The Meaning of Marriage St. Philip's Church: Charleston, SC

In this final class, Justin discusses Tim Keller's chapter "Singleness and Marriage" from his book The Meaning of Marriage. Far from being something that is of no relevance to singles, Keller asserts that all types of singles cannot live well without a proper understanding of marriage. This week Justin wraps up the class by putting marriage in its proper perspective and shows how essential the community of the Church is intended to be when it comes to both singles and married couples.

In this class, Justin discusses the chapter "Embracing the Other" in Tim Keller's Meaning of Marriage. This chapter was written by Tim's wife, Kathy, and holds that while men and women are both of equal dignity and worth, their differences in gender correspond to different roles that God has designed within marriage. This week Justin presents what Kathy teaches, while also defining some key terms, setting the limits of the discussion, locating the debate within a historical framework, and then presenting what the Bible says and doesn't say about gender roles in marriage, hopefully debunking many popular charicatures along the way. This is indeed a controversial teaching but one that, as Kathy Keller says in the chapter, leads to flourishing and healing when embraced with honor and love.

This week Justin discussed Tim Keller's 5th chapter in The Meaning of Marriage "Loving the Stranger." Keller sums up the tools we are given in marriage to care for our spouses as "speaking the truth in love in the power of God's grace."

In this class Justin looks at the eighth and ninth chapters of The Intimate Mystery by Dan Allender and Tremper Longman III. Unlike Timothy Keller's chapter "Sex and Marriage" which sought to define and defend the Bible's sexual ethic, the content this week focuses on the theological and relational implications of the biblical sexual ethic.

In this class, Justin looks at Timothy Keller's eighth chapter in The Meaning of Marriage entitled "Sex and Marriage." This chapter focuses on what the Christian sexual ethic actually is, why God designed it that way, and how those who are married and not married can live according to that design.

In this class, Justin looks at chapters 6 & 7 in Dan Allender and Tremper Longman III's The Intimate Mystery which discuss how married couples are to weave souls their souls together. This weaving involves speech - speaking like God speaks. It involves addressing two common responses that we have in conflict: shame (hiding) and blaming (contempt). Married couples should not hide, blame, or distort the conflicting view of reality of their spouse but must be committed to seeing reality the way God does, which involves both parties perceptions being addressed. Marriage partners are then to move towards one another, speak the truth in love, own their own faults, feel the other's pain, understand one another's hearts through narrating the stories that have shaped them, and then extend the forgiveness and love of God so that their hearts might be further knit together.