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God, Marriage, and Family is the best biblical theology of these issues I’ve ever seen. Written by Andreas Köstenberger with David Jones, it is both comprehensive and accessible.

You can read chapter 1 in PDF, or browse the whole book online here.

It’s now available in a new edition, and here’s what has changed:

  • A new chapter on marriage, family, and the church (including an assessment of the “family-integrated church approach”).
  • A summary of recent debates on physical discipline of children, singleness, homosexuality, and divorce and remarriage.
  • New sections on the theology of sex and parenting teens.
  • A new streamlined format for the chapter on divorce and remarriage, where emphasis is placed upon the divine design of the permanence of marriage and more technical material was put in an appendix.
  • Incorporation of discussion of important recent articles and monographs on marriage and the family, such as Christopher Ash’s Marriage: Sex in the Service of God and Barry Danylak’s A Biblical Theology of Singleness.
  • Updated bibliographies and endnote references.
  • Many other smaller adjustments in response to reviewer comments, student feedback, and other constructive criticisms we received subsequent to the publication of the first edition.

I suspect many will be interested in Köstenberger says in chapter 13 about the growing popularity of the “family-integrated” movement. Here’s the upshot:

While we share a deep conviction as to the importance of the family, we are committed to the biblical foundation for marriage and the family, and this includes a sound grasp of the New Testament teaching regarding the church. It is our tentative assessment that the family-integrated approach as defined below has elevated the family to an unduly high status that is unwarranted in light of the biblical teaching on the subject and that its view of the church as a “family of families” is not sufficiently supported by Scripture. We strongly urge the church to make families integral to the ministry of the church, supporting and strengthening them, but not in such a way that the New Testament teaching on the church is compromised or the family unduly elevated above the church. (p. 261)

Below is Mark Driscoll’s written and video blurbs for this book:

“I love this book. It is the best on the subject, and at Mars Hill we have hundreds of couples read it each year as their premarital text. The men in Acts 29 also use it in their churches. God, Marriage, and Family is amazing, comprehensive, biblical, helpful, insightful, and without peer on the matters to which it speaks. I have read this book multiple times and am astounded at how much is packed in. I have also read the footnotes multiple times, and they alone are worth twice the price of the book. I am thrilled that God, Marriage, and Family is now updated and expanded and available in a second edition and am happy to endorse this amazing work and highly commend it to you. Read it, and give it to others, and you and they will be richly blessed.”

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