It is a common belief that the surest way to end your sex life is to get married. But the reality is far more complicated. While it’s true that for many couples, sexual excitement fades in marriage, o...
Marriage is not a union, merely between two creatures - it is a union between two spirits; and the intention of that bond is to perfect the nature of both, by supplementing their deficiencies with the...
They have invented a phrase, a phrase that is a black and white contradiction in two words—“free-love”—as if a lover ever had been, or ever could be, free. It is the nature of love to bind itself, and...
The tension between autonomy and intimacy is most clearly evidenced in the trend toward cohabitation. Today, between 50 and 70 percent of American couples are cohabiting before or instead of marrying....
Our culture is still stuck on viewing marriage through the lens of happiness first and foremost—defining happiness by romantic intensity and sexual chemistry. Since the 1960s, sociologists have found ...
Years ago, a friend gave me this counsel: “Make a list of all the lives you would affect by your sexual immorality.” I did. Every so often I reread it. “Denalyn. My three daughters. My son-in-law. My ...
Ephesians 5:21, Philippians 2:3-4, Romans 12:10, John 13:1-17, John 13:14-15, Ruth 1:16
In his celebrated book The Five Love Languages, Gary Chapman tells a story about a husband and wife struggling to relate. When the husband asked his wife, “On a scale of zero to ten, how’s your love t...
Pastor: Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her i...
Context of the Passage Mark explicitly states at the beginning of our text that the Pharisees wanted to test Jesus. The important question to ask then, is why? This question wasn’t asked in a vacuum....
Context of the Passage Mark explicitly states at the beginning of our text that the Pharisees wanted to test Jesus. The important question to ask then, is why? This question wasn’t asked in a vacuum....
A few years ago Christian friends of ours, after several years of marriage, came to see Esther and me to explain that their relationship had reached an impasse and that they could see no alternative b...
A man or woman’s aim is to find a mate who completes him or her. In this view, marriage is an end in itself, and sexual consummation is a celebration of such completion. Yet the Bible teaches that God...
Matthew 5:46-47, Romans 15:7, Galatians 3:28, 1 Peter 3:8, Colossians 3:11
Most men and women fall in love with individuals of the same ethnic, social, religious, educational and economic background, those of similar physical attractiveness, a comparable intelligence, simila...
“What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined for life—to strengthen each other in all labor, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all...
Marriage has a unique place because it speaks of an absolute faithfulness, a covenant between radically different persons, male and female; and so it echoes the absolute covenant of God with his chose...
Did you hear about how, after Adam stayed out late a few nights, Eve became suspicious? “You’re running around with another woman— admit it!” she yelled. "What other woman?!” Adam was mystified. ...
In his book The DNA of Relationships counselor Gary Smalley argues from countless hours of research and observation alongside the wisdom of the Bible that we are hardwired for relationship. This i...
If you’ve ever watched a war movie, or a film that takes place in the military, you’re likely to have encountered a specific scene, in which a subordinate will have something to tell a senior officer ...
Hebrews 3:4, Colossians 1:16, John 1:3, Psalm 90:2, Genesis 1:1
A businessman moved over slightly as a young man crowded into the airplane seat next to him. As they both fastened their seat belts, the businessman good-naturedly asked whether the young man was trav...
Colossians 3:13, Psalm 37:8-9, Galatians 5:22-23, James 1:20, Matthew 5:44, Proverbs 3:5-6
A nice, calm and respectable lady went into the pharmacy, walked right up to the pharmacist, looked straight into his eyes, and said, "I would like to buy some cyanide." The pharmacist asked...
Context I had a Bible professor in college who liked to say, “All Scripture is cultural!” He didn’t mean that the truth of who God is changes in different cultures. What he meant was that our God ch...
In this excerpt from Gillian Marchenko’s memoir on her battle with depression, Still Life , her husband, a pastor named Sergei describes the reality that both life, and marriage, are often not as...
Context I had a Bible professor in college who liked to say, “All Scripture is cultural!” He didn’t mean that the truth of who God is changes in different cultures. What he meant was that our God ch...
The two most influential characteristics of the modern self—radical individualism and expressive authenticity—create a perfect storm for relationships.