Last week I talked about two of the marriage resources at our resource desk, His Needs, Her Needs and The Five Love Languages. Today I want to give an overview, not too many details, but some highlights, of the other marriage resources at our resource desk. If you are new here, my name is Ryan Rench, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Temecula, California, and every week we post videos to try to help bring the Bible home, so that it is not just a Sunday experience but you actually continue with the teachings of Scripture throughout the week. Part of that is through these videos, and part of it is through the resources we recommend. In addition to the two books I mentioned, I have nine other books on marriage.
Sacred Marriage and Cherish
The first one I will mention is Sacred Marriage. I did not necessarily enjoy this one. There was one chapter in particular I appreciated, on sexual intimacy, which I thought gave a good perspective: God created the love between a man and a woman, and He is pleased with it, and it is not a dirty thing. Hebrews 13:4 speaks of the beauty that can be expressed in marriage: “Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.” That was one good thing. But the premise is that every aspect of marriage is sacred: “What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?” That subtitle says it all for the whole book. The same author wrote a book I appreciated more, called Cherish. In our marriage vows we say “to have and to hold,” “to love and to cherish.” The Bible speaks a lot about love, and the biblical command to love is often about action, and it carries a weight we basically understand. But how often do we hear about cherishing our spouse? We hear about loving them, but cherish has a different connotation, and I appreciate the way he teases out and teaches through the word cherish in many different aspects. It has a tenderness, an affectionate kind of love. Cherish is a unique twist among marriage and love books, and I appreciated it.
Leaving a Legacy of Love
Next is from one of our very own. I appreciate Brother Cole in our church. He goes away to Florida for several months at a time, and the whole time he is there, he is writing books. So, Leaving a Legacy of Love. He is living a life of love and a marriage in which he reads to his wife every night, and they are a faithful couple in the church. This is his take on marriage. To be honest, I have not read every word of it. I have gone through it in quite a bit of detail but have not completed it yet. But I appreciate his focus on love, the work he is doing, and his testimony of love right here in our church, so I would encourage our church to grab a copy.
Three Booklets
Next are three booklets by the same author. The first, on dating, he wrote for his teenage daughters before they left home. It is called Dating Standards, and he wanted them to write out exactly what they were looking for in a man and how they were going to prepare themselves spiritually before launching into dating, and if they were ready, they were allowed to date. It is very practical, very good stuff on what to plan for: What are you looking for regarding kids? What kind of vocation do you have? What is your family background? There are a lot of good questions and answers. I think I have mentioned this before: it is a paragraph or two and then some fill-in-the-blank questions, and the next chapter has a few more paragraphs to read and more fill-in-the-blanks. It is an excellent little workbook, and we have taken our college class through it before. Then parts one and two here (let me reintroduce myself), which are for married couples. The first was for dating couples; these are for married couples who have perhaps drifted apart, or not necessarily drifted, but when you get into the throes of parenting, raising kids, focused on what school they will go to, how to get to church, how to buy clothes, and all that kind of stuff, the routine of life drowns out the spark of marriage, and my wife and I do not want to let that happen. On our trip to Bishop, about a five-hour drive, we made it through just a couple of questions in the part one booklet, and part two has even more questions in this getting-to-know-you vein: continue to date your spouse, pursue one another, and get to know one another through unique questions you may not have thought to ask yourself. A book like this draws out conversation topics and conversation starters you might not otherwise bring up on your own, if you are driving in the car together for five hours. So these are good companions for sparking good conversations. They are written in the same format as the dating booklet: a chapter of a few paragraphs of information, and then some questions to answer. You can answer them verbally or actually write them in the book; we have done it both ways.
Love and Respect
Next is what has probably been my favorite marriage book for a long time, Love & Respect by Emerson Eggerichs. I think I have mentioned it in other videos, but I appreciate his take on the man’s language of respect, which very few authors seem to tackle. There are Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, His Needs, Her Needs, and For Men Only and For Women Only; various books try to deal with these topics. But for me it felt as if a lot of marriage books were saying the man just needs to buck up and be the man: “You are the head of the home. You just need to get over it and love your wife more.” Maybe not in so many words, but that was the tenor of it. This book really put into words the foreign language of respect that men speak to each other. When a woman does not understand that language, she may say things that are very cutting and hurtful and not even realize why her six-foot-four, big, brawny, muscular husband is so emotionally damaged by her words: “I am this scrawny little nothing, and you are big and tough; you should be able to handle it.” Well, there is a language there that cuts through the muscles and the brawn, and you do not even realize the harm you are causing. This book really helps with that, and I have appreciated it. On the flip side, of course, the husband needs to love his wife, which we hear much about, and he does not shy away from teaching on that. But I think the book is strongest in the half where it speaks to the woman about that language of respect. I think he started a movement of books like it over the past couple of decades; it feels as if it has become much more of a focus in marriage books. I have appreciated this book for a really long time.
Premarital Counseling
Before you ever get to marriage, we hope you have done some of the groundwork and preparation, and I have a couple of books I have gone through in premarital counseling with those preparing for marriage. The first is called Preparing for Marriage God’s Way. It is an updated version of the book I went through with my fiancée, my wife, when we were in Bible college. Wayne Mack gives good templates for asking each other the right questions. There are chapters called Going Deeper; Real Love; God’s Blueprint for Marriage; Your Most Important Relationship, on the spiritual relationship with God; two whole chapters on communicating; Resolving Conflicts; Being a Husband; Being a Wife; Finances; Sex as God Intended; and Plans for Your Special Day. At the end, I believe, there is a six-month checkup and a one-year checkup. Each chapter includes many blanks to fill in as you go, and various charts and ranking and rating systems, where you rate things on a scale of zero, one, two, three, four. When you are forced to put a number to something you basically believe, it really makes you stop and think, “How much do I really believe that? If I had to rate it from zero to four, is it a zero, as I want it to be, or is it honestly a one or two, and I am just not all the way to zero yet?” It forces you to slow down and think, and the extremes show up in a book like this. It is very thorough, with several chapters, and you could easily take an engaged couple through it in about ten weeks and have plenty to talk about every single week. It is a very good resource. However, the last couple of times I have switched to a book called Premarital Biblical Counseling, put out by Bible Baptist Church Publications. It is a simple spiral-bound booklet with only six lessons, but in addition to the lessons there is a whole handbook section of worksheets and handouts. What Mack’s book combines into each chapter, this one makes you sort around for; all these pink divider sheets take you to the various sections. But I appreciate the breakdown of this book. There is a whole section on ceremony planning, with their church’s wedding policies and a lot of checklists to go through. It is super practical if you want to give it to the couple to help them think through all the things they need to plan: “Oh, yeah, we have to get the invitations. Oh, and flowers. Okay. And we have to fit the sand ceremony in. We have to do our vows, and we have to get a photographer, and do we want video, and where is the venue going to be?” All these little details start to stack up and add up. Then there is a whole financial planning section, for a personal budget and also wedding plans, and many different handouts on resolving conflict and communication. It is really, really practical and helpful; it seems to be a compilation of many things this pastor has put together over the years, and I appreciate its focus. I actually use both Mack’s book and this one, trying to encourage couples to start their marriage on the right track. We do not want couples showing up twenty years later saying, “Nobody ever taught us how to love one another or talk to one another, and here we are, twenty years into marriage, and we do not even know each other.” We want to get couples started on the right path from the very beginning, and premarital counseling is a really helpful tool for that. Those are the marriage resources at our resource desk. I hope some of them spark your interest and make you think, “I need to look more into that.” Maybe in future videos we will do a deeper dive on some of them, but that is at least an overview of our marriage resources. I hope it is a help to you. God bless you this summer. We will see you in the next video.
