1. Real Marriage: The Truth About Sex, Friendship & Life Together
    Mark Driscoll, Grace Driscoll
    Thomas Nelson / 2012 / Trade Paperback
    Our Price$18.27 Retail Price$19.99 Save 9% ($1.72)
    4.2 out of 5 stars for Real Marriage: The Truth About Sex, Friendship & Life Together. View reviews of this product. 66 Reviews
    Availability: In Stock
    Stock No: WW205387
4.2 Stars Out Of 5
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  1. Monika Vlckova
    Prague, Czech republic
    Age: 25-34
    Gender: female
    5 Stars Out Of 5
    Very good book
    March 12, 2013
    Monika Vlckova
    Prague, Czech republic
    Age: 25-34
    Gender: female
    Quality: 5
    Value: 5
    Meets Expectations: 5
    I really like this book.

    The book is splitted to 3 parts, 2 of them are large and they are devoted to marriage and to sex. I really like that book is written by man and woman so there are displayed attitude of both partners. Also I appreciated honesty and openness of this married couple, when they admitted their mistakes in their marriage. I believe that practical illustration from life of real people can show us their point of view and understand what they wanted to say.

    I also like their researches and very interesting survey into history, where they draw attitude of different churches about sex in marriage. At the end of second part, which is all about sex, I like very interestingly compiled questions, which authors very often got during a period. But it´s not just simple questions, there are 3 other accompanying questions, which authors answer. I will show you example, every reader can see answers on these questions - is it lawful, is it helpful and is it enslaving?

    In the third part of the book we can see something like a guide, which can help us, if we need to improove our marriage, change our dirrection, change the way where marriage comes. It´s real plan, which use Mark and Grace for their marriage, but every reader can modify it. There are a lot of questions, which every couple can answer for themself and build new strategy for their future. At the end of the book are notes and index.

    And my opinion? Book is helpful for thinking about our marriage, if everything is right and it can help, if we find out that we have problem. I think that everybody will find something, what show us our imperfection, but we can find answers and hope, that nothing is lost. I recommend this book.
  2. Daws1996
    Virginia
    Age: 35-44
    Gender: female
    5 Stars Out Of 5
    Transparent honesty
    October 7, 2012
    Daws1996
    Virginia
    Age: 35-44
    Gender: female
    Quality: 5
    Value: 5
    Meets Expectations: 5
    While lots of things have changed my marriage for the better, only a very few have enacted dramatic changes. One was learning about personality types from the hilarious Florence Littauer. Another was Gary Chapman's The Five Love Languages.

    This week I'm adding Real Marriage: The Truth about Sex, Friendship and Life Together by Mark and Grace Driscoll to the list of books that made a dramatic difference.

    Mark Driscoll is the pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Washington. He and his wife bravely opened their lives in order to help others. Within the book they deal with questions such as why friendship with your spouse should be of supreme importance, what disrespect looks like to a man, and who gets to decide if the husband is being loving enough.

    They also deal with some culturally explosive topics head on, much of which has received a lot of media attention and put them under fire from both liberals and conservatives. They talk about pornography, sexual abuse, fantasizing about other people, what is and is not permissible in the bedroom. And it's all handled well, adding applicable research and appropriate first-hand testimonies.

    Even better! The Driscolls have provided additional resources so that couples can use whatever means necessary to have conversations about the topics in the book. Is one or both of you not a reader? Not a problem! You have options.

    First, Mars Hill Church has posted the sermons Pastor Mark did on this book. All eleven chapters are available through eleven different sermons on the church website by clicking here. You can watch the videos or download the podcasts. Much of the content of the book is covered in the sermons. I appreciated these very much because they allowed me to see Mark's heart as he spoke instead of just reading the words on a page and wondering how deeply he felt about the issues.

    If one or both of you prefer a DVD-based study to do together, you'll want to check that resource out by clicking here. I do not have the DVD, but I have been told that if you want to do this particular study on DVD, you will also want to buy the book.

    Despite the controversy surrounding this book, I feel it is an incredible addition to the toolkit to help and support your marriage.
  3. LadySpooner
    Kamloops, BC CANADA
    Age: 25-34
    Gender: female
    5 Stars Out Of 5
    A - put it all out there- honest marriage book.
    March 21, 2012
    LadySpooner
    Kamloops, BC CANADA
    Age: 25-34
    Gender: female
    Quality: 5
    Value: 4
    Meets Expectations: 5
    My husband and I have both read 'Real Marriage'. Both of us found the book to be helpful. It brought up issues, ideas and concepts that have led to deep discussions and brought us closer together. I found the books' teaching on the roles of Men and Women to be biblical and the teaching on friendship within marriage and sexual intimacy to be thorough and practical. If a couple found themselves 'stuck' in any one of these areas, I believe this book could be a great tool to help them get unstuck. And I would HIGHLY recommend this book as a gift for an engaged or newly married couple.

    Mark and Grace share from their OWN experience and give guidance with scriptural teachings to help couples avoid pitfalls of selfishness that would deplete the unity and oneness in the marriage over time. Pitfalls that they themselves have fallen into. I commend the Driscoll's for writing, what I found, to be an excellent, well researched, vulnerable and honest book on marriage. The word 'REAL' truly fits in the title.

    HOWEVER!!!

    One should be aware that Mark and Grace Driscoll hold to a 'complementarian' view of male and female roles as opposed to an 'egalitarian' view. Complementarian meaning that God made men and women equal in the sight of God but gave them different, distinct, and contrasting roles as male and female that work well together and display God's glory and character in a form of two different notes that together create a harmony. For the most part, complementarians believe that men should be the main provider, decision maker and spiritual head in the home and women should be primarily homeward oriented, the nurturers and deeply involved in the raising of their children. This makes her role important but different than her husband although not lesser.

    Alternatively Egalitarians believe that there is no distinction limits or boundaries on male and female roles in the home, church or the world (work place). Men and women's roles are completely interchangeable and any assignment of gender roles is a form of oppression.

    This book is a good summation of the scriptural evidence in support for complementarianism but if you find yourself more in line with Egalitarian thinking, most reviews I've read on this book, seem to show it as a huge hang up for getting anything out of this book.

    I do hope you give it a try. If you don't agree with EVERYTHING the Driscoll's have to say, remember it's partly based on advice out of their OWN marriage and not meant to prove you need to be exactly like them. The friendship chapter ALONE in this book makes it worth the purchase. I hope this book helps heal your marriage or make your good marriage even better.
  4. pastordrew
    eldridge, ia
    Age: 35-44
    Gender: male
    5 Stars Out Of 5
    going where many fear to go
    December 9, 2013
    pastordrew
    eldridge, ia
    Age: 35-44
    Gender: male
    Quality: 5
    Value: 5
    Meets Expectations: 5
    i had fairly high expectations for this book and was very pleased with how even my expectations were exceeded. mark and grace go places that most marriage books fear to go. this is not a book about sex, contrary to all the rumors when this book came out. sure there's a bit of reference to it, but sex is only a facet of the marriage relationship. they do a good job addressing this issue. what's worth even more is how they deal with issues of friendship in the marriage, as well as hard topics of abuse. i've not read any marriage studies that addressed this last issue. very profound chapter that deals with all the junk that can remain in a person's life after they experience abuse. easy reading (except for the convicting parts!) and contains some nice stories/illustrations that help maintain interest and give insight.
  5. Matthew Rowley
    5 Stars Out Of 5
    Very Insightful
    January 3, 2012
    Matthew Rowley
    Quality: 4
    Value: 4
    Meets Expectations: 4
    I am very glad that Mark and Grace Driscoll wrote this book. For years I have heard Mark say that their marriage was very strained in the first ten years, but he never went into details. In this book, they go into details about their struggles and they show from experience that problems are worth wrestling through. They walk the reader through their failures and struggles and how their reactions often deepened their marital conflict. This book tackles many issues from friendship to leadership to sex and it does so in the typical Mark Driscoll way. The section on friendship was very helpful. And it is my hope that my friendship with my wife will grow as a result of this book. They give very practical steps to help spouses reconnect as friends. This book can be very technical at times. And sometimes the statistics can be a bit excessive for an audiobook. I wish that there was more content that was coming from Grace's perspective. The parts that she wrote were so insightful and I will listen to those sections again. Also, I did not think that the narrator was the right person to be reading Mark's lines. There are many things which would not have sounded corny for Mark to say, but it sounded very corny when the narrator read it. This was a very challenging, instructive and thought-provoking book.

    Thank you Christianaudio reviewers program.
Displaying items 1-5 of 66
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