Sacred Marriages

Sacred Marriages
Author: Martti Nissinen
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 556
Release: 2008-06-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 157506572X

The title of this volume, Sacred Marriages, consciously plays with the traditional concept of sacred marriage, but the plural form, “sacred marriages,” gives the reader an idea that something more is at stake here than a monomaniacal idea of manifestations deriving from a single prototype. Following the guidelines of one of the contributors, Ruben Zimmermann, the editors tentatively define “sacred marriage” as a “real or symbolic union of two complementary entities, imagined as gendered, in a religious context.” “Sacred marriages” (plural), then, refers to various expressions of this kind of union in different cultures that seek to overcome, to cite Zimmermann again, “the great dualism of human and cosmic existence.” The subtitle indicates that the contributors are primarily interested in different aspects of the divine-human sexual metaphor—that is, the imagining and reenactment of a gendered relationship between the human and divine worlds. This metaphor, which is essentially about relationship rather than sexual acts, can find textual, ritual, mythical, and social expressions in different times and places. Indeed, the sacred marriage ritual itself should be considered not a manifestation of the “sacralized power of sexuality experienced in sexual intercourse” but one way of objectifying the divine-human sexual metaphor.

Sacred Marriage

Sacred Marriage
Author: Gary Thomas
Publisher: Zondervan
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2015-08-04
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0310340667

What if God designed marriage to make you holy instead of happy? What if your relationship isn't as much about you and your spouse as it is about you and God? In Sacred Marriage, bestselling author Gary Thomas uncovers the ways that your marriage can become a doorway to a closer walk with God and with each other. Join over one million others who have already uncovered Thomas's tips for fostering a sacred marriage. Within the pages of Sacred Marriage, Thomas invites you to see how God can use your relationship with your spouse as a discipline and a motivation to love God more and reflect more of the character of his Son. In addition to life-changing insights from Scripture, church history, and time-tested wisdom from Christian classics, you'll find practical advice and techniques to make your marriage happier by becoming holier husbands and wives. In Sacred Marriage, Thomas will give you all of the tools you need to: Turn marital struggles into spiritual and personal appreciation Love your spouse with a stronger sense of purpose Confront your weaknesses and sin in order to grow your relationship with God and with your spouse Partner in the spiritual growth and character formation of your spouse Transform a tired marriage into a relationship filled with awe and respect Thomas reveals that sacred marriages teach us to love God and others well by fostering a healthy sex life, a strong prayer life, and a rich spiritual life. God uses our marriages to help us grow in character, in prayer, in worship, and in service--we just have to recognize that the purpose of marriage is holiness, not happiness. Each copy also includes thought-provoking discussion questions designed to spark conversation between couples and small groups, allowing you to dive deeper into the lessons that Thomas shares in Sacred Marriage. Join the one million others who have already started on their journey to transforming their relationship with their spouses and with their Creator.

The Sacred Search

The Sacred Search
Author: Gary Thomas
Publisher: David C Cook
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2021-04-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0830781927

Bestselling author Gary Thomas transforms the way you look at romantic relationships. His unique perspective on dating will prepare you for a satisfying, spiritually enriching marriage. In the revised edition of his hit book The Sacred Search, Gary Thomas helps single people of all ages make wise marital choices by rethinking what basis those choices should be made on. You will be encouraged to think beyond finding your “soul mate” and instead adopt a more biblical search for a “sole mate”—someone who will walk with you on your spiritual journey. Thomas asks, What if we focused on why we should get married more than on who to marry? What if being “in love” isn’t a good enough reason to get married? And most of all, what if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy? The Sacred Search casts a vision for building a relationship around shared spiritual mission—and making marriage with eternity at its heart.

Devotions for a Sacred Marriage

Devotions for a Sacred Marriage
Author: Gary Thomas
Publisher: Zondervan
Total Pages: 164
Release: 2009-05-26
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0310317487

What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?By popular demand, the author of Sacred Marriage returns to the topic of how God uses marriage to expand our souls and make us holy. With all new material, Devotions for a Sacred Marriage explores how God can reveal himself to you through your marriage and help you grow closer to him as well as to your spouse.Fifty-two devotions encourage you to build your marriage around God’s priorities. From learning to live with a fellow sinner, to the process of two becoming one, to sharing our lives as brothers and sisters in Christ, Devotions for a Sacred Marriage challenges couples to embrace the profound and soul-stretching reality of Christian marriage.

Sacred Marriage Gift Edition

Sacred Marriage Gift Edition
Author: Gary Thomas
Publisher: Zondervan
Total Pages: 432
Release: 2011-04-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0310334411

The perfect gift for engaged, newlywed, or married couples! This two-in-one book and devotional from bestselling author Gary Thomas helps couples discover how marriage can become a doorway to a closer walk with God and each other. Marriage is much more than a union between you and your spouse. From the love you share to the forgiveness you both offer and seek in turn, it is a spiritual discipline ideally suited to help you know God more fully and intimately. Shifting the focus from marital enrichment to spiritual enrichment, Thomas offers practical tools and techniques to make your marriage happier by becoming holier husbands and wives. This special-edition two-in-one book and devotional includes: Sacred Marriage Starting with the discovery that the goal of marriage goes beyond personal happiness, writer and speaker Gary Thomas invites you to see how God can use your marriage as a discipline and a motivation to love him more and reflect more of the character of his Son. Devotions for a Sacred Marriage A companion to Sacred Marriage, this book of 52 devotions encourages you to build your marriage around God's priorities. From learning to live with a fellow sinner to the process of two becoming one to sharing our lives as brothers and sisters in Christ, Devotions for a Sacred Marriage challenges couples to embrace the profound and soul-stretching reality of Christian marriage.

Sacred Marriages

Sacred Marriages
Author: David F. Mullins
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2018-06-14
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1351598384

This book represents a new direction in the study of religion and marriage by using a postmodern theoretical framework focusing on gendered discourse and culture, to examine the meaning of sacred marriage within social contexts. Drawing upon data from in-depth interviews of couples in long-term, sacred marriages living in the American Midwest, together with an analysis of Christian marriage advice manuals, Sacred Marriages explores how couples use religious and nonreligious discourses and cultures to give their marriages meaning, and how those sacred meanings are used in their daily lives and the spaces that they embody. The study shows how religious and secular beliefs are combined to formulate cultural strategies for approaching the sacralization of marriage, and how religious and nonreligious discourses and cultures are ordered, depending on circumstances and social contexts. This often results in other relationships being subordinated in favour of the sacred bond believed to exist between husband and wife. The book argues that sacred marriage is a malleable concept, as people bend religious culture to form new and altered sacred marriages during emotional extremes. A thoughtful examination of long-term Christian marriages, this volume will appeal to scholars of religion and sociology with interests in marriage and the family.

Sacred Influence

Sacred Influence
Author: Gary L. Thomas
Publisher: Zondervan
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2009-05-26
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0310570441

God calls women to influence and move their husbands in positive ways. Applying the concepts from his bestseller, Sacred Marriage, Gary Thomas offers a view through a man’s eyes. Here’s the inside scoop on what men find motivating—with inspiring real-life stories of women who are employing this knowledge to transform their marriages. Sacred Influence doesn’t flinch from difficult marital problems. But by using this faith-focused approach, you’ll see how to help your husband become the man God intends him to be. At the same time, God will shape you to be the woman he designed you to be. God has given godly women a wonderful power to influence and encourage their husbands. What’s the secret? This book will provide challenges, examples, and hope to women who want to love their husbands well and be loved well in return. --Dennis Rainey, President of Family Life

The Sumerian Sacred Marriage in the Light of Comparative Evidence

The Sumerian Sacred Marriage in the Light of Comparative Evidence
Author: Pirjo Lapinkivi
Publisher:
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2004
Genre: History
ISBN:

The primary purpose of this study is to increase understanding of Sumerian sacred marriage by approaching it from a comparative perspective. More generally, it is hoped that the study will illustrate the fruitfulness of the comparative approach for the study of Sumerian religion and royal ideology and that it will prove useful to the other fields of study whose sources were used as the comparative evidence. The comparative evidence includes sources from six different fields of study: Assyriology (first and second millennium love lyrics and rituals), Biblical studies (The Song of Songs), Classics (Graeco-Roman philosophies, Chaldean Oracles), Gnostic studies, Jewish mysticism (Kabbalah) and Indology (Hindu rites and myths). Ancient Egyptian and Ugaritic evidence is also used. Part One of the study presents and analyzes the primary evidence for the Sumerian sacred marriage, starting with the Sumerian love song corpus, also known as the Dumuzi-Inanna (DI) love songs. In addition to the love song corpus, the evidence discussed in Part One includes second millennium literary texts and royal inscriptions referring to a marital relationship between the ruling king and Inanna/Istar. Part Two analyzes and discusses the constituent elements of the Sumerian sacred marriage (the actors of the marriage, and the timing and scene of the related ritual). At this point, some comparison with the parallel material is inevitable. Part Three presents the comparative evidence and a detailed analysis of the thematic elements shared by the different traditions. This section also includes a discussion of the concept of the soul in Mesopotamia and in other parts of the ancient world. Concepts of the Netherworld and afterlife in Mesopotamia are also examined.

Fierce Marriage

Fierce Marriage
Author: Ryan Frederick
Publisher: Baker Books
Total Pages: 221
Release: 2018-04-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1493412779

Ryan and Selena Frederick were newlyweds when they landed in Switzerland to pursue Selena's dream of training horses. Neither of them knew at the time that Ryan was living out a death sentence brought on by a worsening genetic heart defect. Soon it became clear he needed major surgery that could either save his life--or result in his death on the operating table. The young couple prepared for the worst. When Ryan survived, they both realized that they still had a future together. But the near loss changed the way they saw all that would lie ahead. They would live and love fiercely, fighting for each other and for a Christ-centered marriage, every step of the way. Fierce Marriage is their story, but more than that, it is a call for married couples to put God first in their relationship, to measure everything they do and say to each other against what Christ did for them, and to see marriage not just as a relationship they should try to keep healthy but also as one worth fighting for in every situation. With the gospel as their foundation, Ryan and Selena offer hope and practical help for common struggles in marriage, including communication problems, sexual frustration, financial stress, family tension, screen-time disconnection, and unrealistic expectations.

Sacred Pathways

Sacred Pathways
Author: Gary Thomas
Publisher: Zondervan
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2020-09-08
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0310361184

Sacred Pathways reveals nine distinct spiritual temperaments--and their strengths, weaknesses, and tendencies--to help you improve your spiritual life and deepen your personal walk with God. It's time to strip away the frustration of a one-size-fits-all spirituality and discover a path of worship that frees you to be you. Experienced spiritual directors, pastors, and church leaders recognize that all of us engage with God differently, and it's about time we do too. In this updated and expanded edition of Sacred Pathways, Gary Thomas details nine spiritual temperaments and--like the Enneagram and other tools do with personality--encourages you to investigate the ways you most naturally express yourself in your relationship with God. He encourages you to dig into the traits, strengths, and pitfalls in your devotional approach so you can eliminate the barriers that keep you locked into rigid methods of worship and praise. Plus, as you begin to identify and understand your own temperament, you'll soon learn about the temperaments that aren't necessarily "you" but that may help you understand the spiritual tendencies of friends, family, and others around you. Whatever temperament or blend of temperaments best describes you, rest assured it's not by accident. It's by the design of a Creator who knew what he was doing when he made you according to his own unique intentions. If your spiritual walk is not what you'd like it to be, you can change that, starting here. Sacred Pathways will show you the route you were made to travel, marked by growth and filled with the riches of a close walk with God. A Sacred Pathways video Bible study is also available for group or individual use, sold separately.