“What If God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More Than to Make Us Happy?” That question is the subtitle of Gary Thomas’s Sacred Marriage—an intriguing, face-slapping, heart-squeezing, and conscience-convicting book about marriage. To be honest, all marriages need help in developing them to be as God-glorifying as they can be. “We must never be naive enough to think of marriage as a safe harbor from the Fall. . . .The deepest struggles of life will occur in the most primary relationship affected by the Fall: marriage.” (Dan Allender and Tremper Longman III, quoted by Gary Thomas.)

Mr. Thomas’s book addresses key concerns like how marriage teaches us to love and respect others, how marriage exposes sin and yet fosters good prayer, and how marriage can embrace difficulty in order to build character while teaching us to forgive. There are thirteen chapters of memorable illustrations, excellent quotations from a myriad of writers, and stark truths that cannot be ignored from God’s Word. All are intended to help us develop marriages that exemplify God’s love for His bride, the Church. Moreover, questions are provided for each chapter in the back of the book, so it makes using this resource for a Bible study very approachable.

It’s not a difficult-read, in terms of academic or intellectual rigors, but Sacred Marriage is by no means an easy-read in terms of the matters it discusses and in light of the truths it reveals from the Bible. Marriage can “equip you to love your God more and to help you reflect the character of his Son more precisely” (Thomas, 26). The challenges of marriage can be “opportunities to learn more about God, grow in our understanding of him, and learn to love him more” (Thomas, 17). Or marriage can be drudgery and a labor of bitterness (rather than a labor of love). It’s up to us to determine how to make our marriages what God designed: sacred and set apart for His good pleasure and glory.