Review: This Momentary Marriage

Back when This Momentary Marriage by John Piper arrived in the mail I blogged {here} about how excited I was to read it and promised to write a review once I was done. I've been done with the book for about a week now. This morning I finally remembered my intention to give my review of it.

Overall I felt it was a wonderful book. A must read for engaged couples or any married couple for that matter. It takes you quickly past the idea that a marriage is meant for lovely feelings to it's true meaning of being an earthly example of the marriage between Christ and His church.

Over and over again Piper is reminding you "most foundationally, marriage is the doing of God and ultimately, marriage is the display of God." He brings up again and again how marriage is to be a showcase of the covenant keeping grace of God. That "the highest meaning and most ultimate purpose of marriage is to put the covenant relationship of Christ and his church on display."

Piper goes into how we are obviously fallen and so we can not perfectly display Christ's covenant with the church. But how that should ultimately be our goal. That our goal in marriage should not be being or staying in love, instead it's about covenant keeping. That is why God so hates divorce. It's directly going against the covenant vows you made.

Speaking of divorce Piper has some pretty extreme views of it. He point blank tells you he is in the minority of Christian leaders and scholars to think of it to such the extreme that he does. This is the one area that the book covers that I don't agree with his opinion on. I strongly feel God hates divorce and it's in no way His Plan for anyone's life, but I don't take such an drastic and narrow view of it. I couldn't give Piper's point of view justice so to better understand it I suggest you read it  yourself.

Something that stood out the most to me and really got me thinking was in Chapter 3: God's Showcase of Covenant Keeping Grace. Piper touches on the subject of God's Wrath and why it's relevant to your marriage. He says, "Without a biblical view of God's wrath, you will be tempted to think your wrath - your anger - against your spouse is simply too big to overcome, because you have never really tasted what it is like to see an infinitely greater wrath over come by grace, namely God's wrath again you." Then in the next chapter, Forgiving and Forbearing, he goes even deeper in that train of thought of overcoming your anger.

This is something I struggle deeply with. I'm very hot headed. I never realized how hot headed I was until I was married. Never have I treated someone so terribly out of anger then I have Nick. There have been times at the heat of my anger that I feel like I can't do this marriage anymore, I can't seem to look past it. Since reading this I have been desperately trying to bring that thought to mind when I'm angry at Nick. (Along with prayerfully trying to overcome my tendency to get so angry in the first place.) Trying to remember that God overcame His anger towards me, enough so that He sacrificed His Son! That's humbling.

Piper also has about 3 chapters devoted to a man and woman's role in their marriage. I also find reminders of my role as a wife to not only be encouraging but extremely humbling. I know that I will never perfectly embody my role as Nick's wife. It is nice though to be encouraged to continue with what I'm doing.

All in all I think this book is a must read for any married couple. After I got about halfway through it I went ahead and ordered it on CD for Nick to listen to on his drive to work every morning. Let me know if any of you end up reading it. I'd love to hear what you think!