Free Essay

Till Death Do Us Part

In: English and Literature

Submitted By erksporer
Words 1228
Pages 5
Eric Sporer
2-21-12
Professor Newsom
English 1010, Project 2
Till Death do us Part
According to divorcerate.org the divorce rate in America for first marriage is 41 percent. Isn’t that crazy? What ever happened till death do us part? So many marriages are plummeting and simply not working out. Mark and Grace Driscoll American pastors and authors who preach at Mars Hill Church in Seattle Washington, wrote a book on marriage called “Real Marriage, The Truth About Sex, Friendship & Life Together”. This book focuses on ways to maintain or get back to a healthy relationship or marriage. The book is also great for single people wanting to know the true meaning of marriage and how to be a great spouse. Mark and Grace tell their story on how they brought their marriage back together and also talk about all the mistakes they made down the road, unlike most marriage books that just talk about the good. In “Real Marriage, The Truth About Sex, Friendship & Life Together” Mark and Grace Driscoll make the claim that friends before marriage is a good marriage after and that perusing Gods grace together helps lead them to a healthier relationship, by using personal experiences, comparison, cause and consequence and pathos.
Mark and Grace’s own personal experience’s, which serve, as an appeal to their ethos, is a rhetorical strategy they use in the book. The Driscolls talk about their own personal experiences with marriage early in the book. They discuss their story on how they meet and also the conflicts and issues they had early in their marriage. “I had a dream in which I saw some things that shook me to my core. I saw in painful detail Grace sinning sexually during a senior trip she took after high school when we had just started dating” (pg.11) This is quoted my Mark, and in the book he actually confronted Grace and asked if it was true and she confessed that yes, it was true. This was the biggest issue that stared all the conflict between the two. Mark felt unwanted, alone and was left with serious trust issues with Grace. “By a miracle of God’s grace, we stayed faithful to each other in our marriage.” (pg.16) This is another quote by Mark, and he is saying that by God’s grace they were still together even though they were going through dark times. Mark explains in the book that he believes the only reason their marriage worked out is because they both had such a strong relationship with Christ, they prayed for each other and Christ got them through the harsh and painful times. Neither Mark or Grace believed in divorce, so unlike most couples they prayed together, meet with a councilor and worked together to fix the issues.
Another rhetorical device that Mark and Grace use during the text is cause and consequence. Grace states in the book “Mark wished he hadn’t married me; I wished I hadn’t ever lied” (pg.19). This was said after their big fight about Grace cheating on Mark early on in their relationship. This quote resembles cause and consequence because it shows how Grace made the mistake of cheating on Mark and hiding it from him, which put a burden on her. Grace also had to suffer the consequence of having to confront Mark knowing that it could possibly ruin their marriage. Mark said things got rough for them but unlike most married coupled they stuck together, through thick and thin. Mark prayed to God and felt that God spoke to him saying to forgive Grace and lead her, lead her with strong arms and stand up when she can not, lead her and live a life that is pleasing to God, and also to strive to make each other better people. Mark and Grace use Pathos to try and persuade the readers to pursue and live a happier and healthier marriage. Mark believes that there are three components to create a healthier marriage. Be best friends, lead each other to Christ and have sex regularly. Yes there may be a lot of other essential components to having a good marriage but these are the three Mark believes are most important, Grace said, “key on these three topics and the others will fall in place.” (pg.46) A quote that I really like from Jeff Bethke a Christian poet states “For the singles, become friends first before you ever become lovers, peruse Jesus as your foundation before you get under the covers”. These are really strong words because many people “think” that they are in love so they marry each other although they have been dating for 8 months, then the same people complain that their partner wasn’t who they expected to be, no, you just didn’t know them well enough. Friends before marriage will make a good marriage after. Mark addresses in the book “have healthy sex regularly” (pg.97) Mark believes many couples are in conflict because one spouse (usually the man) believes that they do not have enough sex, which can cause tension and stress with another.
Another rhetorical strategy Mark and Grace use is comparison. In the book they both compare how marriage was 30 years ago to how it is now. Like I said earlier, the divorce rate is higher than ever. It seems like in today’s culture people misunderstand the true meaning of marriage, another quote I really like from Jeff Bethke states “Till death do us part, really means till the feelings go away”. Todays culture views marriage as a job, and once they are in conflict they panic and run away, instead of working out their issues. Divorce.com states, “Since 1970 marriages have declined 30%. Since 1970 divorces have increased 40%.” Back then both life and marriage were different. Women stayed at home while men were out working. Grace talks about marriage back then being more sacred, and today people feel that they have to get married, and if they don’t they are not accepted by their parents. Marriage is a choice it should be something people truly want to do, not forced to do.
In conclusion the book “Real Marriage, The Truth About Sex, Friendship & Life Together.” Written by Mark and Grace Driscoll is a book that uses several rhetorical strategies. The authors use Pathos to try and persuade the readers to enforce and live a happier and healthier marriage. They also use cause and consequence by the authors expressing their problems they had early on in their marriage, and how they have learned from their mistakes. Mark and Grace also use their own personal experience’s, which serve, as an appeal to their ethos, Talking about all the problems they faced with their marriage and how they got through the hard times, by praying to God and also leading their marriage with faith the grace of God. Lastly the authors use comparison; in the book they both compare how marriage was 30 years ago to how it is viewed today, believing that marriage was more sacred back then.

Work Cited

* http://www.divorcerate.org/ * Driscoll, Mark, and Grace Driscoll. Real Marriage: The Truth about Sex, Friendship & Life Together. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2012. Print. * Divorce.com * http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4OK9DmLpCY (YouTube video with Jeff Bethke)

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