We men must learn to cultivate and keep the garden of our marriage (ch. 4; cf. Gen. 2:15). Additionally, we need power--the power of God--in order to properly carry out our responsibilities. Responsibility, according to Buzzard, is "my response to his [God's] ability" (66, 78) and "my response to the One who took responsibility for my mess" (78). These were very helpful theological insights.

The book, however, has misinterpretations of the Bible. Oddly enough, Buzzard seems to think that our earthly marriages will somehow continue in heaven:

I know Matthew 22:30 says, "For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven," but I don't think it's wise to construct an entire postresurrection, antimarriage, theology from this one verse. Whatever marriage relationships look like in heaven, they will be better than what they are right now. (147-48)

Well, I don't think it's wise to reject Jesus' clear teaching that there is no marriage in heaven, and it's not based on just one verse. In Luke 20:34-36 Jesus gives a more complete explanation of why postresurrection marriage won't be necessary:

The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. (ESV)

We will neither die nor have more kids in heaven, so we won't marry anymore. Furthermore, there will only be one marriage in heaven--Christ the Husband and His bride the church (Rev. 19:7-9)--and the natural order of marriage and of men and women will disappear because in Christ men and women are spiritually equal (cf. Gal. 3:28; see my review of Piper's What's the Difference? at http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/365553243). Otherwise, we're left with the same question the Sadducees used to test Jesus: Who will a woman be married to in heaven if she was married more than once in this life? (Luke 24:33)

Or do you not know, brothers and sisters--for I [Paul] am speaking to those who know the law--that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.... A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord. (Rom. 7:1-3; 1 Cor. 7:39)

Another more serious error is Buzzard's claim that Adam received God's grace before he had done anything wrong:

Adam's Genesis 2:15 calling was meant to flow out of Adam's Genesis 1:31 identity. God told Adam what he thought about him; he gave Adam his approval--before Adam lifted a finger in the garden. Adam received his God-approved identity before he had a chance to do anything to prove himself. This is what we call grace, or the gospel--the good news of receiving favor from God what we don't deserve or earn. (73)

This is neither the Gospel nor some other form of God's grace, and it is a subtle denial of the covenant of works. God made Adam in His own image and declared Adam, as well as the rest of creation, to be "very good" (Gen. 1:31). Adam and Eve were made originally righteous: "God made humankind upright, but they have sought many evil schemes" (Eccles. 7:29 NET). God placed Adam and Eve under a probationary period, and they would have gained eternal life if they had obeyed (Gen. 2:15-17, 3:22-24; Hosea 6:7). It was not until they had sinned by eating the forbidden fruit that "they fell from their original righteousness, and communion with God, and so became dead in sin and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body" (Westminster Confession vi:2).

The first real sign of God's grace was in Genesis 3, when, instead of immediately giving Adam and Eve the death sentence they deserved for disobeying, God prophesied of a future savior--the seed of the woman (v. 15), or, in Buzzard's words, the "Serpent Crusher"--and clothed Adam and Eve with animal skins to cover their sin (v. 21). This is the Protoevangelium. Grace can only be applied when we have done something wrong.

Other than that, the book was very good. ( )

You can read my full review at Quieted Waters.

In that sense, Date Your Wife is well within the recent trend in Christian publishing: the author spends at least one chapter explaining that the Gospel means we’re saved by grace alone, not our works, and then explains how that reality transforms an area of life. The author, Justin Buzzard, encourages husbands to walk in grace, while committing to date their wife.

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