Spiritual Relationships that Last: What the Bible Says About Dating and Marriage

by Gary DeLashmutt, Dennis McCallum

What are the keys to successful, close love relationships, including marriage?
With so many marriages failing today (including Christian marriages) what can you do now to virtually guarantee success?
Does success in love depend on finding the right person? Or on becoming the right person?
Even if your wedding day is years off, this intensely biblical and practical guide gives you the key steps you can take now to become that right person.
If you are already married you will discover how to move ahead by learning how to invest in the biblical way.
Whether you are single or married, you will learn how to stop a fruitless search for a mythical true love and to instead focus on building the relational skills that make marriage work.

Genres: Christian Living, Christian, Christianity, Spirituality

162 pages, Paperback

First published December 3, 2001

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a book to make you feel warm and fuzzy about dating in marriage. Rather, it a practical book that will challenge you to grow in your ability to love others, and by doing that, become prepared to have a successful marriage. The first chapter is a critique of "romantic love", pointing out that while it is pleasant, it is unable to sustain a relationship in the long run. The authors suggest that the only force sufficient to produce lasting relationships is sacrificial, agape love. The key to a successful marriage? "... is not to find the right person, but to become the right person: a person who has learned to practice Christian love at the most intimate level". A simple framework is provided to think about how one builds relationship: shared experience, understanding the persons inner works, and emotional connection. Building strong same-sex friendships develops skills that are critical to lasting marriages. It is often easier to gauge growth in these friendship than romantic relationships, because when romance is involved, things often seem better, deeper, more intimate than they actually are. The next section of the book discusses how important it is for both people in a relationship to have a shared spirituality (obviously in the case of Christian dating, but to be committed Christians), and that both parties are vitally involved in the life of people in church, serving others both as individuals and as a couple. The book next moves into what is the appropriate perspective on sexual love suggesting appropriate boundaries are about attitude. The book concludes with several chapters that discuss how to deal with baggage from past relationship and life choices. I believe this is a very valuable book, but it can be applied in a external, legalistic fashion. I would recommend reading this book along side "Dating and Waiting" which calls the reader to example their hearts and relationship with God as they explore dating and marriage. I think the Kellers' book The Meaning of Marriage is the single best book I have read on marriage.

[Josiah Hasbrouck]

better than the kinda goofy name implies lol

[Dennis Mccallum · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I'm not given to gratuitous praise. . . honestly, I have never come across a book on dating and marriage preparation that is so thorough, so biblical and so compassionately presented. Your points are carefully explored or supported from a scriptural foundation, and throughout you present hard-to-hear truths in such a kind, caring manner that your readers can't help but pay attention. . . I loved it!"

- Kathy Olsen, Editor, Tyndale House Publishers (Not the publisher for this book)

As a student-based group in the late 1970's and early 1980's, we at Xenos were witnessing hundreds of marriages. We noticed that many members were entering into irresponsible marriages based purely on physical attraction and the notion that they were "in love."

The results were alarming. We had a spate of marriages go on the rocks, in that they either were unable to relate or even that they got divorced. Other couples found themselves in trouble because one partner wanted to go on with the Lord, while the other wanted to focus on making money or other interests.

The board of elders did a study of marriages in our church, rating adjustment and a dozen other factors. We found strong correlations between several factors in married people's premarital lives and successful marriages. These factors are the basis of this book.

We believed that the material in Spiritual Relationships would counter this trend toward failure in marriage, and it has. Our emphasis on the need to base marriage on mature Christian love in addition to romantic attraction and our insistence that people learn basic relational skills has borne wonderful fruit in our church in the years since we wrote the book. Once we began calling on people to read this book as part of premarital counseling, distressed marriage became more unusual, and divorce virtually disappeared.

If you want to know how to create a successful relationship, read this book!
Also, get your FREE group Study Guide
Building relationships addressed more recently in Organic Disciplemaking
And feel free to email me at mccallumd@xenos.org