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BJ and Doug Jensen

Long before Dr. Phil, there was another expert source on relationships—the Word of God. In their new book, Famous Lovers in the Bible (New Hope Publishers), authors Doug and BJ Jensen profile ten biblical couples, warts and all, and offer timely marriage advice. The Jensens spoke to TC.

What led you to write about the Bible's "famous lovers"?

Doug: Since 1989 we've worked with couples who want Christ-centered marriages. We wrote the book to encourage and equip couples so that they'll be able to wake up every day thanking God for another day to love and to be loved by their spouse.

BJ: When we married, we thought love was all we needed. But two years later we discovered it doesn't work that way. We hit all kinds of speed bumps and fiery trials. God had to intervene and heal our relationship. It would have been nice to have this book then.

These biblical couples are from a different age and culture, and in some cases the men probably had several wives. How relevant is your book for today's couples?

Doug: True, it was a different time. These couples didn't have a mountain of bills or commuter traffic to contend with, but they did deal with similar issues that couples struggle with today.

BJ: Like communication differences, discontentment, forgiveness, and intimacy issues.

Just as an example, could you take one of the couples in the book and show us how some of their issues play themselves out in modern-day terms?

Doug: Oftentimes couples get in trouble because they want more than God has chosen to bless them with, and so in effect, they're like David with Bathsheba. David got greedy. He could have had any unmarried woman in the kingdom that he wanted, but he chose to have one who was already married. So he went outside the bounds of what God had chosen to allow him to have. When we as married partners get greedy or lustful and decide to venture outside the bounds of what God has prescribed, then that's going to have a detrimental effect on our marriage. It's going to show itself in all kinds of ways that's going to push the couple apart. One of the things we emphasize in Famous Lovers in the Bible is that when you have a proactive marriage, every decision that you make, every choice you make in marriage is based on the question, "Is this going to bring me closer to my spouse or push me further away from my spouse?" When you look at every issue that way, then that helps you to know how to make the right choices.

Which couple impressed you the most?

BJ: Aquila and Priscilla are my marriage role models (Acts 18). They were a complete team in all they did, serving God together.

Doug: I really enjoyed writing about Adam and Eve, because they are the only couple in history who had a perfect marriage—at least until the Fall. In a way, they're the prototype of what a marriage should look like. They were naked and had no shame. They had complete physical, emotional, and spiritual intimacy. They were one. And that's what we should all be working toward in our marriages.

Which couple troubled you the most?

BJ: I guess one of the couples that really troubled us was the Samson and Delilah relationship. They were a couple driven by the flesh who ended up cohabitating. They had two different agendas when they decided to live together. Samson wanted physical intimacy, Delilah was interested in money, and neither one of them had God as a central figure in his or her life. And so they were actually very similar to a lot of today's couples when they marry, because they have two different ideas of how marriage is supposed to work, and they butt heads because of these different ideas. And they never come together.

So, what is the biblical plan for couples to come together?

Doug: Every couple needs somebody to work toward becoming like—and that somebody is God. In Famous Lovers in the Bible we show that the way to become one is through the concept of the marriage triangle. Picture a triangle and imagine God at the top point, the husband at one corner, and the wife at the other corner. As a husband and wife grow in the qualities of forgiveness, acceptance, mercy, and unconditional love, they are moving up those triangle sides toward God and becoming more like Him. And as the husband and wife individually move closer to God, they are simultaneously moving closer and closer to each other. And that's God's plan for us to become one—to draw closer to each other by drawing closer to Him.

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