of paper signed by two witnesses and recorded at the courthouse - you are married. No need for officiant. SO I guess anyone can officiate

I am in Florida and I do not see that on the licenses that I have to sign and make sure are recorded. I am also part of a Wedding Vendor group that requires our credentials. Is this new, so old that no one remembers or just largely unknown?By the way, my 26 yr old daughter is a licensed minister solely to do weddings. I roll my eyes at her and tell her she has no business solemnizing a marriage, but she is 26 and otherwise an amazing young lady, so I am not her controller Live an epiK life!Discover More...www.refocusing.orgA Mission in Formationwww.bluewaterinthekeys.com

I used to work with a guy that sent off to one of those online “ministry” sites and got his ordination certificate. He uses it to marry anybody that asks, for a fee of course. In December he dons his Santa Claus suit to make money as well so I guess he’s trying to cover all of his bases. “Hell will be filled with people that didn’t cuss, didn’t drink, and may even have been baptized. Why? Because none of those things makes someone a Christian.”

Do you see this as a doctrinal issue?I can't find Christian ministers solemnizing weddings in the Bible. In the Old Testament, I can't find priests doing it either. Boaz got some elders involved on time, and that was also a land deal and they served as witnesses. In the Old Testament, it seems to have been an arrangement between the father of the bride, the bride, the groom, possibly the parents of the groom. The larger community would have been involved in the party. It seems as if the Roman pagan wedding got Christianized, and within several hundred years, it came to be seen as a requirement for a priest to perform a wedding ceremony. Now there are Protestant pastors who think they have the power to 'bind together' because the verse 'what God has bound together let no man put assunder' gets quoted in some wedding ceremonies.For me a doctrinal issue that relates to the Bible would be if the bride's father does not agree to the wedding to give her in marriage. The New Testament also mentions giving in marriage. Yet some Christians do not care about that, but only consider a wedding legitimate if there is the extra-biblical traditional element of an ordained minister performing the ceremony

Link wrote:

Let's face it, few wedding/marriages today rise to the level of what God has joined together. Most brides wears white, even it its her fourth marriage in a Vegas wedding chapel, and Grooms put more effort into the Bachelor Party than they do the wedding ceremony. The Church tries to sanctify the current marriage, extends comfort in the inevitable divorce, then encourages the process to repeat itself without looking at the root issues or being alarmed by the number of such marriages individual are accumulating. Marriage and Christianity are two different things now-a-days.