Men Are from Strip Clubs. Women Are from Seminary.
Jim and Sarah Sumner met at church. Jim, a new Christian and former male stripper, impressed Sarah with his desire to grow in his faith and to see people meet the God he had met. Sarah, a Ph.D. in theology and a division leader in evangelism, impressed Jim with her depth of knowledge and heart for discipleship. Their mutual admiration slowly turned to love, and the
two were married. Just how married they're becoming is the story of this book.
Sarah and Jim lay out a fresh approach to how husbands and wives relate biblically in marriage. In a culture where gender roles are often misunderstood, the Bible's teaching on the marital relationship is made more complex than it need be. What does it mean when we read that "the husband is the head of the wife"? How should the husband's headship play out when married couples deal with such issues as conflict and decision-making?
Read this book and discover a fresh vision for how couples can become "one flesh" in a marriage that honors God.
"Every Christian couple contemplating marriage can profit from this highly personal and thoughtful address."
"Jim and Sarah Sumner's book provides a biblical model for marriage, enabling you to strengthen your relationship's foundation. They show you that marriage is a covenant and a commitment, not just feelings and emotions. They teach you how to get together on the vertical, so that things will go well on the horizontal. This emphasis on the primacy of the spiritual is refreshing."
"Matching faithful, Christ-centered scriptural exposition with honest, down-to-earth sharing, the Sumners show how marriage minus role-play becomes relationally real. This is a truly health-giving read."
"Just How Married Do You Want to Be? delivers the best of both worlds--an insightful, fresh, biblical framework for marriage along with real-world application. Jim and Sarah's straightforward honesty is compelling, raw and powerful. This is a great marriage resource not simply to read but to reflect on and study."
"Jim and Sarah Sumner have written perhaps the most honest marriage book we have ever read--an honesty born of the real-life pain and struggle of two people with very different backgrounds and personalities. The really good news is that they have looked straight into the heart of those differences and discovered that Jesus is the one who makes marriages work. Here is a marriage book without syrupy formulas or platitudes that tells us the truth that Jesus works through flawed vessels to create something beautiful."
"Sarah and Jim's book has theological depth, and is a great and timely teaching tool for changing the way people think about marriage, Christ and the church."
"Just How Married Do You Want to Be? is the memoir of a marriage--riveting, honest, self-revelatory and full of evidences of the grace and mercy of Christ--and a reexamination of the meaning of headship in marriage. Readers will walk away from this book with a vivid memory of the fascinating courtship and marital journey of Jim and Sarah Sumner, and with important new insights related to a biblical theology of marriage. I highly recommend this book."
"We each read Sarah and Jim's book in one sitting . . . and since then we have gone back and reread several passages that we found especially helpful. One of the things that we love about Just How Married Do You Want to Be? is that it contains profound biblical theology that is incredibly practical. We believe you will find this book to be an enjoyable read that has the potential to change your marriage."
"'More than ever' is our response to Jim and Sarah's literary question, just how married do you want to be?--and we're celebrating fifty years of practicing oneness!"
Unpacking the passage's loaded themes of headship, submission, mystery, sacrifice and the husband's call to cleave, the Sumners offer help on how this theological concept plays out in ordinary life. The heart of the book is its fresh approach to the egalitarian-complementation theological wars that revolve around the place of women in Christian ministry and family. The book reframes the egalitarian side as the "diplomatic" model, the complementation side as the "business" model, and then offers what they call the "biblical" model. They able present a compelling case.
The Sumners explain how oneness, produced by putting Christ and then your spouse before yourself, is the heart of marriage. This book develops the deepest undesrtanding of the head-body dynamic described in Ephesians 5.
The book deals honestly with marital issues drawn from the Sumners' own lives. They show how the biblical model is rooted in the mystery of a man and a woman becoming "one flesh."
Overall, it strikes me that their proposal of the "Oneness Model" seems to be an important piece missing in the discussion at large about marital relationships.
. . . Enough accessible nuggets of marital wisdom for even the casual reader.
Contents
Foreword by Kathy and John Burke
Introduction: Becoming One Flesh
1 An Unlikely Couple
2 Two Popular Models of Marriage
3 A Deeper Understanding of Headship
4 A Biblical Model of Marriage
5 Practicing Oneness in the Grind of Daily Living
6 Resolving Conflict
7 Defining Expectations
8 Hot Button Issues
9 Building a Christ-Centered Marriage
10 Every Couple?s Need for Christian Community
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index