Just How Married Do You Want to Be?: Practicing Oneness in Marriage [Paperback]

Jim Sumner (Author), Sarah Sumner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 30, 2008

Men Are from Strip Clubs. Women Are from Seminary. Jim and Sarah Sumner met at church. Jim, a new Christian and former male stripper, impressed Sarah with his desire to grow in his faith and to see people meet the God he had met. Sarah, a Ph.D. in theology and a division leader in evangelism, impressed Jim with her depth of knowledge and heart for discipleship. Their mutual admiration slowly turned to love, and the two were married. Just how married they're becoming is the story of this book. Sarah and Jim lay out a fresh approach to how husbands and wives relate biblically in marriage. In a culture where gender roles are often misunderstood, the Bible's teaching on the marital relationship is made more complex than it need be. What does it mean when we read that "the husband is the head of the wife"? How should the husband's headship play out when married couples deal with such issues as conflict and decision-making? Read this book and discover a fresh vision for how couples can become "one flesh" in a marriage that honors God.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Every Christian couple contemplating marriage can profit from this highly personal and thoughtful address." (Cornelius Plantinga Jr., president and Charles W. Colson Professor of Theology, Calvin Theological Seminary )

"Jim and Sarah Sumner's book provides a biblical model for marriage, enabling you to strengthen your relationship's foundation. They show you that marriage is a covenant and a commitment, not just feelings and emotions. They teach you how to get together on the vertical, so that things will go well on the horizontal. This emphasis on the primacy of the spiritual is refreshing." (Barry C. Black, Ph.D., chaplain to the U.S. Senate )

"Matching faithful, Christ-centered scriptural exposition with honest, down-to-earth sharing, the Sumners show how marriage minus role-play becomes relationally real. This is a truly health-giving read." (J. I. Packer, author of Knowing God )

"Just How Married Do You Want to Be? delivers the best of both worlds--an insightful, fresh, biblical framework for marriage along with real-world application. Jim and Sarah's straightforward honesty is compelling, raw and powerful. This is a great marriage resource not simply to read but to reflect on and study." (Jud Wilhite, senior pastor, Central Christian Church, Las Vegas, and author of Stripped: Uncensored Grace on the Streets of Vegas )

"Jim and Sarah Sumner have written perhaps the most honest marriage book we have ever read--an honesty born of the real-life pain and struggle of two people with very different backgrounds and personalities. The really good news is that they have looked straight into the heart of those differences and discovered that Jesus is the one who makes marriages work. Here is a marriage book without syrupy formulas or platitudes that tells us the truth that Jesus works through flawed vessels to create something beautiful." (Frank James, president, Reformed Theological Seminary--Orlando, and Carolyn James, author of The Gospel of Ruth )

"Sarah and Jim's book has theological depth, and is a great and timely teaching tool for changing the way people think about marriage, Christ and the church." (Chuck Colson, founder, Prison Fellowship )

"Just How Married Do You Want to Be? is the memoir of a marriage--riveting, honest, self-revelatory and full of evidences of the grace and mercy of Christ--and a reexamination of the meaning of headship in marriage. Readers will walk away from this book with a vivid memory of the fascinating courtship and marital journey of Jim and Sarah Sumner, and with important new insights related to a biblical theology of marriage. I highly recommend this book." (Dr. David P. Gushee, Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics, McAfee School of Theology, and president, Evangelicals for Human Rights )

"We each read Sarah and Jim's book in one sitting . . . and since then we have gone back and reread several passages that we found especially helpful. One of the things that we love about Just How Married Do You Want to Be? is that it contains profound biblical theology that is incredibly practical. We believe you will find this book to be an enjoyable read that has the potential to change your marriage." (Greg and Julie Nettle, senior pastor and worship leader, Rivertree Christian Church, Massillon, Ohio )

"'More than ever' is our response to Jim and Sarah's literary question, just how married do you want to be?--and we're celebrating fifty years of practicing oneness!" (Stuart and Jill Briscoe, authors and speakers on "Telling the Truth" )

About the Author

Jim Sumner is on staff at NewSong Church in San Dimas, California.

Sarah Sumner (Ph.D., Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) is dean of the A. W. Tozer Theological Seminary in Redding, California. She is also an author and speaker who travels both nationally and internationally to address church congregations and institutions of Christian higher education. In addition, she is a consultant who addresses businesses and nonprofits on the subject of leadership and organizational health. Dr. Sumner is the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Her formal training includes a B.A. from Baylor in Education, an M.A. in Theology from Wheaton College, an M.Div equivalent from Trinity, and an M.B.A. from Azusa Pacific University. For nine years Sumner served as a core teaching pastor at New Song Church in San Dimas, California. For almost thirteen years she worked primarily as a faculty member in the Graduate School of Theology at Azusa Pacific University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 178 pages
• Publisher: IVP Books (July 30, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0830833935
• ISBN-13: 978-0830833931
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #761,540 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A marriage help that fills a huge void, September 22, 2008

By 

Deborah Shore - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Just How Married Do You Want to Be?: Practicing Oneness in Marriage (Paperback)

I've read Sarah's other two books, and at this point, I think you could call me an outright Sumner fan (it's great to hear from her husband this time too). Let's see... I purchased my second copy halfway through the book and my third copy the day after I finished.

Since I come from the vantage of having absorbed Sarah's heftier volume on "Men and Women in the Church," I'll be interested to see how well others without that background or inclination follow the simpler delineation of theology in this volume. Here Sarah reframes the egalitarian side as the "diplomatic" model, the complementarian side as the "business" model, and her own, boldly, as the "biblical" model. I think this is wise and will prove helpful for mass distribution. A lot of people I know would be scared by the unfamiliar words and would assume they won't be able to "get it." So her vocabulary choice effectively removes an obstacle for many. Also, by calling her own model the "biblical" one (I happen to agree), she avoids the potentially overwhelming feeling of "pick and choose" that would greet those couples unfamiliar with theology (the anxiety factor). They are still free to pick and choose, of course, to discount her ideas and turn to others, but she simply presents her case as what the biblical answer is. For that, I give this presentation a hearty "brava" for its creative simplicity.

On the practical side, I'm thankful for Jim and Sarah's abandoned honesty. I've read a number of marriage helps from both sides of the camp and can say I saw myself in eye-opening ways in these pages more than any other. Their discussions of marital expectations, hot button issues, and so forth really hit the mark. The suggestion to choose a spouse who cannot stand the ways in which you are prone to sinning rather than one who is apt to be complicit in them is interesting. I've never particularly been one to make spousal "lists," but that sounds like a pretty meaty consideration to include.

Nuggets such as the comparison between our shared identity in marriage and our shared identity in Christ abound. This shared identity in marriage is not presented, thankfully, as one swallowing the other up as is so often more or less the case in marriage helps from the complementarian end where the woman is pretty much conceived to serve the man's identity. On the other hand, it celebrates and offers true meaning to the oneness equation in a way that egalitarian helps may not.

One way I like to think about true oneness, though not a Sumner metaphor, is as a drop of water which has been multiplied in size by the introduction of more water. As it "becomes" one, it often looks like two drops of water which have been fused. Thereafter, by the laws of physics, it struggles more than a smaller drop would to hold together, wobbling in its surface area as it makes a humble descent, sometimes starting to individuate again into the separate-but-fused look, and sometimes bursting. This represents something of the struggle of oneness. Incidentally, a like consideration of an engorged drop of water struggling not to split apart is (heh, heh) what led to the discovery of nuclear fission--a source of devastating destruction (A-bombs) but also of much beneficial energy. Apply as you will ;-). A fragile discipline. The really good news is that this enlargement represents the expansion of soul in oneness and, therefore, the sphere which we are able to influence for Christ. I believe we touch on these principles in other sorts of unity, such as within the true fellowship of the body of believers, but the marriage relationship is unique in manner and degree. So is our marriage as the Church to Christ, and that is Emily Dickinson take-my-head-off poetry (ha! An accidental pun. As Sarah explains, headship is a real and rich principle, so perhaps we should leave that head on)--that each minutest particle of our soul would be striving to know, enter, and maintain that balance, that rest, of redemptive bond as we, like Him, descend in humility to ascend.

The Sumners' evaluation of appropriate confrontation and the group forms of it described in Matthew 18 is excellent. (Incidentally, I've long been looking for such a group of people with whom to really work out the Christian walk, a personal objection I imagine not a few would file to the applicability of Matthew 18. Some of us are living in communities where de-masked fellowship which is also intent on holiness is incredibly hard to find. Moreover, too few seem inclined to hold men accountable for much of anything apart from those sins of a lascivious nature, leaving the wives at a bit of a loss as to how to gather appropriate witnesses; the weight of problems still tends to be loaded on the women in so many Christian subcultues. But I am ever hopeful--and personally trying--to see the Church become who She's meant to be. The scripture is indeed clear about the format we should follow, and I, too, have found Matthew 18 really fruitful when I have found opportunity to use it.)

This is not an exhaustive book on marriage how-tos but one which lays out many principles and paradigms to point us in good directions. For instance, it incorporates the most basic of Sarah's motivational personality charts from "Leadership Above the Line." I hope that a new wave of writers will emerge who take this biblical marriage model and run with it, teasing out more of the psychological applications, etc. I've already begun to do a tiny bit of this in my own writing where it's come up, but marriage is certainly not my area of expertise in either training or experience (I'm single).

"Just How Married Do you Want to Be?" has become my favored gift-giving option overnight. However, for those couples who I severely doubt would soon be receptive to its non-hierarchical conclusions, I'll continue to reach for "Sacred Marriage" by Gary L. Thomas. Or both.

[...]

P.S.--Note from mid-2009: I have since discovered more of the diversity of biblical scholarship and attitude within the egalitarian camp and have felt compelled to join Christians for Biblical Equality. There are some things I still hold with a loose hand and things which I check and recheck, but I did feel led to "sign up" for the egalitarian title. While Sumner would not apply the title to herself, she is still overall my favored theologian on this topic, and her book of marital advice is favored as well. In my mind, I am a Sumner-flavored egalitarian; she thinks as I do about some scriptures far more than most egalitarians do. Yet this very thinking leads me, personally, to honor the importance of egalitarian conclusions.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A bibical marriage book for couples who aren't stereotypical gender roles, May 9, 2009

By 

Michael Ralston "ralph the wrecker" (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Just How Married Do You Want to Be?: Practicing Oneness in Marriage (Paperback)

My wife and I have a traditional arrangement: she's a full time stay home mom, I work 50+ hours per week in a very male field (cop), 3 kids with one home schooled, whole family is very into our evangelical Quaker faith. HOWEVER, we are not traditional "people" : we have never fit well into the traditional gender role idealogy, because we are VERY egalatarian in everything we do (one of the #1 reasons we love the evangelical Quaker church). So when we hunted for marriage books over the last 15 years of our marriage, we were always frustrated and disappointed with male domintated materials. This marriage book is the first book we have read that we can feel comfortable with most of the ideas presented. It is a breath of fresh air for us, and all the concepts are rooted in scripture. This book will (help us) improve our marriage like nothing we've read before. If your marriage is not the common heirarchial type and you have been frustrated with marriage books for a loooooong time, this is THE ONLY book for you.

I mean c'mon- the author stories alone are worth it! She is a female bible scholar (very rare), and her pastor husband was a stripper BC?! You can't beat THAT marriage match for variety and challenge to the your readers. As a former beer truck driver/bounty hunter/and cop for over a decade, I need stuff that REALLY cuts to the heart of things.

Of course, this book will be a difficult read for those who MUST HAVE the old tradtional Christian marriage model.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Refreshing and different book on marriage, September 7, 2008

By 

Melissa (Orange County, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Just How Married Do You Want to Be?: Practicing Oneness in Marriage (Paperback)

This book is incredibly honest and you can tell that Sarah and Jim aren't trying to write a book to look awesome to the world. It is deeply theological. Most marriage books are informed through psychology (which is great), however I find it incredibly refreshing to look at marriage theologically and meditate on the implications of oneness and being members of the body of Christ. Also, Headship as a biblical metaphor is unpacked very clearly and concisely. It deepened my understanding even after reading Sarah Sumner's Men and Women in the Church. Great book and worth the read.