"I Do" or Do I? , livre ebook

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"I want to get married." If you're a Christian single, chances are good that thought has crossed your mind. You think about getting married and wonder if someday God will lead you to the soul mate He's chosen specially for you. But decisions about whether to marry and whom to marry have never been more complicated. Opinions about singleness, dating, sex, and marriage have undergone tremendous changes as our culture continues to move away from biblical values and practices. Given the current complexity, it's vital that you find sure-footed answers to two key questions: What does the Bible say about marriage? How do I discover God's will for me when it comes to finding a mate? "I Do" or Do I? is the ideal guide to help you answer these questions. It will equip you to think about marriage within the whole scope of your relationship with God and will enable you to discover your unique place in His world--whether single or married.

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Publié par	Harvest House Publishers, Inc.
Date de parution	01 avril 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780736945486
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0600€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS
EUGENE, OREGON
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the NET Bible copyright 1996-2006 by Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. http://bible.org . All rights reserved. Scripture quoted by permission. This material is available in its entirety as a free download or online web use at http://netbible.org .
Verses marked ESV are from The ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version ), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Verses marked NASB are from the New American Standard Bible , 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. ( www.Lockman.org )
Verses marked NLT are from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Verses marked NIV are from The Holy Bible, New International Version , NIV . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Verses marked HCSB are from the Holman Christian Standard Bible , copyright 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Holman Christian Standard Bible , Holman CSB , and HCSB are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.
Verses marked MSG are from The Message. Copyright by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.
Verses marked RSV are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1946, 1952, 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Cover design by Dugan Design Group, Bloomington, Minnesota
Cover photo Rubberball / Alamy
Backcover photo by sjharmon.com
The author is represented by MacGregor Literary, Inc.
This book contains stories in which the author has changed people s names and some details of their situations in order to protect their privacy.
I DO OR DO I?
Copyright 2014 by James Robin Maxson
Published by Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon 97402
www.harvesthousepublishers.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Maxson, J. Robin, 1947-
I do or do I? / J. Robin Maxson, with Garry Friesen.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-7369-4547-9 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-7369-4548-6 (eBook)
1. Marriage-Religious aspects-Christianity. 2. Mate selection-Religious aspects-Christianity. 3. Decision making-Religious aspects-Christianity. I. Title.
BV835.M287 2014
248.4-dc23
2013031649
All rights reserved. No part of this electronic publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other-without the prior written permission of the publisher. The authorized purchaser has been granted a nontransferable, nonexclusive, and noncommercial right to access and view this electronic publication, and purchaser agrees to do so only in accordance with the terms of use under which it was purchased or transmitted. Participation in or encouragement of piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of author s and publisher s rights is strictly prohibited.
D EDICATION
To my children, Rachel Maxson and Michael Evans-Maxson, who inspired this book, and whose pursuit of godly living put its principles on display.
You show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
(2 Corinthians 3:3 ESV )
C ONTENTS
Dedication
Introduction
Part 1: God s Design for Decision Making
Introduction to Part 1
1. What s God s Will Got to Do with It?
2. What in the World Is God Doing?
Part 2: God s Design for Singleness
Introduction to Part 2
3. Jesus: Singleness Is Just as Honorable as Marriage
4. Paul: Singleness Is (Sometimes) Better than Marriage
Part 3: God s Design for Marriage
Introduction to Part 3
5. Marriage: God Made It
6. Marriage: We Broke It
7. Marriage: Jesus Remade It
8. Better Than Ever
9. Player Evaluation
Part 4: Looking for a Mate
Introduction to Part 4
10. Top Ten Missteps to a Miserable Marriage
11. Cohabitation: The Un-Solution
12. Profile of a Keeper
13. Calculating Compatibility
14. Courtship: Crossing the Bridge
15. Courtship: Devising the Plan
Epilogue: And They Lived Happily Ever After
Endnotes
Singleness, Marriage, and the Will of God
I NTRODUCTION
Y ou know what I wish?
The young woman, midthirties, sitting opposite me in my office, was wiping tears from her eyes. We had spent the previous forty-five minutes processing the demise of her seven-year marriage to Eric. Sherry was a lifelong Christian-a preacher s kid. Eric had come to faith through her father s ministry two years before their wedding. Fundamental differences in personality, background, worldview, goals and priorities, and marital expectations eroded and ultimately overwhelmed a promising beginning. Eric s affair extinguished Sherry s hope for a miracle that never materialized.
You know what I wish?
In the momentary pause between Sherry s question and her answer, several possible scenarios flashed through my mind. Having spent the last three months laboring with this couple-praying, instructing, negotiating, pleading, weeping-doing everything possible to rescue and restore their marriage, I knew what I wished. My list was long. But it didn t include the one thing on Sherry s mind.
My parents knew that my decision to marry Eric was a mistake. I wish they had said something.
Something Needs to Be Said
Countless individuals, reviewing with hindsight a decision-making process that led to disaster, wish the same thing. (Maybe you re one of them.) We know better, of course. We know we can t hit rewind and get a do-over on our mistakes. We also know that no amount of insight from whatever source can guarantee an ideal outcome. But those who, like Sherry, pay the price for faulty choices often come to recognize they would have been better served by some helpful guidance from objective and wise advisors.
I wish they had said something.
We can t turn back the clock for Sherry and Eric, or anyone else. But we can be proactive in an effort to prevent recurrences of their scenario. While we can t address the specifics of any particular situation, we can say something that may well head off commonly made mistakes while offering constructive guidance that brings wisdom to bear on the choices singles make.
In this book, then, we will consider two categories of information that target two legitimate goals in marital decision making. One objective is negative -the desire to avoid catastrophic consequences. So we will attempt to expose and correct erroneous ways of thinking that could lead to detrimental decisions. The other goal is decidedly positive -to make choices that have the best chance of producing beneficial marital outcomes, whether one remains single or gets married.
Considering the Source
Sound good?
Maybe. When something needs to be said, it matters a great deal who is doing the talking. If you are turning to someone for counsel, that input is valuable only if the ideas shared are actually insightful. A lot of people have opinions, but they can t all be right. The issues in question really matter. So it is very important to consider the source.
Is this book a reliable source of guidance for marital decision making?
I kind of feel like I m applying for a job. You re less than a dozen paragraphs into this book, so you don t have to hire me; you can bail out without having lost much time. You probably don t know much about me, so why should you read this book?
The best I can do is tell you a little about where I m coming from and give a sneak preview of some of the ideas we ll explore in these pages.
Cultural Chaos
I ll begin with an observation. In the decade that I ve devoted to studying singleness and marriage, I ve become convinced of a stunning reality: The venture of marital decision making is more complex today than it ever has been.
Ever.
I m not kidding.
The main reason for this daunting state of affairs is the cultural environment in which singles carry out their decision making. Societal perspectives on marriage, singleness, dating, and sex have undergone tremendous changes in an incredibly brief span of time. How dramatic have these changes been? Writing in 2005, historian Stephanie Coontz summarized: The current rearrangement of both married and single life is in fact without historical precedent. 1 And in another place she says, The role of marriage in society and personal life has changed more in the past 30 years than in the previous 3,000. 2
Let me translate: If you are thirty-five years old or younger, the ways that members of your generation think about marriage and singleness are strikingly different from the perspectives of virtually all human beings who have preceded you on this planet. That fact, all by itself, does not determine which point of view is right, or even better. You just need to know that the cultural factors that influence marital decision making are very different than they used to be.
We will examine the nature of those changes in the pages to follow. But if you have found it difficult to sort out your thinking about marriage, or have found that moving in that direction is complicated, you are not imagining things. I don t know if acquiring a mate has ever been easy, but marital decision making has never been more complicated than it is today.
As messy as things have become, it is not difficult to understand either the problem or the solution. The fundamental problem is that humanity