Product Description

Drawing on the story of Samson and Delilah, this book explores God's wonderful plan and pattern for marriage and family. It also addresses key problem areas so they can be healed before they wreck a marriage.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #147693 in Books
• Published on: 1998-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

About the Author
Bishop Eddie L. Long is the senior pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. He has a B.S. degree in Business Administration from North Carolina Central University and a Masters of Divinity degree from Interdenominational Theological Center (ITC) in Atlanta. He is also the Presiding Bishop within the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship and has served as area moderator for the American Baptist Churches of the South. His acclaimed television program appears on TBN, ABC, BET, German Television, and the U.S. Armed Forces Station. Bishop Long and his wife Vanessa are the proud parents of four children: Eric, Edward, Jared, and Taylor. The family resides in Stone Mountain, Georgia.

Customer Reviews

If I were Delilah, I am no longer.
A very good piece of work with some precious pearls of wisdom. An excellent read. Great for newlyweds and seasoned couples alike. Highly recommended.

Judge for Yourself - Worth Reading
I am reading this book now. I wish I would've read this book before I got married. Unfortunately, I am divorcing, but I can say that this book is a real pick-me-up. I am now understanding the role of a man and a woman in a marriage and now I know what to look for when I do get married again. The responsibility of a man in the household, How men and women are different, how to get past hurts and how not to be manipulitive. God wants relationships to have order. Work as a team under the guidance of the Almighty. Women and men are the same in the spirit, but they provide a different function. If one person doesn't fulfill their role, the marriage will not work. The love emotions will fade and it will end in disaster! Amen! I went through it. I haven't finished reading all the chapters yet, but I can't put it down. Decide for yourself, it is a real blessing to me. Thanks Bishop Long!!!

Yup, the first negative review
Eddie Long presents a book attempting to teach people about Godly relationships and what both sexes require in them. While his intentions are certainly noble, they fell short of pleasing or helping me in several important areas. Before I start my ranting, let me say that he does make some very good points about marriage and the sexes. Heck, the man even points out that Delilah wasn't all bad, and you gotta give him gutsy points for that! I applaud him for certain comments, such as telling men not to blame their wives for their problems and to listen to and value their opinions; he also gives women some good advice about men. So what's my problem with him? Well, in spite of all his seeming understanding of the female spirit, his ideas of a woman's role in society are nothing short of sexist.

First of all, he began with the fatal error of telling me that wives should obey their husbands. Not submit to, but obey, as though wives are children. The word "obedience" is an absolute no-no in the marriage vocabulary as far as I'm concerned. This obedience thing honestly surprised me, since he had claimed that women are equal to men. Apparently, someone should have explained to him the meaning of equality, because several of his other comments contradict his supposed belief in it.

When he talks about female obedience, he doesn't draw the line at marriage alone, but indicates that a woman's lot in life is to be obedient to a male force: "her father before marriage, her husband after marriage, and possibly a pastor in an intermediate period." So, where's the equality? As an independent woman, there is hardly anything that offends me more than a man presuming to tell a woman that obedience is best for her (isn't that similar to what Southern whites used to tell Africans about slavery?) Other contradictions are visible in his writing; for example, in spite of saying that it's okay for a woman to be single, he indicates that women were made for men, both to give them companionship and to bear them babies. Men NEED women, he says, and women so need to nurture their men. He even pulled the age-old trick of saying that a woman can influence a man by submitting to him. He basically seemed to be saying that we're supposed to obey our husbands and be their mommies at the same time.

Maybe Long realized that he sounded sexist, because he went way out of his way to praise women's strengths and to emphasize how much men need us, so much so that he actually made me wonder why men SHOULD be in charge if we're so great and they're so needy. The final straw for me was his comments about women having jobs. He said, "I think I understand why women take on men's jobs. Either they've been abandoned and forced to work, or abused in the past and would rather work than rely on a man." Um, you forgot a third possiblility, buddy: Maybe we take on "men's" jobs because we're perfectly competent and capable of doing so! Why imply that a woman only works if there's something wrong with her? With this comment, his claim of belief in equality flew out the window once and for all. But then, I should have seen this coming when he said wives should be obedient; how are women to be equals in society if our own husbands don't treat us as such? Marriage is about two people coming together, NOT about the wife morphing into the husband.

I suppose Long and his wife have the right to practice one-sided marital submission, but he doesn't have the right to pass this off as God's will and attempt to cram it down our throats repeatedly. His agenda is clear when he calls disobedient wives "ungrateful" and tells women that if they don't obey their husbands, their marriage will be miserable and their children will be dysfunctional because they won't know how to deal with male/female relationships. Whatever, fella; I fully intend to get married without obeying my husband. I guess I'll just have to pray that my heinous ingratitude doesn't drive my poor family into therapy. Don't be fooled by his sweet talk, ladies; what his message really boils down to is this: it's perfectly okay for a woman to be strong, but only if she stays in her place. Which, in case you weren't paying attention, is consistently under a man's control.