Oh, let the Son of God enfold you with His spirit and his love.

Let him fill your heart and satisfy your soul.

Oh, let him have the things that hold you,

and his spirit like a dove will descend upon your life and make you home.

Welcome to the Word for today,

featuring the Bible teaching of Pastor Chuck Smith, founder of the Calvary Chapel Movement.

This radio program is a verse by verse study through the entire Bible.

And on today's edition of the Word for today, Pastor Chuck continues, we've engaged, espoused, and married, as we pick up in Luke, chapter 1, verse 27.

And now with today's message, here's Pastor Chuck.

Three terms we need to deal with, engaged, espoused, and married.

A person could become engaged when they were two years old,

because for the most part, marriage was by arrangement.

So parents would get together, they would be friends. You'd have a pretty little girl.

Your friends would have a nice little boy and we're friends with each other. Why don't we

have your son marry my daughter?

And we make the arrangements.

And so here are these little kids, three or four years old, walking around saying, well, we're engaged.

Because the arrangements have been made by their parents that they would have each other as

husband and wife. They felt that decisions as important as marriage should never be left to

the capriciousness of youth. They felt that young people didn't have enough wisdom to choose

their mates.

Now, as they became older, and usually they were married by the age of 15 or 16 years old,

...