The Covenant Household

Families are formed by covenants. But what is a covenant, and what does that mean for your family?

Look Inside the Book or Listen on Canon+

Throughout Scripture, God makes covenants with His people. This is not just a contract, but a personal bond in which God takes responsibility for His people, and His people respond to him in faith. This is true of our relationship with God, and it is true in the case of lesser covenants, such as the covenant family.

In this short book, Pastor Douglas Wilson shows how the family should live in the light of what the Bible says about the covenant. The husband is the head of the household, and this means that the problems of the family members are not their problems but his problems. The husband cannot just dismiss his wife’s problems as something she needs to work through by herself, and the father cannot complain when his kids get into trouble. They are his people.

This book covers everything from marriage to childrearing to cultural engagement. The family is not just a collection of individuals: it is a unit joined together by God, and we should live as though that were true, because it is.

From the Book

"I have yet to see a husband who takes godly responsibility for his wife and then whose wife takes ungodly advantage of it. I am sure it has happened sometime, but I haven’t seen it yet. Wives are built by God to be responsive. This is because, as Paul says, “he that loveth his wife loveth himself” (Eph. 5:28). As a general rule, a husband who loves his wife is not loving someone eager to take advantage of him: women are built to respond in love. It is amazing to me how much some wives can love with how little encouragement they get. But when a husband really loves his wife, he will discover that as he gives these blessings to his wife, he will discover that his wife consistently gives a bigger return. He shovels blessings on her, and then discovers that she has a much bigger shovel. He who loves his wife loves himself. She is always able to return more in blessing to him than he has given to her. Godly wives are multipliers." ~from the book