Kimberly Monroe and Philip Monroe
The Bible and the Pain of Infertility

In the Tough Moments of Marriage, Who Are You Becoming?

Staying the course in a difficult marriage can be especially hard for spouses who are working hard while the other spouse remains disengaged or even hostile to their efforts. When your best efforts seem to make no difference, how do you keep from giving up hope and giving in to despair and bitterness?

Spousal Abuse: A Starting Point to Think Biblically

Last week Leslie Vernick spoke to the marriage class on spousal abuse. I invite Leslie to do this every year because spousal abuse is more common within the church than you might think and we can all use as much help as we can get learning how to respond wisely to abuse situations. 

An interview with CCEF faculty member Winston Smith originally published at www.9marks.org.

Winston will speak on some of these same topics at CCEF’s National Conference Sex Matters in November. Click here for more information.

9Marks: What is the conventional wisdom for having a healthy, happy marriage among evangelical Christians? Would you differ from the conventional wisdom? How?

Winston Smith: I think that the buzz word for the day—not just for Christians but marriages in general—seems to be compatibility. The idea is to locate your "soul mate" or the person who is most compatible with you.

Skills Are Never Enough

At this point in the marriage counseling course we’ve mapped out the connections between worship and relationships, the basic truths of God’s purposes for marriage, and utilized these in analyzing various case studies. And while my students are always appreciative and thoughtful about the conceptual framework, they are itching to get “practical”. They want to know how to impart the skills needed to succeed in marriage. I’m ready to get down to the nuts and bolts, too, but this is the part of the course where I’m always careful to remind them that relational skills alone are not the key to a successful marriage. In fact, imparting relational skills without anchoring them in Christ’s love is downright dangerous.

Post 2: When Hope Hurts

In class this week we were reflecting on just how important it is to give struggling couples hope. Marriage counseling is hard work and couples need hope to stay the course. Good news for biblical counselors, right? After all, the Bible is full of reasons for hope. But here’s where a natural strength can become a potential weakness. Of course, pointing couples to the love and power of Christ is the surest hope that we could ever offer, but we must be mindful of how it’s done. It’s possible to deliver even that wonderful hope in a clumsy way that actually does more harm than good.

A Blog Series
by Winston Smith

Post 1: Superiority Complex? Is Marriage “better” than singleness?

Last week, I began teaching the marriage counseling course. I lectured on Genesis 2 like you would naturally expect a biblical course on marriage to begin. It is clear from the passage that the creation of man and woman and the one-flesh relationship of marriage is the highpoint, the beautiful crescendo of the creation narrative. Yet every time I give this lecture, I am concerned that the singles in my class may feel a bit marginalized, not just in the course, but in life itself, so I always try to take some time to talk about singleness. Last week I explained to the class that while marriage is held up as the foundation of all other relationships, that all other important forms of human relationship are there too—in seed form. We don’t just have the first marriage, but the beginning of friendship, culture, and the church itself. So while marriage is a necessary ground for image bearing relationships, God calls us into and values every form of image bearing love. Last week I think I said something like “though marriage is foundational to all other relationships, it is not ‘better than’ all other forms of relationship”. Naturally, a few students approached me afterwards to ask me to clarify and kindly disagree.

Part 1 of this three part video is here. Part 2 is here.

Want to hear more David Powlison? He'll be one of the featured speakers at this year's CCEF National Conference. The Conference theme is "Sex Matters." The ultimate fulfillment of marital intimacy is found in the redemption won by Christ. At the conference, Dr. Powlison will address just how that redemption redeems sexuality and maritial intimacy in particular. Dont' miss it! Get more details on the conference here.

Part 1 of this three part video is here.

Want to hear more David Powlison? He'll be one of the featured speakers at this year's CCEF National Conference. The Conference theme is "Sex Matters." The ultimate fulfillment of marital intimacy is found in the redemption won by Christ. At the conference, Dr. Powlison will address just how that redemption redeems sexuality and maritial intimacy in particular. Dont' miss it! Get more details on the conference here.

(Listen to this audio podcast by clicking the play button above. To download to your computer, right click on "download file" and save the file.)

Find the first part of this message here.

This week we invite you into Dr. Winston Smith's Marriage Counseling class to hear the second half of a complete lecture on "Communication in Marriage." We wanted to share this lecture with you because we believe it to be an excellent example of CCEF's commitment to bring "Christ to Counseling and Counseling to the Church." In this lecture Dr. Smith will help us see why good communication in marriage starts not with the lips, but with the heart.

Download sample workbook pages for this class (PDF)