A Five Star Book(s) Review
Where to begin?
Well, let me just start with this: The last thing in the world I wanted to do was read another Christian marriage book. We’d read, studied, and taught from so many of them over 28 years of marriage and 20+ years of ministry that I figured these would just be covering well-trod ground.
Boy, was I wrong.
The Marriage You Want by Sheila Wray Gregoire, and The Great Sex Rescue by Sheila Gregoire, Joanna Sawatsky, Rebecca Gregoire Lindenbach hit home in all the right ways.
I thought about doing a review of each book separately, but they—like sex and marriage—really go hand in hand. You can’t have a clear discussion about marriage without dealing in-depth with the sex question; and you can’t deal with the physical and psychological barriers to mutually fulfilling sex without first cleaning up the day-to-day marriage arena.
Together these books provided eye-opening answers to the perplexing marriage realities we’ve seen in ministry. Like, why are so many Christian marriages on life support? Both parters love Jesus, both read the Bible, both show up every Sunday. Yet something is crashing, hard. Why?
These books have answers, and the number of aha moments my wife and I had in studying these books is off the charts. They register with what we’ve been seeing in the Church. Essentially, the Church by and large has adopted an unbiblical, destructive dogma for marriage and sex. And Christian separation and divorce rates show it. And for many for whom divorce isn’t even in the vocabulary, enduring abuse or mundane cohabitation is the new normal.
These books explain how and why that is, and also what we can do to reestablish marriage priorities in line with Jesus’s heart for women and men. Suddenly the Church has data and testimonials that make sense in light of what we’ve been seeing in ministry:
Maybe the fact that women feel so upset by this “everyman struggles with lust” message isn’t because women simply need to understand men better; maybe it’s because women are being asked to accept something that reflects the kingdom of darkness rather than Christ…
According to the Bible, once we are indwelled with the Holy Spirit, we should expect that lust will be defeated.
— The Great Sex Rescue
This is something that the Church needs to grasp, teach, and offer solutions for.
Gender roles are a perfect example of how things can go wrong, because all too often they sacrifice adaptability and replace it with inflexibility. Rather than trying to live up to what someone else says you should be, you’d be so much better off focusing on what actually works for you both.
— The Marriage You Want
The Fruit of the Spirit
One of the concepts that rang particularly true is that women become the unwitting “gatekeepers” in the sex realm. Researchers now see—after years of real life experiences—that this may be one of the single greatest lies the enemy has used to destroy Christain marriages, and the joy of what should be one of God’s greatest gifts to women and men.
When we tell girls that a boy will want to pressure them, we set a very low standard for boys and a very high one for girls. If all guys will push your boundaries, and you need to fight off every one of them, then will girls even know that they deserve to date and marry someone who’ll respect their boundaries?
Girls are frequently warned as soon as they hit puberty: boys are going to push your sexual boundaries… He pushes the accelerator, and I push the brakes….
— The Great Sex Rescue
The concept that self-control is a fruit of the Spirit applying to women only has led to devastation in marriages.
In looking back why she could never respond sexually to her husband, Charlotte believes this gatekeeper role was one of the main reasons. She never allowed herself to feel anything while they were making out. She was constantly asking herself, When do I put on the brakes? Is it now? Is it now?
When she married, she was so used to that observer role that she couldn’t just drop it…she reverted to judging what was going on rather than experiencing what was going on, and that made the arousal piece very difficult.
— The Great Sex Rescue
Righting the Ship
My wife and I have been doing marriage ministry in one form or another for many years. We’ve used, studied, and recommended many of the best selling Christian books on marriage and sex. Yet now that the data is in, I can’t help but desire to call up all of those couples we fellowshipped with and warn them about how wrong the Church has been, and continues to be, in teaching falsehoods that destroy sex and marriages for countless Christians:
As difficult as it may be to make a change, if the pace of your life is not sustainable long-term, you need to make a change now, before a change that you can’t control happens to you.
— The Marriage You Want
This can be applied to all variety of marriage issues but especially in the bedroom, where a disporportionate amount of damage has been, and is currently being, done:
The pastor berates her, “Don’t you know sex is a gift from God in your marriage?” [She] hears the words but they don’t penetrate. She has been reduced to a physical receptacle for Jared to orgasm into in order to keep him from temptation. If that’s what sex is, she not having it, any of it…
Women who get married believing they need to have sex with their husbands to help prevent their porn use are 19% more likely to experience significant sexual pain unrelated to childbirth. Women who believe now that frequent sex will prevent porn use are 18% more likely to report being disinterested in sex, 37% more likely to have sex out of obligation, 24% less likely to orgasm reliably during sex, and 24% less likely to be confident they well be aroused during sex. They are, however, 42% more likely to have sex at least twice a week.
If sex is worse for her, then why is she doing it more often? Because we have threatened her if she doesn’t.
— The Great Sex Rescue
There is much to unpack in correcting the mistakes of the past. When my wife and I first began exploring this new information, we were floored by how close to home it all hit. I have no doubt that reading these books will likewise generate the same response from so many of you. If so, please reach out to us and let us know.
The good news is that it’s never too late to repent, forgive, and move forward. In Christ it’s even possible to miraculously reconcile, and restore the years and marriages that the locusts have devoured. But even more importantly, it’s never too late (or too early) to begin laying a proper foundation for the young people considering getting married today.
In many ways the Church has blown it. As soon as we admit that, we can start fixing it, and these books are great way to begin.
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