“Each for The Other: Marriage as it’s Meant to Be” by Bryan Chapell with His wife Kathy

[Revised Edition]

R. C. Sproul’s wife Vesta comments, “The best book I’ve read on the biblical view of the family.”  Jerry Bridges: “This book is the most thorough exposition of Ephesians 5:22-6:4 that I have read.”  Susan Hunt, “Bryan combines theological precision with tender practicality and passionately presents the need for and God’s provision of grace in our marriages.”

At their wedding Bryan and Kathy were given a plaque that has followed them through all their homes and has become the hallmark of their family.  It reads: “Home: where each lives for the other, and all live for God.”  That simple phrase he says, “Reminds us that our happiness comes from giving ourselves to each other and to God.”  So the organizing theme of the book becomes the concept of sacrifice: the sacrifice of self for the serving of another.  A quote (pg. 14):

By teaching us to sacrifice our priorities for the needs of a loved one, the apostles beaconed the truths of Christ’s love in ways the world could not ignore. As we live for each other, we reenact the story of Jesus’ sacrifice and represent Him to one another.  That story lifts us from the bottomless pit of self-indulgence to a purposeful life with God.

The book is divided into three parts,

(1)  The Sacrificial Husband: Servant Leadership

(2)  The Sacrificial Wife: Noble Love, the chapters there focus on the themes of:

The Completion of Another; The Care of Another, and The Honor of Another.

(3)  Sacrificial Partners: The Shared love of Parenting

Throughout the book: “We are most like Christ, when we live most sacrificially.”  (pg. 85)

“The husband who recognizes his need for mercy will most effectively communicate it.” (50)

“Controlling anyone by demeaning them…is abhorrent to God.” (51)

“No [other] relationship should challenge the oneness of the husband and wife.” (54)

“Mutual sacrifice led by the head of the home breeds the deepest satisfactions love and life can offer.”

“This is leadership by serving another: husbanding by humility, headship by sacrifice.” (69)

“Biblical headship shifts the focus of husbanding from taking charge to taking responsibility.” (70)

Marriage allows us to fulfill God’s expectations for us together, more than we could separately. (101)

Submission is not suppression. “Biblical submission is not the suppression of gifts but the full expression of them on behalf of another.” (110)

I wish that women understood that a man’s confidence of his wife’s respect is the ground on which he plants his feet to meet life’s challenges.  As a husband’s assurance of his love provides a wife security and comfort for her trials, her respect is his fortress. (142)

He addresses what a wife is to do when her husband is undeserving of her respect and even has some practical healthy comments on how to deal with abuse.

The book addresses parenting under the headings of Building Blocks:

1. The First Building Block: A Love Relationship with the Lord.
2. The Second Building Block: A Love Relationship with a Spouse.

Kathy writes, “I hope that if our children were to be asked their strongest impressions of their parents, they would say – in this order – that we each love Jesus with all our heart, and that we love each other more than anything on this earth.” (164)

1. The Third Building Block: The Responsibilities of the Child.
2. The Fourth Building Block: The Responsibilities of the Parent.
3. The Fifth Building Block: What Parents Should Not Do.  Exasperate/Provoke to Anger

Classic examples of things that will cause exasperation in children:

-       Authority that contradicts its own standards

-       Love that requires sacrifice but seeks self

-       Respect demanded at the expense of the child’s dignity

Manipulative guilt-trips, shaming silent treatments, abusive denials of a child’s worth, homes that rule by condemnation…

1. The Sixth Building Block: What Parents Should Do – Parenting by Grace

This is a very practical book – it’s my favorite book on marriage.  It’s balanced, insightful, helpful, convicting and encouraging.  Bryan Chapell is a master of appropriate illustrations.  At the beginning of Part One on The Sacrificial Husband he has a great illustration of the interplay and practical dynamics of a model Christian marriage.  He tells the story of him and his brother going mountain-climbing – cliff-scaling!  His brother was a trained search and rescue expert and told him not to worry as they assembled their ropes and clamps, spikes and hammers, harness and helmet.  As they work their way up the cliff his brother teaches him how to ask for more slack or tension and how to give it in return.  Bryan says he soon “learned that the progress either of us made was integrally related to the actions and responses of the other” (20).

We roped ourselves together and side by side started up.  Gordon [his brother] set the course, but I soon discovered that this did not always mean he was above me.  The nature of the obstacles and crevices before us meant that sometimes he advanced ahead of me, and sometimes I preceded him.  We gave each other tension or slack depending on what was needed to leverage our bodies up the rock.  There was no question of who was in charge, but neither was there any question that the one who led the way sometimes had to let his partner advance ahead of him for both to make progress.  The goal was not for one to stay ahead of the other but for both to reach the top.  To do this, the one in charge had to assess his own strengths and limitations (and those of his partner) and adjust accordingly.  Had he insisted on being in front, then neither of us would have made the summit.

The challenges of marriage involve the juggling of many responsibilities and obstacles: Careers, children, finances, failures, relative and regrets – these all “make it unlikely that the same person can be out front all the time if the marriage is to succeed” (21).

This book is highly recommended – the best overall, single source on marriage and parenting that I’ve read.