Book Review: The Meaning of Marriage

(*Update: This post had been unpub­lished while I worked to gain some per­spec­tive. I have done so. I am in a dif­fer­ent place. I am repub­lish­ing for pur­pos­es of hon­est continuity.)

Work in progress as I read the book.

I’m not cer­tain what brought this book to my atten­tion but mar­riage is at the fore­most of my per­son­al inter­ests, most espe­cial­ly God­ly mar­riage, and many years have giv­en me a deep respect for the teach­ings of Tim Keller.

I’m ²⁄₃^rds of the way in and I’m rethink­ing how I need to write this review. There is sim­ply too much out­stand­ing con­tent in each chap­ter to cite even a por­tion it all.

I’m absolute­ly lov­ing this book as one of the best I have read in a long long while. I often think peo­ple find my views and ideas on mar­riage to be a lit­tle archa­ic if not strange. It’s very affirm­ing to read a man such as Tim Kel­lar not only shar­ing many of those ideas but expound­ing upon them in a much more eru­dite man­ner. The man fre­quent­ly, I mean very fre­quent­ly, cites the wis­dom of C. S. Lewis and pref­aces it with an expla­na­tion of ‘why’ that far out­strips the one I’ve been giv­ing my pas­tors and arm­chair the­olo­gians for decades. Same rea­sons, far bet­ter spoken.

Introduction

Soci­ety’s idea of a Soul­mate: A per­fect­ly com­pat­able match

…we quick­ly came to see that we shared the secret thread that C.S. Lewis says is the thing that turns peo­ple into close friends, or more…

You may have noticed that the books you real­ly love are bound togeth­er a secret thread. You know very well what is the com­mon qual­i­ty that makes you love them; but you can­not put it into words. Are not all life­long friend­ships born at the moment when at last you meet anoth­er human being who has some inkling of that some­thing which you were born desir­ing? — C. S. Lewis