Louis Evans in his book, Your Marriage, Duel or Duet, has a chapter entitled “Finance . . . A Fury or a Fellowship.” In this chapter he points out that the unwise management of money can wreck a marriage that does not have a well-thought-out program of money management prior to their wedding day.
This being true, I have tried in pre-marriage counseling sessions to help couples develop a plan to use their material resources in ways that make a marriage strong and would not become a problem. God designed marriage to be “until DEATH do us part,” not “until DEBT do us part.”
Some of the reasons money can cause problems in marriage are:
The love of money. There is nothing wrong with owning money – even lots of it. The problem comes when money owns us – that is, when we love money. Acts 5 tells us that Ananias and Sapphira met their death because they loved money. Judas loved money so much that he betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. The bishop (pastor) of a New Testament church must be one who is “not greedy for money” (I Timothy 3:3).
Misunderstanding the purpose of money. Failing to understand how money should be properly used leads to abuses. Both those who have lots of it and those who have very little of it can lack understanding how it should be used in wise and appropriate ways. We have seen it often happen. Perhaps it is currently true of you.
Unwise credit buying. Buying on credit has enabled many families to have things they would never have gotten otherwise, but buying on credit more than can be later paid for creates chaos in families. Perhaps you have heard the story of the man who told a friend he had arranged for his wife to have plastic surgery. “I took a pair of scissors,” he explained, “and cut up her credit cards.” It is an idea that lots of other families might profitably employ.
Keeping up with the proverbial Jones family. We are literally bombarded by commercials every time we turn on a radio or television set. We are encouraged to covet what we do not have in the belief that it will enable us to have what others have. Greed takes over and getting becomes more important than giving.
Jack Taylor, in his book, One Home under God, shares a poem by an anonymous author you will enjoy. It describes a certain bride and groom’s determination to never let money become a problem following their wedding day:
“The bride, bent with age, leaned over her cane,
Her steps uncertain need guiding,
While down the church aisle,
With a wan toothless smile
The groom in a wheel-chair came gliding,
And who is this elderly couple thus wed?
You’ll find when you’ve closely explored it,
That this is that rare, conservative pair . . .
Who waited TILL THEY COULD AFFORD IT.”
The Paper Pulpit 
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