Intimate Allies

Rediscovering God's Design for Marriage
and Becoming Soul Mates for Life

By Dan R. Allender and Tremper Longman
Tyndale House Publishers, $17.99

ISBN 0-8423-1756-2

Also available in audio from Tyndale Living Audio (two cassettes)
ISBN 0-8423-1804-6, $12.99

Review by Leticia Berry

Form a Deep Alliance

It's always interesting to see what message church members give others about marriage. Do they support marriage, acknowledge the grief of divorce, or never mention much about either? To what extent does a church witness to others about the high calling of marriage?

"A marriage will never rise above its highest purpose," say Dan Allender and Tremper Longman. If you want to lift your marriage to a higher purpose but you need help, then plunk down your money for Intimate Allies by these two topnotch authors. Subtitled Rediscovering God's Design for Marriage and Becoming Soul Mates for Life, it delivers a lot on the subject in straightforward, biblically sound language.

Allender and Longman base their content on five questions, fundamental to all Christians, that they have translated to the marriage relationship:

Who are we as husbands and wives?
What are our roles as husbands and wives?
How will we work together as husbands and wives?
How do we experience the deepest, most profound intimacy of body and soul?
How do we, two sinners, learn to live with each other?

The authors have a clear vision of who God is and who we are and what God intends for marriage to be like on this earth. Throughout their writing and repeated often in different terms is the tenet that "both male and female are in essence and status undifferentiated; each is equally and fully the image of God." Only when a partner can see his or her spouse as a unique mirror of God's glory is there opportunity for growth. It is the interweaving of this basic premise with the issues of marriage such as leadership, submission, conflict, gender differences, sexuality, and service that give the book its strength. The authors don't waste time or space talking about when divorce may be justified or divorce recovery. They are talking to married couples. They know their audience and seek to lift them to a higher sense of what marriage can be.

For two men with a great deal of education and training, Allender and Longman write in very easy-to-read language. They use stories of couples from biblical times (Adam and Eve, Samson and Delilah, David and Michal) as well as modern situationsÑall to help couples realize that each partner in a marriage is both a reflection of God and a sinful human being.

You can also listen to the content of Intimate Allies. It has been abridged and produced on two cassettes (180 minutes total), and is narrated by Wayne Shepherd, a familiar voice from Moody Broadcasting Network. This recording makes the content more accessible to couples in counseling as well as on the road a lot.

Leticia Berry is a frequent reviewer of Christian books from Columbia, TN.