“No one can go into a marriage relationship to find out what it would be like to be married to this person without being married to them already. This means that with the scriptural system of courtship, the commitment comes first, and true intimate knowledge of the spouse comes second” (Her Hand in Marriage, p. …
A Peek at the Future
“If a girl wants to be impressed with a young man, she needs to see how he speaks to his own mother at home, and not how nice he can be across the dinner table from a cute girl at a restaurant” (Her Hand in Marriage, p. 88).
Ice Cream and Susie
“Often guys will say, ‘I love Susie.’ This does not necessarily mean they are interested in Susie’s best interest, but rather, ‘I really like the sensations which occur in me whenever Susie is around.’ When a boy say, ‘I love ice cream’ he is not seeking the ice cream’s best interest. He loves the sensation …
Families Come From Families
“In a wedding, the family is giving birth; it is reproducing itself” (Her Hand in Marriage, p. 80).
The Bridezilla Blunder
“The wedding is simply a doorway into the house of the marriage. There is no problem with “decorating” this doorway — the practice of adorned brides and plenty of wine for the guests is certainly biblical — so the parents of the bride should fee free to spend some money and have a joyful wedding. …
And Fame Cogs
“The poet Rainer Rilke was quite prescient when he observed that anyone who investigates the ‘thousands of fame-wheels and fame-belts’ of the fame industry is ‘ultimately also pressed into service and soon contributes to the machine’s monstrous actions and berserk roaring'” (Halpern, Fame Junkies, p. xxviii).
How About Saturday Then?
“When a girl says no to a young man, he often feels free to press her for her reasons. She may not have to date him, but she frequently has to debate him” (Her Hand in Marriage, p. 77).
Fame Junkies Indeed
“How many viewing hours will be devoted to contests like American Idol, in which seemingly every single person in the country is lining up to become famous?” (Jake Halpern, Fame Junkies, p. xxii).
The Common Denominator
“When men fall away from the Lord, they do so for all kinds of reasons — money, career, a woman, sex, drugs, alcohol, etc. But when women fall away from the Lord, invariably there is a man involved” (Her Hand in Marriage, p. 75).
Gritty and Raw
[A sympathetic literary portrayal of opiate addiction allows a writer] “to demonstrate a personal knowledge of the lower depths, which has increasingly become a requirement for an imaginative writer to be taken seriously, at least in literary circles. We do not live in an auspicious age for the likes of Jane Austen or Henry James: …