This weekend I finished reading Tim and Kathy Keller’s fantastic book on marriage. It was vintage Keller—insightful, convicting, and intellectually engaging. Moreover, it was biblically-rooted, but in a way that could speak directly to Christians and non-Christians alike. For example, it had some of the best arguments against cohabitation that I’ve ever heard. Likewise, Kathy Keller’s chapter on submission/headship winsomely presented a viewpoint considered anathema in many pockets of our culture.
Each chapter was highly substantive and it was easy to follow the flow of the book.
Chapter 1 – Puts Paul’s discussion into today’s cultural context and lay out two of the most basic teachings by the Bible on marriage— that it has been instituted by God and that marriage was designed to be a reflection of the saving love of God for us in Jesus Christ.
Chapter 2 – Pesent Paul’s thesis that all married partners need the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. The work of the Spirit makes Christ’s saving work real to our hearts, giving us supernatural help against the main enemy of marriage: sinful self- centeredness. We need the fullness of the Spirit if we are to serve one another as we should.
Chapter 3 – Gets us into the heart of what marriage is all about— namely, love. But what is love? This chapter discusses the relationship of feelings of love to acts of love and the relationship of romantic passion to covenantal commitment.
Chapter 4 – Addresses the question of what marriage is for: It is a way for two spiritual friends to help each other on their journey to become the persons God designed them to be. A new and deeper kind of happiness is found on the far side of holiness.
Chapter 5 – Lays out three basic skill sets through which we can help each other on that journey.
Chapter 6 – Discusses the Christian teaching that marriage is a place where the two sexes accept each other as differently gendered and learn and grow through it.
Chapter 7 – Helps single people use the material in this book to live the single life well and to think wisely about seeking marriage themselves.
Chapter 8 – Takes on the subject of sex, why the Bible confines it to marriage, and how, if we embrace the Biblical view, it will play out in both the single life and in marriage.
Read the Introduction.