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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Dave Harvey
Read between
July 24 - August 4, 2022
R. C. Sproul: No Christian can avoid theology. Every Christian is a theologian. Perhaps not a theologian in the technical or professional sense, but a theologian nevertheless. The issue for Christians is not whether we are going to be theologians but whether we are going to be good theologians or bad ones.1
How a husband and wife build their marriage day-by-day and year-by-year is fundamentally shaped by their theology.
This is why the Bible is so important. As God’s Word, it fills marriage with eternal and glorious significance. It also speaks as an authority on what a marriage is meant to be. It is both the evaluative standard for marriage and the key to joy in marriage. It’s a wonderful, freeing thing to realize that the durability and quality of your marriage is not ultimately based on the strength of your commitment to your marriage. Rather, it’s based on something completely apart from your marriage: God’s truth; truth we find plain and clear on the pages of Scripture.
The gospel is the heart of the Bible. Everything in Scripture is either preparation for the gospel, presentation of the gospel, or participation in the gospel.
The gospel is the fountain of a thriving marriage.
Marriage is not first about me or my spouse. Obviously, the man and woman are essential, but they are also secondary. God is the most important person in a marriage. Marriage is for our good, but it is first for God’s glory.
Marriage is set within the world—and within your home and mine—as a reminder, a living parable of Christ’s relationship to the church.
We are street theologians, trying to exercise our faith in a world where couples get angry and doors get slammed.
What if you abandoned the idea that the problems and weaknesses in your marriage are caused by a lack of information, dedication, or communication? What if you saw your problems as they truly are: caused by a war within your own heart?
We may be works in progress who are painfully prone to sin, yet we can be joyful works, for—thanks be to God—we have been redeemed by grace through the death and resurrection of Christ.
I am a better husband and father, and a happier man, when I recognize myself as the worst of sinners.
The memories remain, yet they no longer influence our lives. Each year, our marriage is sweeter and more satisfying than the one before. By fixing our eyes on the Savior, he has done far more abundantly that all we could ask or think. How amazing is that!
Sometimes love must risk peace for the sake of truth.
Interesting, isn’t it, how sinners who say “I do” exist in an ironic biblical tension? We are called to be merciful and withhold judgment. But we are also called to challenge one another—to correct, exhort, and speak truth to the one we love (Hebrews 3:12–13).
In marriage, to be meek is not to be weak or vulnerable, but to be so committed to your spouse that you will sacrifice for his or her good. A meek person sees the futility of responding to sin with sin.
“Human sin is stubborn,” says Cornelius Plantinga, “but not as stubborn as the grace of God and not half so persistent, not half so ready to suffer to win its way.”
“Sexual communication in marriage is imperative.”
For the Christian, sex in marriage is to be a God-installed defense against temptation. Our world is like Corinth, always advertising sex outside of marriage as if it delivers nothing but sweet, illicit adventure.
Our spouse is our first line of defense to protect us from the calls of Corinth.
in marriage, it is sex that protects. Sex works invisibly but powerfully to diminish temptations to sexual immorality. We need to see that such moral protection is not just a pleasant byproduct of marital intimacy. It is a core reason for marital intimacy.
While I am grateful for the gifts my family gives me, my main delight and anticipation at Christmas is in bringing joy to my wife and children—a husband and father blessing his family simply for the pleasure it brings them.
the sexual relationship in marriage then becomes a journey of figuring out how to delight my spouse with my body. And you know what? That adventure remains for as long as you both shall live. It’s unaltered by kids, age, or bodies that have broken out of their previous contours.
“Indeed any married person who rightly sees these verses as commands from God will bring to the marriage bed a servant’s mindset that places the primary emphasis on the sexual satisfaction of his or her spouse.”7 This is part of what makes marriage delightful—the joy of living for someone beyond ourselves.
The joy that springs from pleasing our husband or wife is one reason sex was never designed to be a solo pursuit.
Marriage at the level of simple day-to-day details is an adventure all by itself. Add in sex and romance and it becomes an epic quest. To thrive in this lifelong journey, we must see God as more than a comforting touchstone or a helpful guide. He is the center, the one in whom “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). We are called to depend on him at every moment and in every area—including our sex life.
A guy who regularly works very long hours can actually be slothful if his choices about where to spend his time and energies leave no room for romancing his wife.
Sloth, unbelief, and bitterness are common but serious sins that deny the truth of the gospel. When we cast off God’s truth and embrace lies, our marriages and our faith suffer together. But we need not, must not, tolerate these paralyzing patterns of sin. Instead, let us look for them, admit it whenever we find them, and seek God for forgiveness and the power to repent and change.
The adventure of dependence is a daily opportunity to love your spouse in the creative thoughtfulness that says, “You matter to me more than any other person alive.”
Great sex in marriage comes from conscious dependence on the goodness and sovereignty of God, who is at work powerfully to make our marriages a source of spiritual and physical joy.
Matthew Henry once said, “It ought to be the business of every day to prepare for our last day.”