I was intrigued when I found this book on Netgalley for review. My wife and I read Chapman’s Five Love Languages several years ago and learned a lot from it as we were able to see which love language each of us appreciated and responded to the most.
In Now You’re Speaking My Language, Chapman brings a much stronger Christian feel to the book with scriptural references to support his ideas. I will admit though that I have some issues of recommending this book to others.
He speaks of marriage in two terms, as contract and covenant. Of course, his thesis is that a good Christian marriage should reflect a covenant marriage in which the couple is open to all and communication is always open. This is compared to a contract marriage which there is just simply agreements and bargaining made. He makes it seem that for a marriage to be successful you have to be Christian and follow all of these steps. Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of a covenant marriage, however, I also believe there is room for a relationship to work in other terms as well.
The second issue that I have with this book is the image that he portrays that all marriages should be made to last regardless of what occurs within the marriage, including abuse. His argument is that you should be able to confront the issue and seek forgiveness. This is great in theory. In reality though, some relationships are just not healthy regardless of all you try to do.
a mysterious way 