God wants marriages to succeed. He established marriage and shares in His book the Bible the foundation to marriage to keep it strong and maturing in His love. Discover God's key truths about marriage to build upon this solid foundation. Do you know what the ideal of marriage is as God intended? Do you know how wives and husbands work together in marriages toward that ideal? Do you know where to find the strength for marriage that will endure? This book is a marriage manual to guide you to healthy marriage. It is ideal for those preparing for marriage as well as a help to those who desire their marriages to heal and prosper. Michael Clark for over 30 years has helped thousands of people serving as a pastor in 4 different churches and communities to find joyful, meaningful and healthy life in Christ. Currently, he serves as Senior Pastor at Church of the Valley in Apple Valley, CA.
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Mike Clark. The Marriage Manual
The Marriage Manual. Biblical Instructions for Marriage. Michael P Clark
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Forward
Two Are Better Than One
In Our Image
A Suitable Partner
The Loss of Partnership
The Battle of the Sexes
A Sacrificial Love - Ruth & Boaz
The New Servant - Active Loving Lifestyle
Victory Day! - No More Male & Female Barriers
The Power of Submission
The Male as Christ - Sacrificial Love
The Female as the Church - Trusting Love
Forgiveness - The Magic Elixer for Marriage Health
The Image of the Future
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To the brave husbands and wives who submit themselves to the Lord and discover greater life together in Him. And to my wife Sue as we lift each other up to become the wife and husband God intends us to be in Christ.
I write this book as a pastor of a church and as one who has discovered that the Bible is God’s manual for life and for marriages. Pastors have a perspective distinct from marriage counselors or seminary theologians, for pastors are theologians in the field. As pastors, we see marriage from the Biblical training we received in theological seminary and have developed over years of study and dialogue. We also see marriage from the various situations of the married couples that we deal with in churches. When we counsel couples engaged to be married, we teach the ideal of marriage and its basics so a couple can build a life together. We marry these couples, share their early bliss, and then help them in times of joy and sorrow. We share their joy in the births of their children. We labor to repair marriages that have begun to break down. We help pick up the pieces of broken marriages. We celebrate golden anniversaries and bury those who have lived in wedded bond for over 70 years. Because of this mix of practical experience with marriage and education in the teachings of the Bible, pastors can speak about the ideal of marriage and how couples can work to attain this ideal with Christ’s direction.
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Two are better than one in picking each other up, keeping warm, working effectively and warding off attacks. You may notice that this passage from Ecclesiastes says nothing specifically about two in marriage. These illustrations of two being better than one are often lived out in different types of relationships. Soldiers in early times would stand together against attack. Travelers would huddle together under a common blanket. We still gather together under common blankets at cold football games. Partnerships for mutual benefit in commercial ventures work well when two have complimentary talents to offer each other for the same purpose.
The point is that two are better than one. We were not created to live for ourselves or by ourselves. One is meaningless, even with all the material treasures we could hoard. We were created to enjoy companionship. And if two are better than one, why not three, or four, or more?
