#15 - This Momentary Marriage

A little while back, I finished This Momentary Marriage by John Piper.
I haven't read a Piper book in a little bit and it was refreshing. Although I find most of his books difficult to read, I do love his passion and the way he thinks through Scripture and ties biblical themes together. With certain biblical themes, I have difficulty following him as either I'm not smart enough or it is too abstract or a little bit of both. But in the theme of marriage, Piper was neither too abstract nor too difficult to follow but wonderfully exalted God's grand and glorious institution of marriage.

This is not a practical marriage book. It is not for those who want advice on how to have a good marriage. It is for those who want to truly understand the purpose of marriage from God's perspective. It is for those who want to think deeply about marriage and how marriage can glorify God. It is for those who want to see marriage as more than about their own happiness in marriage.

It is honest yet hopeful. For those of us who have hurt our spouses in deep ways and have been hurt by our spouses, this book enables us to see those hurts in the context of God's grace. It is an encouraging book that seeks to do that with the understanding that pain can be raw in marriage.

Here are a few gems:

• Marriage is not mainly about being or staying in love. It's mainly about telling the truth with our lives. It's about portraying something true about Jesus Christ and the way he relates to his people. It is about showing in real life the glory of the gospel.
• Focus first on your need to change, not on hers or his. It may be that your spouse is sinning against you far more than you against him or her. But you will not give an account for that to the Lord Jesus. You will give an account for your responses to it. That is the great battle. Will you change? Yes, your spouse should change. No doubt about it. But I promise you, it will not bear the fruit you want, if that is your main focus.
• Therefore, headship is not a right to control or to abuse or to neglect. (Christ's sacrifice is the pattern) Rather, it's the responsibility to love like Christ in leading and protecting and providing for our wives and families. Submission is not slavis or coerced or cowering. That's not the way Christ wants the church to respond to his leadership and protection and provision. He wants the submission of the church to be free and willing and glad and refining and strengthening.
• When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden and God came to call them to account, it didn't matter that Eve had sinned first. God said, 'Adam, where are you?' (Gen 3:9). That's God's word to the family today: Adam, husband, father, where are you? If something is not working right at the Piper house and Jesus come knocking on the door, he may have an issue with my wife, but the first thing he's going to say when she opens the door is, 'Is the man of the house home?' That's the way it happened in the first marriage. It's the way it will happen in our marriage.

Piper has a lot of good thoughts about singles in this book and some on parenting too. I definitely recommend it.