I built biblestudy.fyi because I was fed up with traditional media around the Bible. So much of what's out there is locked behind subscriptions, cluttered with adverts, or just stuck in the past — static pages of text with no real way to engage with them. I wanted something free, something fresh, and something properly interactive: a place you could actually do something with, not just read at.

My own spiritual journey has always been a very personal thing to me. It hasn't been a straight line, and it isn't finished. Somewhere along the way, I realised I was actually a little unsure about some of the ins and outs of how to be a good Christian — the practical, everyday parts of it, not just the big beliefs. What does a healthy prayer life actually look like? What do the different denominations really teach, and why? How do you read Scripture in a way that sticks, rather than reading a chapter and forgetting it by lunchtime?

Rather than quietly worry about those gaps, I decided to build the resource I wished already existed — for myself as much as for anyone else. This site is genuinely meant to help me become a better, more grounded Christian, the same as it's meant to help you. I'm not writing any of this from a place of having it all figured out. I'm building it, in large part, to figure it out.

That's why everything here is free, and always will be — funded directly by the Middleton Trust rather than by subscriptions or advertising. It's why there's a quiz you can actually test yourself with, a Bible player that will read to you, worksheets you can print and fill in without needing to dig out a physical Bible, and prayers and hymns to explore. I wanted the kind of site I would actually use.

If you're on your own journey — however far along, however uncertain — I hope this is a place you can come back to, a little at a time, and get a little closer to the word of God alongside me.

What the Bible says marriage is

Marriage appears right at the beginning of Scripture, before sin, before law, before any of it: "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh" (Genesis 2:24). That word picture — two becoming one — runs through the whole Bible as the basic shape of marriage: a leaving of old life, a joining to a new one, and a unity that's meant to be permanent.

Jesus quotes this same verse when He's asked about marriage and divorce, and adds: "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder" (Matthew 19:6). That single line is the reason so many churches describe marriage not simply as a legal contract between two people, but as a covenant — a solemn pact — that God Himself is party to. It's why wedding vows are usually spoken not just to a spouse but "before God," and why they're meant to hold even when circumstances get hard: "for better, for worse" was never meant as decoration.

Paul goes further still in Ephesians, comparing a husband's love for his wife to Christ's love for the Church — sacrificial, given up for the other's good (Ephesians 5:25) — and calling the whole thing "a great mystery" (Ephesians 5:32). Whatever else marriage is, in this picture, it's meant to be an image of a much bigger love.

Practically, this shapes what churches emphasise in marriage: faithfulness ("let marriage be held in honour among all... let the marriage bed be undefiled," Hebrews 13:4), self-giving love rather than self-interest, and permanence — the vow being a promise kept regardless of feeling, not just as long as feelings last.

How the major Western churches teach it

The Catholic Church, under the Pope, teaches that marriage between baptised Christians is a sacrament — one of the seven — meaning it's not just a ceremony but a channel of God's grace to the couple. Catholic teaching holds marriage to be a lifelong, exclusive covenant, ordinarily indissoluble, which is why the Church does not recognise divorce and remarriage in the way civil law does (though it does provide for annulment in specific circumstances, where a marriage is found never to have been validly formed).

The Church of England sets out its understanding in the Book of Common Prayer's marriage service, which describes marriage as instituted by God, "signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his Church," and given for the couple's mutual society, help, and comfort, for the procreation of children, and "for the hallowing of the union betwixt man and woman." It is solemnised as a public, lifelong vow made in the presence of God and witnesses.

The Church of Scotland, in the Reformed/Presbyterian tradition, does not treat marriage as a sacrament in the same sense as baptism and communion, but still holds it as a solemn covenant, ordained by God, to be entered into thoughtfully, reverently, and for life — the marriage service centres on vows made before God and the gathered congregation, with mutual love, fidelity, and support at its heart.

Across these traditions — and others in the West, including most Protestant, Baptist, and Methodist churches — the common threads are consistent: marriage as a covenant rather than a mere agreement, vows made in the presence of God and not just a registrar, and an expectation of lifelong faithfulness. Where churches differ is mostly in how formally marriage is treated (as a sacrament versus a solemn ordinance) and in their specific approach to divorce and remarriage — those differences are worth exploring with your own church or minister if they matter to your situation.

On the question of same-sex marriage specifically, Western churches vary in their practice and permissions, and a number of mainstream Western denominations now perform or bless same-sex marriages while others do not; this page isn't the place to adjudicate that question, and its purpose is simply to set out what these traditions teach about the vows, the covenant, and the sanctity of marriage more broadly.

A pact with God, not just with each other

The recurring theme across all of this is that a Christian wedding vow isn't only a promise between two people — it's made in the presence of, and in some sense to, God. That's why the language so often includes phrases like "till death us do part" and "according to God's holy law." It's also why infidelity and divorce are treated with such seriousness in Scripture: not because rules matter more than people, but because a promise made before God is understood to carry weight beyond ordinary agreements.

Malachi puts it starkly, describing a faithless husband's wife as "thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant" (Malachi 2:14) — companion and covenant partner in the same breath. Whatever the era or denomination, that combination — deep companionship and a solemn, God-witnessed promise — is close to the heart of what the Bible means by marriage.