A no-nonsense Christian guide to fixing a broken marriage.
A debut Christian manual explains how to repair a marriage using biblical teachings.
In marriage, trust is often weakened—or even broken—but that doesn’t mean that the union is ruined. As a counselor, Dean has worked with hundreds of couples who have trust issues at the center of their marital problems. “The large majority of these couples have experienced healing and a renewed marriage because of God’s Word, His love, and His grace,” writes the author in her introduction to this book, which translates her experiences as a counselor into advice for trust-poor couples. “The couples were willing to apply biblical instructions for restoration.” The guide focuses on three areas: recognizing and coping emotionally with broken trust, rebuilding it after it’s been shattered, and troubleshooting to keep the bonds healthy going forward. Each chapter features a combination of information, advice, anecdotes from Dean’s professional experience, analysis of the relevant biblical concepts (with plenty of quotations from Scripture), and questions for spouses to ask themselves in order to correctly frame the dimensions of their difficulties. As the perspective of this work is specifically Christian, the author places particular emphasis on ideas like confession, repentance, forgiveness, and temptation, reminding readers that their relationships to their spouses are wrapped up tightly with their connections to God: “Temptations pull someone toward engaging in sinful behavior and avoiding good and right behavior. Doing wrong and not doing right are both sin.” Dean’s prose is direct and accessible, though not as warm as one might expect from a self-help guide. The book’s religiosity is profound, and secular readers would do well to find a different resource. But the author does not let theology get in the way of practicality, and her advice offers serious and comprehensive solutions that go beyond simple confession and forgiveness. Sections like “Red Flags Regarding Lack of Repentance” and “Wrong Responses by the Offending Spouse” encourage the aggrieved to hold the guilty party’s feet to the fire. For those couples experiencing marital difficulties caused by infidelity or some other breach of trust and looking for solutions that are rooted in a Christian worldview, Dean provides a serious and pragmatic road map.
A no-nonsense Christian guide to fixing a broken marriage.Pub Date: May 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-973628-80-4
Page Count: 246
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The ever-popular and highly readable C.S. Lewis has "done it again." This time with a book beginning with the premise "God is Love" and analyzing the four loves man knows well, but often understands little, Affection, Friendship, Eros and Charity, exploring along the way the threads of Need-Love and Gift-Love that run through all. It is written with a deep perception of human beings and a background of excellent scholarship. Lewis proposes that all loves are a search for, perhaps a conflict with, and sometimes a denial of, love of God. "Man approaches God most nearly when he is in one sense least like God. For what can be more unlike than fullness and need, sovereignty and humility, righteousness and penitence, limitless power and a cry for help?" To relate the human activities called loves to the Love which is God, Lewis cites three graces as parts of Charity: Divine Gift-Love, a supernatural Need-love of Himself and a supernatural Need-love of one another, to which God gives a third, "He can awake in man, towards Himself a supernatural Appreciative love. This of all gifts is the most to be desired. Here, not in our natural loves, nor even in ethics, lies the true center of all human and angelic life. With this all things are possible." From a reading of this book laymen and clergy alike will reap great rewards: a deeper knowledge of an insight into human loves, and, indeed, humans, offered with beauty and humor and a soaring description of man's search for God through Love.
Pub Date: July 27, 1960
ISBN: 0156329301
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Harcourt, Brace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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