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There are so many marriage books available to Christians that discerning which ones will be the most helpful has become quite challenging. I recently had the opportunity to read 9 Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage by Sheila Wray Gregoire. In 9 Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage, she takes addresses the following 9 thoughts:
1. My Husband is My Neighbor
2. My Husband Can’t Make Me Mad
3. My Husband Was Not Put on This Earth to Make Me Happy
4. I Can’t Mold My Husband Into My Image
5. I’m Not in Competition With My Husband
6. I’m Called to Be A Peacemaker, Not A Peacekeeper
7. Being One is More Important Than Being Right
8. Having Sex is Not The Same as Making Love
9. If I’m Not Careful, We’ll Drift Apart
While I agree with Wray Gregoire’s 9 thoughts overall, it was her deliberation on these thoughts that struck somewhat of a red flag with me. As a Christian, I believe it is important to filter resources, such as this one, through the lens of Scripture. While Wray Gregoire’s book did include the use of Scripture, there were a few places where it is taken out of context and I believe this is where we must be discerning.
One example of this is Wray Gregoire’s use of the verse Micah 6:8 which states, “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” In the book, the author tells women that this verse is a part of God’s purpose for their relationships (p. 90). She expands on this by using the example of one woman whose husband was treating her in an unloving way. The woman would refuse to listen to her husband if he spoke rudely to her and refused intimacy with him if he was unrepentant for how he treated her.
The way this wife responded to her husband was actually encouraged because she was implementing justice in her marriage. I must question though how this wife is living out the Gospel in her marriage if she is responding this way. The Bible says that, “. . . Love covers all offenses. . .,” and “love covers a multitude of sins.” As believers, we are called to show grace to one another in light of the grace that God showed us when He sent His only son to live a perfect life on our behalf, become the atoning sacrifice for our sins and rise again so that we may be made right with God.
As women who follow Christ, shouldn’t we be advocates for showering our husbands with the same abounding grace (Romans 5:20) that God has shown us through Christ?
(Of course, there is wisdom to be applied here. If you are experiencing abuse within your marriage, you may need to seek the help of the police and the authority of your local church to address your spouse and walk alongside you in love and gentleness as you work toward a resolution.)
Additionally, the context of Micah 6:8 is not marriage or our relationships with each other, but God’s relationship to His people, the Israelites. The tone of Micah 6:8, when read in context, is actually somewhat sarcastic because the Israelite’s knew how they were supposed to be living as a response to God’s deliverance and redemption of them, yet they were failing to walk in obedience.
9 Thoughts does include some practical tips that can be applied in marriage such as prioritizing your husband before your kids, getting a check up to maintain your health (at one point in her marriage, the author was feeling unusually tired and a blood test revealed she had anemia), and challenging yourself to go a week without saying anything critical about your husband.
These are all helpful ideas and while they encouraged me in my own marriage.
I received 9 Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage compliments of WaterBrook Multnomah in exchange for my honest review.
