What Did You Expect?: Redeeming The Realities Of Marriage by Paul David Tripp
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
When I started reading What Did You Expect, I did not know what to expect. For someone who doesn't like the typical marriage books that are out there, I found that Tripp's message of getting to the heart to be very refreshing. When I was younger, it would always bother me that typical sermons on marriage, and preparation for marriage centred on the premise that we should be looking for a set of characteristics in the opposite sex, rather than focusing on one's own heart. Marriage problems start inside of me.
Tripp's book structures around a set of 5 commitments, which begin with humility, personal accountability and confession, and then leads to pulling the weeds of our own hearts, taking the beam out of our eyes, and getting read to forgive. All the commitments are based on the grace of God, and God's forgiveness as the standard for forgiving others. This book is not a series of 'steps' so that you will get 'this'; rather, it is written on the premise of God's Amazing Grace, which transcends all our sinful shortcomings, and is the real power to wage war against our sin nature.
I thought that the book might mirror the conference, and it does, but there is sufficiently different, more, and additionally helpful material that it is not a duplication of the conference DVDs. There are a lot of anecdotes that can help you visualize the concrete help that is available in the gospel. I gave it 4 stars out of 5, not because of content. I just think that Paul is a better public speaker than a writer.
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