Gardner - Sacred sex: a spiritual celebration of oneness in marriage

Praise for
Sacred Sex

Sacred Sex is a breath of fresh air that will help you and your mate recapture not only the excitement of sex but also the spiritual oneness God desires for you. We loved Tims conversational and often humorous style and found the end-of-chapter questions to be great discussion starters.

D AVID AND C LAUDIA A RP
founders of Marriage Alive seminars and authors of 10 Great Dates

Tim Gardners Sacred Sex is fresh, cleaver, grounded, and insightful. Its not simply a sex book for couples wanting to fire up passion in the bedroom, it is for all of us who are searching for the spiritual, even mystical, meaning of a husband and wife becoming one. Read this book, and your marriageas well as your relationship with Godwill never be the same.

L ES AND L ESLIE P ARROTT
Seattle Pacific University, authors of Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts

Sacred Sex is a must-read for many: The happily married will discover crucial information for being a better lover, the searching Christian will revel in the light that shines from a clear and practical theology, and the sexual struggler will learn from some great answers how to ask the right questions and make changes.

D OUG R OSENAU
author of A Celebration of Sex and professor at the Institute for Sexual Wholeness

Can you say God, Jesus, and sex together in one breath? Sacred Sex says yes and takes you into the secrets of holy sex.

L INDA D ILLOW AND L ORRAINE P INTUS
coauthors of Intimate Issues

Sacred sex isnt an oxymoron. Sacred sex isnt lukewarm sex. Sacred Sex will free many couples to begin to experience the joy and freedom of a fully spiritual and fully sexual relationship. Buy this book, read it, apply it, and with a smile on your face, youll rediscover what it means to be fearfully and wonderfully made.

G ary J. O LIVER , T H.M. , P H.D .
executive director of the Center for Marriage and Family Studies and professor of psychology and practical theology at John Brown University

Its hard to imagine someone writing a book about sex so good that the book is more delightful than the subject matter. Actually, its impossible. But Tim Gardner comes close. Sacred Sex is written with clarity, wit, and wisdom. May it find many readers.

J OHN O RTBERG
teaching pastor at Willow Creek Community Church and author of If You Want to Walk on Water, Youve Got to Get Out of the Boat

I am impressed, really impressed by Sacred Sex. Dr. Gardner deals most insightfully with matters of ultimate intimacy yet never becomes vulgar or crudely sensual. This book should prove greatly helpful to couples, especially those who have conscientious scruples.

D R . V ERNON C. G ROUNDS
chancellor of Denver Seminary

S ACRED S EX
P UBLISHED BY W ATER B ROOK P RESS
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Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked (KJV) are taken from the King James Version. Scripture quotations marked (NASB) are taken from the New American Standard Bible. Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977. Used by permission. (http://www.Lockman.org).

Some of the stories in this book are composites of several different situations; details and names have been changed to protect identities.

eISBN: 978-0-307-56488-7

Copyright 2002 by Tim Alan Gardner

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.

W ATER B ROOK and its deer colophon are registered trademarks of Random House Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gardner, Tim Alan.
Sacred Sex : a spiritual celebration of oneness in marriage / Tim Alan Gardner.1st ed.
p. cm.
1. SexReligious aspectsChristianity. 2. MarriageReligious aspectsChristianity. I.
Title.
BT708 .G375 2002
248.844dc21

2002007113

v3.1

To Amy:
My companion, advisor, teacher, encourager,
best friend, helpmeet, co-heir,
my lover and my wife with whom I am blessed to be one.
You bring out the best; you forgive the worst.
With all that I am and all that Ill ever be,
this book is wholly dedicated to you,
for without you, this book would never be.

This is a book Ive looked forward to for some time, and it was well worth the wait.

For years, Ive been disturbed by the way Christians tend to think about marriage. We dont give enough thought to the implications of how God created usas physical beings. The physical nature of our being should impact our thinking, our theology, and our models of marriage. And now, Tim Gardner helps us think through the implications.

With wonderful help and feedback from his wife, Amy, Tim goes where too few Christians have dared to go before. He takes us through a head-on look at the physical union between husband and wife and shows us how deeply embedded physical oneness is in Gods design for marriage. The key point being this: Since God placed this physical union at the core of His teaching about onenessby way of creation as well as revelationthen that deep truth should bear some imprint on how we live in marriage.

I first met Tim some years ago at a conference. Weve talked many times since about marriage and especially about oneness in marriage. When we first began our discussions, I figured, This guy sure likes to talk about sex! In fact, he does. But there was something more than just a guy talking about sex. Here is a man who understands deep truths about oneness in marriage, and now hes sharing those truths with you.