Customer Reviews

Covenant Marriage: Building Communication and Intimacy

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Popular author and relationship expert Gary Chapman adds yet another valuable marriage volume to his portfolio with COVENANT MARRIAGE. Well known for his bestselling series of titles based on "The Five Love Languages," he strives in his latest work to move couples from a contract mentality toward covenant matrimony.

Decrying the growing divorce rate among Christians, Chapman calls readers to a closer commitment to the cause of Christ. In his estimation there isn't the social stigma attached to divorce that there once was, and this is largely a result of divorce becoming culturally acceptable in the church.

Chapman suggests that communication and intimacy are essential to maintaining the sacredness of the marriage relationship, and he outlines the means to achieving them with skill and sensitivity. Identifying the types of unhealthy communication patterns and the five levels of communication, he offers readers useful material in a meaningful manner.

As Chapman cleverly points out, "The word communication is found in the dictionary between the words commotion and community." Building on that thought, he suggests to couples that community is the result of good communication while commotion is created by poor communication.

He also addresses the need for a definition of love that is scriptural rather than secular, maintaining that too many couples today focus more on being happy than being holy. Chapman explains that the secular meaning of love is a feeling, while the scriptural meaning is a commitment.

According to Chapman, the mistake that many people make is that they place an emphasis on the fleeting emotion of happiness, which is dependent on what is happening temporarily instead of on the eternal value of holiness, which is reflective of a life wholly submitted to the Lord. After all, he states, the purpose of life is to do the will of God, not our own.

Paradoxically, Chapman reminds readers that life is more than having a good marriage. "The Christian's ultimate call is not the call to develop a good marriage; the Christian's call is to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. As Christians, we must remember that marriage is not an end in itself," he writes.

One particularly helpful resource is a chart with the heading, "Personality Opposites," which treats readers to an instructive listing of a dozen stereotypical personality types and their polar opposites, offering an insightful lesson on how opposites attract.

Toward the close of the book, Chapman devotes several chapters to specific types of intimacy, including emotional intimacy, intellectual intimacy, sexual intimacy and spiritual intimacy, complete with helpful suggestions for achieving each type.

A welcome addition to the growing collection of marriage enrichment guides, COVENANT MARRIAGE is a must-read for anyone who desires a marriage modeled on covenant commitment rather than contract convenience.

--- Reviewed by Sean Fowlds

First of all, I love Gary Chapman's books. I started with reading "The Five Love Languages", then I read "The Love Languages of God".

As a new Christian, there are things that I found very difficult to understand when people who explain to me their opinion of a Christ-centered relationship and what a mature Christian is. I was so confused and felt disappointed and hopeless.

CHAPMAN'S book came to my rescue!

The chapter "Covenant Marriage" explained the concept of a Christ-centered relationship and actually gives you some pretty basic steps to build that foundation.

The chapter "Spiritual Intimacy" is probably the section of the book that meant the most to me. It explained the concepts of spiritual growth and spiritual intimacy.
--Spiritual Growth illustrated to me that I was a mature Christian, and that mature Christians want to be more like Christ. It's not that they've been going to church and reading the Bible for years. It's in their willingness to be living sacrifices to God and to be more like Christ.
--Spiritual Intimacy also answered the question that I had, "How can a newly rededicated Christian be loving, convenant relationship with someone who has been a Christian for some time?" According to Chapman, both partners don't have to be at the same level in their relationships with God; however, they have to be willing to share it with each other.

This book gave me a lot of hope for establishing a devinely blessed covenant relationship with the man God has chosen for me.

This is indeed one of the powerful book written on building communications & total intimacy (Physical, Emotional, Intellectual, Sexual and Spiritual) in marriage. This book effectively deals with the root of broken marriage problems, our relationship with God, which is central in building an intimate marriage. This book is an excellent investment in restoring, building and enriching your relationship.

This is a great book for married couples and well as those contemplating marraige. I have read a number of books on covenant marriage and consider this one of the best. The communication chapters and the various intimacy chapters are very well written. You will not be disappointed in having this book on your self for a resource for years to come.

To be honest, I gave this book every benfit of the doubt I could muster, but still felt let down at the end of nearly every chapter. Gary Chapman's approach to a covenant marriage is decidedly secular in its premise, taking most of its cues from popular psychology (self-esteem issues, childhood emotional distress, personal rights to happiness and self-fulfillment). While I don't deny these problems exist for the average Christian, I believe God, through His Word, has called us to a life that chooses to esteem others primarily and ourselves secondarily, a life that moves beyond the chains of childhood trauma, and a life whose rights have been voluntarily relinquished in service to Christ.
So many times, he gets close to the root of the problems we experience in our relationships, but doesn't quite go deep enough. The Bible teaches that my own sinful desires are the reason I fight and quarrell with my wife, not the pattern of communication I learned from my parents. The Bible calls damaging patterns of communication sin, not Chapman's sugar-coated term "unhealthy communication". The Bible teaches that we are each responsible for our responses, emtions, thoughts, and behaviors, not our spouse who is assaulting our self-esteem.
Chapman's use of Scriptre is almost entirely antecdotal, being used as a tool to verify his already-established ideas rather than as the foundation from which he develops his thesis.
All that being said, I believe he hit the nail on the head with his concept of the "covenant marriage" versus the "contract marriage." The covenant marriage is lived out for the good of both persons involved, with no thought for divorce, to glory of God. The contract marriage is a simple agreement by which I carry my load, you carry yours, and if one party or other violates the contract, consequences (sometimes severe) are in order.
The bottom line for me is, in a world of blame-shift behaviors and not-my-fault attitudes, we need the truth of the Word of God more than ever. We need to first recognize our own sinful desires and examine them for what they truely are before we can begin properly communicating with our spouses in loving, respectful ways. Certainly, open and honest communication with our spouses is vitally important. We need to talk and share daily, to stay involved in one another's lives, and lovingly correct and rebuke when necessary. But apart from true heart change brought by power of the Holy Spirit founded in the infallable inspired Word of God, all the behavior modifcation in the world will amount to only a stop-gap measure against the root of the marrital problems each of us is bound to encounter.

This book has been a fabulous benchmark in my relationship with my wife. I am finding out in this book, that most of the effective changes that are taking place are happening when I am making the changes to my own views and habits and attitudes in comparison to God's outlook. As long as I am looking at how "I" can help this relationship, this book is a MUST.. It will drive you into the most wonderful "garden of eden" with your wife.
If you are a man thinking maybe you need to quit looking for her to get better, this book will bring change to the 10th level. Get it..

Sadly, based upon our skyrocketing divorce rate, our society has essentially changed the words in the marriage vows to "as long as I get what I want" from "as long as we both shall live." Dr. Chapman says that our marriage vow (promise before God) is supposed to be a covenant to love our spouse regardless of what we receive back from them - not a contract in which we agree to give our spouse something of value as long as we receive back something of value.

Awesome book! Its helped me to exam things I need to work on in my life!

Gary Chapman is just a normal guy trying to live a Christian life. His marriage seminar is great if you ever get a chance to attend one. I really like this book and have been giving it as a wedding present.

I actually had started this book when I first got married and gave up because I thought I knew everything. A few years later I noticed my relationship with my husband was stagnant and I had grown deeply lonely. I knew the fault largely was mine, but I couldn't figure out what to do. So, I returned to this book. I read it all the way through in a week and took notes and shared my insights with my husband.

Basically, before I read the book I felt like I had balled up emotionally and psychologically. I read through the book and analyzed myself as I went through the chapters to figure out my unhealthy patterns of communication, underlying fears, and defense mechanisms and triggers. The book gave me a place to start the unrolling process and steps to proceed from there.