Is Your Marriage Based on
A Contract or Covenant?

By Fred Lowery

Recently, a man told me of his plans to divorce his wife of 30 years and just blurted right out, “My wife is a good woman and has always worked at making me happy, but she just can’t do that anymore. It’s time for me to move on and find somebody who can make me happy. I know God wants me to be happy.” To begin with, this man’s wife was not responsible for his happiness. He was! More importantly, him divorcing his wife and finding someone else wasn’t the answer -- and it certainly wasn’t and isn’t God’s answer. This man clearly viewed his marriage as a ‘contract’ to be broken -- not a ‘covenant’ to be kept.

What about you? Is your marriage a contract or covenant?

The Marriage Contract

Every bride and groom -- past, present and future -- needs to know the difference between a legal marriage and a biblical marriage. The difference between a marriage based on a contract and one based on a covenant.

America is a contract-oriented society. We like contracts because they have loopholes, bail-out options and safeguards. It’s one thing to purchase a house or a car with a contract, but when it comes to love and marriage that’s a totally different subject – or at least it should be!

The modern approach to marriage is to focus on personal rights and needs. Prevailing attitudes go something like this: “I deserve to be happy.” “I’m entitled to have my needs met.” “If this relationship ceases to give me what I want, if it gets tough or real boring, I can walk away. After all, marriage is a contract, and contracts are made to be broken.”

Society views marriage as a ‘social contract’ based on self-gratification. A commitment based on convenience. A terminal contract which implies “I promise to love, honor, and quit whenever I want to.” For example, it’s easier in the U.S. to walk away from a marriage than from a contract to buy a used car. Marriage has been called the “least binding of all contracts.” And, if you don’t believe that, just look at the divorce rates – even among Christians.

The Covenant v. the Contract

God never intended for marriage to be a convenience-based contract that we could easily get out of, but a character-based covenant that we would be committed to for life.

God knew we couldn’t build marriage on lust because marriage isn’t a cure for lust; self-control is. In the realm of physical attraction, beauty fades and gravity takes its toll. For example, I asked my wife Leigh if she would still love me when I was old, gray and flabby; she replied, “I do!”

Long-term marriage demands more than a piece of paper. It calls for the merging of lives and the binding of hearts. A contract is about legalism and leverage. A covenant is about love and loyalty. A contract is for “as long as we both shall love” whereas a covenant is for “as long as we both shall live.” Contracts call for the signing of names. Marriage covenants call for the binding of hearts. A contract is writing your name in ink across a piece of paper as opposed to a covenant where you write the name of your mate across your heart in blood. To marry in covenant is to form a bond strong enough that a mate’s heart can rely on it and a child’s heart can count on it! A covenant is the merging of two hearts so that they beat as one -- the blending of two lives to form one!

When it comes to marriage, the world has it all wrong. A covenant is the only adequate foundation on which to build a lasting marriage. We must recover and reaffirm the biblical view of marriage as a sacred and permanent covenant.

When you enter a covenant marriage you are saying, “I am yours by covenant and you are mine by covenant and neither one of us is going anywhere.”

How Do You View Marriage?

Your attitude will give you a good sense of whether or not you view your marriage as a contract or a covenant. Read though this list of contrasting attitudes and examine your own attitude:

Contract Minded	Covenant Minded
You had better do it!	How may I serve you?
What do I get?	What can I give?
What will it take?	Whatever it takes!
It’s not my responsibility.	I'm happy to do it!
It’s not my fault.	I accept responsibility.
I’ll meet you halfway.	I'll give 100 percent.
I’ll be faithful for now.	I'll be faithful forever.
I am suspicious.	I am trusting.
I have to.	I want to.
It’s a deal.	It’s a relationship.

How you answered determines: How you approach your marriage, how hard you work on your marriage, and how you see your spouse. If your marriage is a contract, you see your spouse as he or she is – faults, flaws and foibles, which are irritations that can become huge and assume the worst. If your marriage is a covenant, you see your spouse not as he or she is, but as he or she can become and assume the best, overlooking imperfections. A contract magnifies faults. A covenant covers faults with love. WARNING: Even a marriage that begins in covenant can degenerate into a contract over time.

A 3-Stranded Cord

“I’ll do my part, if you’ll do yours.” “I’ll meet you in the middle.” “If you’ll do this, I’ll do that.” “Marriage is a 50/50 proposition.” “That’s not my role.” These phrases relate to terms and conditions and are contractual in nature. A true covenant marriage is always a threesome: God, husband, and wife.

I have two daughters. As they grew up, Leigh braided their hair and the hair of their friends. I never knew how. The kids loved it -- they knew how to weave three strands together. It was a tight hold, beautiful and stayed in place. The third strand holds the other two. It is the same with a rope -- three strands are better than two, four, or five. Why? The third strand is constantly touching the other two -- it is the strongest and the tightest. In covenant marriage, God is the critical third stand: husband/wife/God. As Solomon, the wisest man to ever live, said, “A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.” (Ecclesiastes 4:12)

Covenant marriage, as divinely planned, is a binding together of three persons: a man, a woman, and Almighty God. As long as the couple stays in close contact with each other and with God, they have an unbreakable bond. By God’s design, life’s two most intimate and sacred relationships are salvation and marriage. They are entered into and maintained on the basis of covenant.

Conclusion

If God operated on the basis of contract, we would all be doomed. I certainly would. I’ve broken many promises. I’ve defaulted. How about you? Yet God has given us unconditional grace, unconditional love and unending forgiveness. Three things you and your mate need that you can’t give apart from the power and grace of God are a love that is unconditional, a forgiveness that is unending and an attitude that is unselfish.

Covenant love is a tenacious love that never lets go. Never gives up. Never quits – but holds on with a bulldog tenacity regardless of what the other partner does or fails to do.

Unconditional covenant love overrides feelings, fickleness and even failures.

Dr. Fred Lowery is the Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church of Bossier City, Louisiana and has served as President of the Louisiana State Convention, President of the Southern Baptist Conventions Pastors Conference and as Vice President of the Southern Baptist Convention. He is author of several books including Making the Bible Clear, Starting Here, Starting Now, Home Improvement 101 and Covenant Marriage: Staying Together for Life. For more information visit www.fredlowery.com.