- ISBN13: 9781581346244
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
“Scripture illuminates the path of marital intimacy. The Song of Solomon shines brightly, showing us the way to the best sex we can possibly experience.” “As practical as it is profound, Sex, Romance, and the Glory of God may well be the best book on marriage I’ve ever read. I was motivated to love my wife more and broadened in my understanding of how loving my wife brings glory to God . . . this book is truly a treasure.”
Gary Thomas, author of Sacred M… More >>
Sex, Romance, and the Glory of God: What Every Christian Husband Needs to Know
The book is hard to read because it is so small! There is some good stuff in the book, but not worth buying it for the content. It seemed like a lot of generic stuff that most couples already know.
Rating: 4 / 5
Our marriage counselor suggested this book to my husband before we got married. I bought it for him for his birthday and he has enjoyed reading it.
Rating: 4 / 5
Sometimes you pick a book simply because of the title or because you have heard good things about the author. I picked this book for both reasons and have been impressed. The book really addresses all that the title suggests. A short, but great read.
Rating: 4 / 5
C.J. Mahaney’s book contains a simple but effective encouragement about romance within marriage. What is deeply appreciative about this small book is that it contains a simple message that acknowledges our sexuality within the marriage and how God designed it to be joyously pursued, and that it is to be a source of pleasure and true intimacy with one’s wife. The writer also seeks to provide several ideas to inspire men to develop romance in their marriages. The book speaks of this profound truth that we often forget that is to love and know one’s wife is deeply connected to the love, and joy of knowing God. For the Christian husband one should have one without the other.
Rating: 4 / 5
Books on sex and romance, written by godly pastors are rare. C.J. Mahaney is no sexpert, and this is no sex manual. But this may be the best book on sex you’ll ever read.
Sex, Romance and the Glory of God presents a theology of marriage that serves as just the right backdrop to look at how Solomon, in his famous Song, deals with sex. The book sets sex in the proper context for which God intended it. And it calls men–Christian men–to love and romance their wife.
Particularly helpful and challenging is Mahaney’s call for men to romance their wives. Mahaney encourages us to plan and work at delighting our wife in any number of small yet meaningful ways. He provides practical pointers and suggestions and strongly encourages a weekly date of some kind.
The truth he wants us to remember, if nothing else from this book is this: “In order for romance to deepen, you must touch the heart and mind of your wife before you touch her body.” [emphasis his, page 28]
An example of Mahaney’s practical yet unsettling wisdom is his must-ask question: “Do you feel more like a mother or a wife?” [pg. 29]
Concerning this point he continues:
“There can be a selfish, sinful tendency among husbands to view their wives as a goal that, once achieved, is then taken for granted. That is how a wife with children comes to feel primarily like a mother. And that is why the very idea of asking a question like this can cause many husbands to swallow hard and consider going off to watch a little TV. But please don’t–I want this to be an encouragement to you.
“…A variety of legitimate activities may consume huge quantities of your wife’s time….But whatever your situation, if you make it a priority to love and care for your wife as Christ does the Church…God will touch her heart so that, even when surrounded by diapers, dishes, and diseases, she can answer that question with joy: “I feel more like a wife.”
“…Motherhood is exceptionally important. It calls for immense sacrifices and deserves great honor. But I can say with full conviction that according to Scripture, motherhood is never to be a wife’s primary role. In fact, I think the most effective mothers are wives who are being continually, biblically romanced by their husbands. [pg. 30]”
I found Mahaney’s chapter on “The Language of Romance” to be very interesting. I was challenged to be more intentional in how I communicate with my wife, and to stop neglecting poetry as a means of arousing her love. Listen to Mahaney on this point:
“…[Song of Solomon shows us] a category of communication set apart from the stuff of daily life….It is highly intentional, creative, provocative, erotic language. It’s purpose is to arouse romantic passion–to inflame slowly and intentionally, all the while honoring and delighting one’s spouse….Long before they begin to enjoy one another’s bodies, they excite one another’s minds with tender, creative speech. They model for us what it means to feel sexual passion and to articulate that passion. The language is highly poetic, romantically expressed, and exceptionally creative and imaginative. It is also unmistakably sexual.
“The best sex begins with romance, and the best romance begins with the kind of speech we read in the Song of Solomon. It begins with carefully composed words….
“Far from scorning carefully composed words, I should accept the lesson of Solomon’s Song and learn how to use them. Poetic language is a gift from God that can help me promote godly romance with my wife!
“…How many times in the past week or month have you spoken to your wife in ways that she found to be romantically and perhaps erotically arousing? [pg. 60, 69-70]”
In Mahaney’s eagerness to use Song of Solomon as a Biblical description and instruction of marital intimacy, however, he falls prey to what I consider to be a wrong approach to interpreting that book. He pits an allegorical interpretation, which sees Christ and his Church as the key players in that song, against a “literal” interpretation, which sees Solomon talking about the joys of marital love. I am aware that there have been extreme allegorical interpretations that go so far as to negate any application of what the song teaches about marital love. But in Mahaney’s approach, which is very typical and widespread today, the error is made to the opposite extreme. He denies any typographical use of the book.
I see an alternative approach which can both affirm that the book clearly praises the joys of marital love yet also recognize that Solomon’s Song is written within the framework of a redemptive history that the Bible records for us. And just as other Biblical stories foreshadow and describe the redemption Christ accomplished for His people, thereby enhancing our understanding of and appreciation of the Gospel, so too the Song of Solomon may rightly be seen to describe the anti-type of which marriage is only a picture. Indeed all marriages are a picture of the abiding covenant love and joyful relationship between Christ and His Bride, the Church (Eph. 5:31-32); and hence it would be proper to see Christ and His Church as ultimately referred to in this beautiful love poem.
My quibble over interpreting Song of Solomon aside, you need to get this book. And if you’re a husband, you especially need to read it, and even more so if you have already been married for some time. I recommend it highly.
Rating: 5 / 5