Welcome again to Things Unseen. Earlier on in the week we were talking about Christian books and bringing up our children, and I was thinking about books written by gurus who have a very definite formula for how you do that, and suggesting that we need to be

disarming and in some cases very cautious about them because there's no one

size fits all when it comes to either marriage or family life.

Scripture is full of great principles. to either marriage or family life.

Scripture is full of great principles, but what I've noticed is that sometimes

gurus turn their own applications of those principles

into the principles themselves and that's a very bad way to handle

scripture and it can also lead to off-center guidelines for marriage and family life.

I'm actually inclined to say the same thing about books on courtship and marriage.

There's no one size fits all.

And certainly in more recent decades, Guru's ideas about courtship

and married life often seem to have more to do with Hollywood than with scripture.

So often struck me for example that the courtship in the song of Solomon

wasn't exactly plain sailing. And sometimes that's the case with us. So we need to be cautious

about prejudging the ways of God with individual Christians

and learn to be confident in God's faithfulness and his sovereign providences in our lives. But what is marriage after all? You remember how

Genesis 2 describes the first courtship in marriage. Adam was on his own? He saw in Eve someone he recognized as in a special way belonging to

him, someone who was like him, someone who would complete him, someone in whom he felt he could be fully himself.

Actually, Genesis says, although I know it doesn't sound exactly complimentary, that God built Eve for Adam. But if you think about it, it's a beautiful

way of thinking about God's ways. Eve fitted Adam and Adam fitted Eve. They locked together. I remember a friend who was struggling

with the commitment involved in asking a lady that he loved if she would marry him.

And then he said he eventually came to the realization that they could be more together than

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