Product Description

Beyond the tough love of covenant-keeping is a warmth and tenderness that can't be denied. So while John Piper's This Momentary Marriage focuses on the theological meaning of marriage, its companion volume, Velvet Steel, reveals the rich, emotional dimension.

Within these pages Piper shares a series of poems written for his wife, Noël, during the first forty-two years of their relationship, starting from the day of their engagement. In it he provides readers with a taste of one man's tender affections for his wife-poems that he hopes will fan into flame readers' affections for their own spouses and ultimately for the Maker of marriage.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #246848 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 80 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781433511318
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author

JOHN PIPER is pastor for preaching and vision at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. His many books include Sex and the Supremacy of Christ, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, What Jesus Demands from the World, and Don't Waste Your Life.

Customer Reviews

Buy it with This Momentary Marriage
As a companion volume to This Momentary Marriage Piper has released a collection of poetry under the title Velvet Steel: The Joy of Being Married to You. He says that it is an overflow of his affection for his wife and that in some way this book complete This Momentary Marriage. Where This Momentary Marriage deals primarily with covenant-keeping and not the affections of being in-love, Velvet Steel gives some examples of what the affections have been like over the past forty years.

The poems are arranged chronologically, perhaps not in the order they were written, but in the order of their application to marriage. So the first poems speak of a wedding and the final ones speak of death. Most of the poems are short, just a page or two in length. Many are excerpts of longer works.

Though I do not read poetry as often as I ought and though I am not very skilled at reading and understanding it, I greatly enjoyed this little volume. I read through it on my own and then returned to some of the selections later with my wife. Piper is a gifted poet and in this little book he communicates not only what he could not communicate because of the theme of the first book, but also because of the genre. There are some things that only poetry can communicate; great affections often turn from prose to poetry and for good reason. Here Piper shares his affections in a wonderful collection of little poems. It is a perfect companion to This Momentary Marriage.

Velvet Steel by John Piper
Velvet Steel is a book of poetry written to John Piper's wife, Noel. It is a small companion book to This Momentary Marriage. Most of the poetry included are excerpts from longer poems that Mr. Piper wrote and are "an overflow of my affection for my wife of more than forty years". There is one poem per page, so it's an easy read. If you like poetry, you'll love this book. I received this book from Crossway.