Living in a Godly Marriage

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Author(s): Joel R. Beeke & James A. La Belle
Publisher: Reformation Heritage Books
Price: $2.99       (Feb 22-23)

The Puritans believed that godly marriages were foundational for the future life of families, churches, and nations. Therefore, they wrote prolifically on the subject of marriage, seeking to bring biblical reformation to this subject in a comprehensive way. Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other previous Reformers had begun this task, but the Puritans took it much further, writing a number of detailed treatises on how to live as godly spouses. Out of the wealth of material available to us from the seventeenth century, Joel R. Beeke and James A. La Belle have gathered together insights from the past and summarized them in a contemporary form in order to encourage modern day coupled to glorify God in marriage.

Table of Contents:

The Institution and Honor of Marriage
The Purposes and Benefits of Marriage
Securing a Good Entrance into Marriage
Preserving the Honor of Marriage
The Mutual Duties of Love and Chastity
The Mutual Duties of Help and Peace
The Wife’s Duties in Marriage
The Husband’s Duty of Love
The Husband’s Duty of Authority
Concluding Counsel
Appendix: George Swinnock’s Prayers for Husbands and Wives

Deepen Your Christian Life:
From the late 1500s to the early 1700s, Puritan ministers wrote thousands of Christian books that contain massive amounts of biblical, doctrinal, experiential, and practical instruction to energize your Christian life. In the early seventeenth century, nearly 20 percent of the material coming off English presses consisted of Puritan sermon material popularized in book form. Unfortunately, many believers today find it difficult to read the antiquarian Puritan language and, when they attempt to do so, find themselves more frustrated than energized.

This series, Deepen Your Christian Life, presents in contemporary language the major teachings that several Puritans wrote on subjects that are seldom addressed adequately, if at all, today. Finally, you too will be able to enjoy the Puritans and see, by the Spirit’s grace, that they really do energize your Christian life.

Authors:
Joel R. Beeke is president and professor of systematic theology and homiletics at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

James A. La Belle is the pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Endorsements:
“It is an established, if little known, fact that the Puritans rescued marriage from the dreary ascetic grasp of the Roman Church and returned it to its full, biblical, Christ-centered estate—overflowing with creational joys, pleasures, and duties. In this book, eminent Puritan scholars and pastors Joel Beeke and James La Belle provide us with a rich gift, as they have mined the writings of twenty-nine of the great Puritans and then arranged their wisdom into brilliantly organized user-friendly chapters and subheadings (complete with penetrating study questions)—all done with a skill that only “hands-on” pastors could have. The Puritans were Word-centered wordsmiths, and the chapters are packed full of memorably stated theology and application. What a pleasure to commend this book!” — R. Kent Hughes, senior pastor emeritus of College Church in Wheaton, Illinois, and visiting professor of practical theology at Westminster Seminary Philadelphia

“The reason for the resurgence of interest in the Puritans today is found in their extraordinary devotion to the things of God and the depth of their understanding and exposition of sacred Scripture. I welcome this series of books that make the Puritans even more accessible in our day on a variety of important but often neglected subjects.” — R. C. Sproul, founder and president of Ligonier Ministries and author of The Intimate Marriage

“In the midst of the cultural confusion as to the definition of marriage comes this refreshing work from Joel Beeke and James La Belle that provides all Christians with a biblical view of this God-sanctioned institution through the wisdom of the Puritans.