A pastor’s review of one of the most accessible Christ-centered premarital resources available
Tying the Knot: A Premarital Guide to a Strong and Lasting Marriage by Rob Green (Greensboro: New Growth Press, 2016) is one of two premarital counseling resources I worked through as part of my doctoral coursework. Of the two, this is the one I would hand first to most engaged couples in my congregation. Here is why.
The Premise
Green writes from the biblical counseling tradition associated with the Faith Biblical Counseling Ministries in Lafayette, Indiana, and his book reflects that lineage. His central premise is captured in the structure of every chapter title: “Love with Jesus as the Center. Problem Solving with Jesus as the Center. Communication with Jesus as the Center.”
The thesis is simple and the thesis is correct. Every dimension of marriage – love, communication, conflict, finances, intimacy, community – flourishes or fails depending on whether Christ stands at the center of it. Green does not treat Christ-centeredness as a religious veneer over an otherwise generic marriage manual. He treats it as the actual structure of marriage, and every chapter rebuilds its topic on that foundation.
What Green Does Well
The mentor-couple model. Tying the Knot is designed to be worked through by an engaged couple under the guidance of an older, married couple from their church. The appendix titled “Just for the Mentors” walks the mentor couple through how to use the book and what to expect. This is one of the book’s most important contributions. It assumes the church is not a club but a community – and it puts the labor of premarital preparation into the kind of relationship in which it is most likely to bear fruit.
Accessibility. Green writes for a couple, not for a counselor. The chapters are short enough to be read together over coffee. The language is warm without being sentimental. The discussion questions at the end of each chapter give a mentor couple natural conversation entry points.
Theological depth without academic distance. Green never lectures. He does not show off his training. But the theology is real – gospel categories, biblical anthropology, covenant theology of marriage – sitting underneath every practical application. A couple working through Tying the Knot is not just learning marriage skills; they are being discipled.
The community chapter. Green’s Chapter 7 – “Community with Jesus as the Center” – is the chapter I have not seen in any other premarital resource. He insists that marriage was never meant to be an island and that isolation is both a symptom and a cause of marital dysfunction. For couples preparing to start a household in a culture that treats marriage as essentially private, this chapter is corrective in a way the others are not.
What I Would Supplement
The post-wedding phase. Tying the Knot is a premarital book. It ends at the wedding. Green’s contribution is genuine, but couples need ongoing pastoral care after the ceremony, and the book itself does not provide it. (For that piece, see my review of Wayne Mack’s Preparing for Marriage God’s Way, which builds in post-wedding checkups at six weeks, six months, and one year.)
The pre-conversion baggage question. Green assumes both partners are believers walking with the Lord. Many couples coming to a pastor’s office today carry sexual histories, financial entanglements, or prior relationships that complicate the premarital conversation. Tying the Knot gestures toward these realities without giving them sustained treatment. A pastor using this book will need to be prepared to fill that gap directly.
The mentor-couple bench. The book’s strength is also its limitation. The mentor-couple model only works if your church has mature couples available to do the work. In a small congregation, finding a qualified mentor couple for every engagement can be a real challenge. The book does not address this practical obstacle.
Who Should Read This Book
- Engaged couples in a church where a mentor-couple model is realistic, especially couples who would benefit from a warm, accessible introduction to gospel-shaped marriage.
- Mentor couples stepping into premarital ministry for the first time, who need a structured curriculum and clear guidance on how to use it.
- Pastors in churches where the pastor’s calendar makes a fully pastor-led premarital process unrealistic – Green gives you a tool to deploy faithful mentor couples without abdicating your own oversight.
How I Use It
In my own pastoral ministry, Tying the Knot is the book I assign as the foundation. I meet with the couple myself for the first session, the wedding-day session, and the post-wedding follow-up. In between, a mentor couple works through Green’s chapters with the engaged couple, and I check in periodically. The pastor’s office is not transferred to the mentors; the labor is shared, but the watch remains with me. (For more on that distinction, see The Pastor’s Charge Before the Altar.)
Final Word
If you are looking for one accessible premarital resource that is theologically faithful, practically usable, and structured for community engagement, Tying the Knot is the book I would recommend first. It will not do everything – no premarital book does – but what it does, it does well.
Rob Green, Tying the Knot: A Premarital Guide to a Strong and Lasting Marriage. Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2016.
This review is part of a pair. See also my review of Wayne Mack’s Preparing for Marriage God’s Way.