AnchoredHow each session works
- Read the passage aloud. One of you reads; switch each day. Hearing it slows you both down.
- Sit with it for a minute. Each of you picks the word or phrase that stood out, without saying it yet.
- Answer the question separately first. Write a line each in your phone or a notebook, then share. When neither of you hears the other first, you both answer more honestly.
- Pray one sentence each. Thank God for something in the passage, or ask Him for help with what it showed you.
Keep it to ten minutes. If a question opens up a long conversation, let it, but do not make every session a long one. The weekends are free: use them to catch up on a missed day, or to go back to the question that mattered most.
“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”
Week 1: Made for each other
Start with where marriage starts in Scripture: God saying it was not good for the man to be alone. These readings are about why you belong together, which is worth remembering before the harder weeks.
- Day 1: Genesis 2:18-25. Where do you feel most like we are a team, and where do you sometimes feel alone?
- Day 2: Ecclesiastes 4:9-12. When did one of us last lift the other up? What would help you right now?
- Day 3: Ruth 1:16-17. What did you leave behind, or give up, to build a life with me?
- Day 4: Song of Solomon 2:10-13. What first drew you to me, and what do you love now that you did not know then?
- Day 5: Song of Solomon 8:6-7. What is quietly cooling our love right now: tiredness, busyness, screens, something else?
“And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”
Week 2: Love in practice
Most couples know 1 Corinthians 13 from their wedding. This week reads it as a description of an ordinary Tuesday, alongside other passages about what love does rather than how it feels.
- Day 1: 1 Corinthians 13:4-5. Which of these comes easily to you, and which is hardest?
- Day 2: 1 Corinthians 13:6-7. Where do you need me to believe the best about you this week?
- Day 3: Romans 12:9-13. What would "in honour preferring one another" look like in our home this week?
- Day 4: Colossians 3:12-14. Which of these do you most need from me at the moment? Answer kindly, and listen without defending.
- Day 5: 1 John 4:7-12. How has God’s love for you changed the way you love me?
“And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.”
Week 3: Words and conflict
This is the week most likely to sting, so go gently. The aim is not to reopen every old argument but to agree on how you want to speak to each other when things get hard.
- Day 1: James 1:19-20. In our disagreements, which of us is quicker to speak? What helps you feel heard?
- Day 2: Ephesians 4:25-27. Is there anything we have let the sun go down on?
- Day 3: Ephesians 4:29-32. What words of mine build you up most? Which ones hurt more than I realise?
- Day 4: Proverbs 15:1. What is one "soft answer" we could agree to use when a conversation starts to heat up?
- Day 5: Matthew 18:21-22. Is there something you are still finding hard to forgive? Share only what you are ready to.
“And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”
Week 4: Building on the rock
The last week looks ahead: what your home is built on, who it serves and what you want it to be known for.
- Day 1: Matthew 7:24-27. What storm have we already come through, and what held us together?
- Day 2: Psalm 127:1. Where are we trying to build in our own strength?
- Day 3: Philippians 2:3-5. What is one thing that matters to you that you wish I paid more attention to?
- Day 4: Ephesians 5:21-33. Verse 21 says "submitting yourselves one to another." What does that look like for us, in practice?
- Day 5: Joshua 24:14-15. What one habit do we want our home to be known for a year from now?
“Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.”
If you miss a day (you will)
- Do not catch up on everything. Read today’s passage and move on. Use the weekend for anything you really want back.
- Shrink it, do not skip it. On a hard night, read the passage and ask the question. No writing, no long talk.
- Tie it to something fixed. After dinner or before the lights go off works better than "when we have time".
- If one of you is more keen, let the other choose which question you talk about first.
After the four weeks
Pick one thing to keep. For many couples it is the question, not the reading: one honest question about Scripture, answered by both of you, changes the conversation more than any plan. How to start a couples devotional covers keeping a daily rhythm going, and 25 Bible verses about marriage gives you a month of single verses to read together. In Anchored, each of the 12 thirty-day series works like this plan: the same passage for both of you, one question, and answers that stay private until you have both answered. Foundations is the natural next step.
