There appears to be a marriage book renaissance going on within the
Reformed-ish circles of evangelicalism and this is a very good thing
indeed. One only has to look at the divorce rates both inside and
outside the church to see that marriage is in crisis. But why? Why are
we so unhappy in our marriages? In Friends and Lovers: Cultivating Companionship and Intimacy in Marriage, Joel Beeke argues it’s a gospel issue—and the true hope for a God-glorifying marriage is found in Jesus:
By nature we are ignorant of what true love and marriage should be, but Christ our prophet offers us guidance in the Bible. We are guilty of dishonoring marriage through our disobedience towards the God who designed it, but Christ our priest shed his blood for the forgiveness of our sins and now intercedes for us. We are rebels without the strength to overcome the evil that distorts and disrupts our human relationships, but Christ our king conquers sin and rules us by his mighty Spirit, making all things new—including our marriages.
In looking at Christ as the foundation of our marriages, Beeke
divides his argument into two parts—the need for spouses to be friends
and friendship’s impact on marital intimacy. This pattern is familiar,
but worth repeating. On cultivating friendship within marriage, he
writes:
Many people in our culture think that love is something
you fall into and therefore can easily fall out of. That might be true
of passing emotions, but true friendship relies on cultivation:
uprooting bad attitudes, planting daily seeds of love towards one
another, pulling out weeds and eliminating pests that threaten to choke
the relationship, watering the tender plants with daily prayer, and then
taking time to reap a harvest of love and enjoyment in each other’s
company. . . . Friendship does not persist, deepen, and grow
automatically. . . . [It] cannot be warmed up by thirty seconds in the
microwave. So much today is instant, but friendship is not. It costs
something. It costs you yourself, your commitment, and your
vulnerability. There are no rush orders in friendship. It must be baked
slowly, gently, and continually if we want the flavor we are looking
for. Continue at
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