Living in Sin: Making Marriage Work between I Do and Death

by Jason Micheli

Facing death, the challenges and blessings of marriage come into focus. Pastor Jason Micheli had performed dozens of weddings when he was diagnosed with incurable cancer. Suddenly, his own marriage--and his struggles to live up to its potential--came into sharp relief. Following up on his acclaimed and hilarious memoir, Cancer Is Funny, Micheli chronicles his deep love for his wife, Ali, in Living in Sin. He doesn't deserve her, he knows, but he also knows no one deserves the grace that comes in a loving marriage. And that grace is infused into marriage by God alone. Micheli's marriage is tested by cancer, even pushed to the brink. But with wit and biblical insight, he shows how his illness puts a laser focus on what really matters in forgiveness, laughter, and more forgiveness. Living in Sin will be an inspiration and challenge to any married couple.

176 pages, Paperback

Published June 2, 2019

About the author

Jason Micheli is a United Methodist pastor in Alexandria, Virginia, having earned degrees from the University of Virginia and Princeton Theological Seminary. He writes the Tamed Cynic blog and hosts the Crackers and Grape Juice Podcast. He lives in the Washington, DC, area with his wife and two sons.

Reviews

[Teer Hardy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Living in Sin is not a Christian marriage book. If you order a copy from Amazon thinking you will find three easy ways to live the best Christian marriage you will be disappointed. This book may not help you untangle the mess caused by broken trust, mismanaged finances, or kids taking center stage in your relationship.

This is a marriage book about Christianity. In Living in Sin Jason pulls back the veil, exposing the vows couples make as they stand before God and family members they have never met, showing how these vows and the two people exchanging them point to the mercy and grace of God in Christ.

This is a book about grace.

This is a book about forgiveness.

This is a book about vulnerability

This is a book about humility.

This is a book about the grace of God.

You will find this is a book more about the love, forgiveness, vulnerability, and humility of Christ and through the exploration of the grace of Christ in the context of marriage, the parable of God’s love for all of humanity takes shape. And that’s just it, we are all in desperate need of God’s unmerited, saving love because time and time again because we are unable to untangle the mess we have created for ourselves. Jason points out, using marriage as a metaphor, that we are sinners and through covenantal relationships, we learn to love one another for better or worse.

[Tim Chambers · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great companion to his book "Cancer is Funny," it brings the story that book told to it's next chapter of that story. And includes lots of hard earned wisdom and spirituality of what it takes to love and live with a spouse and stay together. Also like his previous work, Michelli manages to intermix spiritual insight with the granite hard real world here. And he illuminates how some New Testament wisdom on capital-L love can actually apply - even in a book where as he notes the closest Jesus got to marriage was "forgiving an adulterer on one hand, and showing up late to a wedding party on the other" and where we see Paul (notably single) famously spout mostly anitiquated Household codes on the direct subject of marriage. But where marriage can be a parabale of sorts, mirroring a devine Love without fine print or conditions. Mulling this one over and know it is a book I will read a number of times before I'm done with it.

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very entertaining and not cliché. I liked his improper and honest perspective. :)