Lauren Ducommun

Why is it so important to teach our kids what the Bible says about sexuality and marriage?

“From God’s perspective, marriage isn’t just a formal arrangement or the foundation of a family or even a safe place for sexual expression. It’s not simply a means to my personal fulfillment and happiness. Marriage is a story. It’s a piece of art. It’s a lived experience that’s meant to point to something outside ourselves, something far better. It’s painting a picture of humanity’s relationship with God. When it’s wrongly used, then, it distorts this picture. It gives us wrong ideas about God, ourselves, and the story he’s writing.”

The Good Book Company just released a new book for teens that “offers deep, life-giving answers” that “doesn’t just communicate them through a bunch of rules. It tells a story. A story about God’s design, Jesus’ love, and how life works best.”

More to the Story: Deep Answers to Real Questions on Attraction, Identity, and Relationships

What does the Bible actually say about sex and sexuality? Why does God care what I do with my body? Is the Bible really against gay marriage?

Jennifer Kvamme responds to questions many teens have today about attraction, gender identity, and relationships with Scripture and kindness. So often, we are given “Christian” responses that only seem to address the fruit, but Jennifer takes the time to come alongside teens and engage with their deep questions. Her desire is for them to see God’s grace and the love Jesus has for them.

More to the Story is broken into two parts: the first explains the big story of the Bible, and the second responds to direct questions about the body, identity, desire, gender, singleness, intimacy, orientation, screens, dating, and abuse. Throughout her book, Kvamme reminds us of how God created our bodies and was the one who “thought up sex and romance,” and that marriage and sex were made to be pictures of our relationship with him. 

“Marriage and sex–even at their best–are faint shadows of something infinitely greater: the relationship with God for which we were ultimately designed.” By explaining the story of creation, fall, and redemption, she reminds us that the fall “began unraveling the good of God’s created design.”

Kvamme lays a wonderful foundation in her chapter on body and identity. She explains how our bodies are sacred, that we can’t split our soul from our body, and of the identity that we were given by God. Our identity “does not depend on your sexual desires, your choices, or your feelings. It depends only on whether or not you belong to Christ–whether you accept his gift.” 

I found her explanation of why it’s not always loving to accept what our friends believe about themselves. She shared that it would be unloving for us to affirm a friend who saw herself as fat or a depressed friend who believed she was worthless. Therefore, it may not be loving to accept everything one may say about their gender or sexual identity. “Our feelings and views of who we are can be incredibly deep and persistent, but that doesn’t necessarily make them true.”

Throughout More to the Story, Kvamme addresses questions many teens may be wondering: How do I figure out what really makes me me? Why does it matter what pronouns I use? Is my sexual desire sin? What can and can’t we do while dating? Always, Kvamme responds in a winsome manner, far from legalistic or moralistic, that seeks to help the reader see God’s grace. And that we need to show everyone the same grace that Jesus has shown us. Kvamme also writes assuming the reader either considers the Bible as an authority, or is at least considering it to be true. Overall, More to the Story points readers to the lasting joy we have in Christ and that’s “there’s hope even if your experience of sexuality has been painful, complicated, or filled with shame.”

Favorite quotes:

• Speaking on our culture’s portrayal of how men and women should live out their gender: “Rigid cultural gender roles have no biblical warrant. Christians cannot make a scriptural case for masculine and feminine stereotypes.” –Tim Keller
• “Our sexed bodies are a core part of our humanity and of being made in God’s image.”
• “Both marriage and singleness testify to the gospel. Marriage shows us the shape of the gospel in that it models the covenant promises that God has made to us in Christ. Singleness shows us the sufficiency of the gospel because it shows us the reality of what marriage points to–which is our own relationship with Jesus. That is the real marriage. That is the ultimate goal for all of us. Singleness is a way of saying that because I’ve got the reality, I don’t need the signpost, I don’t need the model of it.” – Sam Alberry

Who is this book for?

I would recommend More to the Story to pretty much all teens, especially those either in or seeking to be in relationships, those with questions about gender identity, or those struggling with same-sex attraction. This would be for teens already familiar with terms such as LGBTQ+, sexual assault, pornography, oral sex, masturbation, etc. It is also worthy to note, that it is written from a healthy complementarian perspective.

I received this book from The Good Book Company in exchange for an honest review.

More to the Story
by Jennifer M. Kvamme
The Good Book Company, 2024
160 pages