Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas
Week 10: Chapter 9 — Choosing to Love
Read Chapter 9 of Sacred Marriage. Key passages: Deuteronomy 30:19–20; Joshua 24:15; John 13:34–35.
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Thomas returns to the theme of love as a choice — but here he presses into the specific, daily decisions that either build or erode a marriage, arguing that love is far more a verb than a noun.
Discussion Questions
7 questions1.Thomas argues that the daily, unglamorous choices of marriage — getting up when a child cries, biting your tongue during an argument, choosing to ask how your spouse's day was when you are exhausted — are the actual substance of love. How does that reframe what love looks like in your marriage on an ordinary Tuesday?
2.He challenges the cultural narrative that love is something that "happens to" us — something we fall into and can fall out of — and argues instead that love is something we choose and keep choosing. Where in your own thinking do you still operate from the "falling in love" model rather than the "choosing to love" model?
3.Thomas discusses the way that each small act of self-giving builds a pattern of character over time — and each act of withdrawal or self-protection erodes it. What small choices have you been making lately, and what pattern are they building?
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