Mark Driscoll - Real Marriage: The Truth About Sex, Friendship, and Life Together

PRAISE FOR REAL MARRIAGE

Thank you Grace and Mark for your extraordinary transparency and spot-on biblical insights. Whether engaged, newlywed, or veteran, Real Marriage will serve as an invaluable resource. I highly recommend this book.

ANDY STANLEY, AUTHOR OF THE GRACE OF GOD AND
SENIOR PASTOR, NORTH POINT COMMUNITY CHURCH

With more and more couples living more like business partners rather than friends, we don't need another safe, sterile marriage book. We need a direct, compassionate and realistic view of what marriage is, what it can be, and how we can lovingly befriend our spouse for a lifetime. Mark and Grace have helped all of us who have vowed "I do" to wildly enjoy our spouses.

DARRIN PATRICK, LEAD PASTOR,
THE JOURNEY, ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI

Real Marriage is brutally and sometimes painfully honest. Further, it is frank and direct in addressing a number of important marital issues. Sometimes you probably will feel uncomfortable. And, you may not agree with everything Grace and Mark Driscoll say. We didnt. However, this is a book we will gladly use and recommend to others who care about healthy, biblical marriages. We believe both husbands and wives will be blessed by and benefit from its content. Grace and Mark are to be commended for writing a book that bares their souls and, more importantly, points to the redeeming power of the gospel in the sacred covenant called marriage.

CHARLOTTE AND DANIEL AKIN,
SOUTHEASTERN BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

Real Marriage is a powerfully transparent perspective on marriage for all couples, both single and married.

MILES MCPHERSON, SR. PASTOR, ROCK CHURCH

Wow! This is the most vulnerable marriage book weve ever read. Its honesty will take your breath away. Mark and Grace expose their relationshipits pain and passionfor all who care to learn the rudiments of real marriage. They dont dance around the tough issues. They dont tip-toe over dicey topics. The Driscolls jump in with wild abandon, and the result is a book that is frank but not crass, practical but not pedantic. If youre married or plan to be someday, do yourself a favor and read every page of this book.

DRS. LES & LESLIE PARROTT,
FOUNDERS OF REALRELATIONSHIPS.COM AND AUTHORS OF LOVE TALK

At last a marriage book that balances pastoral compassion with prophetic courage! The taboo questions every couple secretly wants to ask are courageously confronted without compromising God's Word or will for couples. Mark and Grace have taken the subject of marriage to an unprecedented place of true transparency, profound practicality, and scriptural solidity...which is a place every marriage needs to be.

BOB COY, SENIOR PASTOR,
CALVARY CHAPEL FORT LAUDERDALE

Mark and Grace have written an extraordinary book characterized by compassion for a bewildered generation which has failed to grasp the significance of marriage and covenant love, conviction that Gods grace and truth provide healing and guidance, and courage to go where few would dare to go as they display a costly and selfless transparency.

TERRY AND WENDY VIRGO,
NEW FRONTIERS AND CHURCH OF CHRIST THE KING,
BRIGHTON, ENGLAND

One of my greatest concerns is that culture is going to continually define and redefine what marriage is and is not, and the church is going to simply sit on the sidelines and react rather than seeking to actually become proactive by confidently teaching what the Bible has to say about it. That is why I am so thankful that Mark and Grace Driscoll wrote this book. Their approach to marriage, its benefits and challenges, is transparent and challenging, and I honestly believe that every married couple who will work through what they lead us through in this book will not just merely have a marriage that survives in this world bur rather thrives in it.

PERRY NOBLE, SENIOR PASTOR,
NEWSPRING CHURCH

While some sections will be controversial, this book as a whole is a wise, insightful, biblical, and startlingly honest guide to a happy marriage. Mark and Grace Driscoll rightly warn about the long-lasting consequences of sexual sin, point the way to a very happy marriage in obedience to God, and bravely address questions that are rarely brought up in a church setting. We are happy to recommend it.

WAYNE AND MARGARET GRUDEM,
PHOENIX SEMINARY, PHOENIX, ARIZONA

Our thanks to Mark and Grace Driscoll who have served this generation well by tastefully but boldly addressing the real issues facing real marriages. Taking the unchanging truth of Gods word and sprinkling in the story of Gods mercy in their own marriage, they have filled every chapter with real helpfulness. This book is powerful, biblical, practical and healing for marriages that hurt. My wife and our adult children read it to great profit.

DR. JAMES MACDONALD,
SENIOR PASTOR, HARVEST BIBLE CHAPEL AND
BIBLE TEACHER FOR WALK IN THE WORD

REAL
MARRIAGE

REAL
MARRIAGE

THE TRUTH ABOUT
SEX, FRIENDSHIP
& LIFE TOGETHER

MARK GRACE
DRISCOLL

2012 by On Mission, LLC

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Published in association with Yates & Yates, LLP, www.yates2.com.

Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture is taken from the new king james version. 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

ISBN 978-1-4041-8352-0 (IE)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Driscoll, Mark, 1970
Real marriage : the truth about sex, friendship, and life together / Mark and Grace Driscoll.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4002-0383-3 (alk. paper)
1. Spouses--Religious life. 2. Marriage--Religious aspects--Christianity. 3. Sex in marriage-Religious aspects--Christianity. I. Driscoll, Grace. II. Title.
BV4596.M3D75 2012
248.844--dc23

2011028613

Printed in the United States of America

12 13 14 15 16 QGF 6 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS

Introduction

xi

T his is a costly book.

It cost many couples a lot to learn the hard lessons they have shared with us so that we can share them with you. It cost us a lot to learn from our mistakes and sins so that we could have something to share. It cost Jesus His life, as He died to forgive our sin and give us a new life together, which includes our family and ministry. And it will cost you as well. It will cost you time to read it, emotion to consider it, and energy to discuss and implement it.

Because we are a pastor and his wife, we really do want this book to be used of God to help people. Its the kind of book we wished we could have read earlier in our marriage, and wish we could have given to those we served in ministry. So we wrote what we hope is a book that is biblically faithful, emotionally hopeful, practically helpful, sociologically viable, and personally vulnerable.