Premarital Counseling Questions for Pastors: 49 Questions for Seven Sessions

The best premarital counseling questions do not test a couple. They open the conversations a marriage will need: the covenant they are making, how they love and speak to each other, the families they come from, roles, money, conflict and sex. Below are seven questions for each of seven sessions, 49 in all, with the passage each session starts from and notes on how to use them.

The seven sessions, in order:

1. The covenant and the fear of the Lord
2. Love, communication and service
3. Family of origin and family patterns
4. Roles, functions and responsibility
5. Finances and marital agreements
6. Conflict, forgiveness and renewal
7. Sexuality and marital intimacy

How to use these questions

A list of questions can turn a pastoral conversation into an interview. A few habits keep that from happening.

• Choose, do not recite. Pick three or four questions for the meeting and send the rest home for the couple to discuss.
• Ask each person. Let each one answer without the other finishing the sentence. Some of the most important answers come from the quieter of the two.
• Listen for what is not said. A short answer, a glance, a change of subject: follow it gently.
• Start from the text. Read the passage first. The questions serve Scripture, not the other way around.
• Keep notes. Return to them in the last session and ask what has changed.

Session 1: The covenant and the fear of the Lord

Base texts: Genesis 2:18-25; Ephesians 5:22-33. Marriage is a covenant before God, and the union of Christ and the church is its pattern.

The Westminster Confession (24.2) names three purposes for marriage: the mutual help of husband and wife, children, and purity. The 1689 London Baptist Confession (25.2) names the same three, without the Westminster phrase about increasing the church with a holy seed. Both say Christians are to marry "in the Lord" (WCF 24.3; LBCF 25.3).

1. Why do you want to marry each other, and why now?
2. What is a covenant, and how is it different from a contract?
3. Ephesians 5 says marriage points to Christ and the church. What should that change in the way you treat each other?
4. How would each of you describe your own faith today, apart from the other?
5. Where are you spiritually different, and how will you handle that difference?
6. Of the three purposes of marriage, mutual help, children and purity, which have you talked about least?
7. Who will you invite to hold you accountable after the wedding?

Session 2: Love, communication and service

Base text: 1 Corinthians 13. Love is a decision and a practice before it is a feeling, and serving comes before demanding.

1. When do you feel most loved by the other? When do you feel least loved?
2. How does each of you react when you are tired, hurt or disappointed?
3. What conversation have you been postponing?
4. Read 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 together. Which line describes your love well, and which one convicts you?
5. How will you make time to talk when work, church and children compete for it?
6. What does serving the other look like on an ordinary weekday?
7. What does each of you need to hear more often?

Session 3: Family of origin and family patterns

Base texts: Genesis 2:24; Ephesians 4:31-32. A man leaves his father and mother and holds fast to his wife: a new household begins.

1. What did marriage look like in the home you grew up in?
2. What do you want to carry into your home, and what do you want to leave behind?
3. How did your family handle conflict, money and affection?
4. What will leaving father and mother mean in practice: holidays, decisions, money, advice?
5. How do your parents feel about this marriage?
6. Is there a relationship in your family that still needs forgiveness?
7. Are there patterns of addiction, abuse or violence in either family that you have never discussed with each other?

Pastoral note. If the answers point to abuse, serious trauma or addiction, refer the couple to a trusted Christian counselor and keep caring for them as their pastor. Premarital preparation is not therapy, and it should not try to be.

Session 4: Roles, functions and responsibility

Base texts: Ephesians 5:21-33; 1 Peter 3:1-7. Reformed churches read these passages as calling the husband to loving, sacrificial leadership and the wife to willing respect and help, with no room for harshness or control. Other Christians read them as teaching mutual submission without distinct roles and call their view egalitarian. If the couple leans that way, name the difference honestly and talk about it rather than around it.

1. What does Ephesians 5:21-33 ask of the husband? Of the wife?
2. What does leadership look like when it is service, and what does it look like when it is not?
3. How will you make decisions when you disagree?
4. Who will do what in the house, and how did you decide?
5. How do your work and careers fit the life you want to build?
6. What expectations about roles did you bring from your family without ever saying them out loud?
7. How will you pray together, and who will take the first step?

Session 5: Finances and marital agreements

Base texts: Proverbs 21:5; Luke 16:10. Transparency, stewardship and clear agreements matter more than any one budgeting method.

1. What debts, savings and income will each of you bring into the marriage?
2. Will you combine your money, and how?
3. How will you decide on a purchase one of you wants and the other does not?
4. What does generosity, including giving to the church, look like in your budget?
5. What did money mean in your family growing up?
6. Who will keep track of bills, and how will the other stay informed?
7. Is there anything about money you have not yet told the other?

Session 6: Conflict, forgiveness and renewal

Base texts: Matthew 18:15-20; Ephesians 4:32. Conflict is not failure. Forgiveness is a practice of the gospel.

1. Describe your last real disagreement. How did it end?
2. What does each of you do when you are angry: withdraw, attack or something else?
3. How do you ask for forgiveness, and how do you grant it?
4. What should never be said in an argument between you?
5. Ephesians 4:32 ties forgiving each other to God's forgiveness in Christ. What does that change in the middle of a fight?
6. When should you ask your pastor or a counselor for help?
7. What would renewal look like after a hard season?

Session 7: Sexuality and marital intimacy

Base texts: Song of Songs; 1 Corinthians 7:1-5; Hebrews 13:4. Sexuality is a gift of the covenant, and it deserves reverent, unembarrassed language. You may judge it wise to talk with the man and the woman separately for part of this session.

1. What did you learn about sex growing up, and from whom?
2. What does Hebrews 13:4 mean for your relationship before and after the wedding?
3. What hopes and fears do you bring about intimacy?
4. Is there anything in your past, such as pornography, previous relationships or abuse, that you need to talk about with each other or with a counselor?
5. 1 Corinthians 7:3-5 speaks of mutual care. What would that look like in practice?
6. How will you talk about intimacy when it is hard?
7. How will you guard your marriage against the temptations each of you knows best?

Pastoral note. Give no medical advice and make no diagnosis. When a question opens a wound, slow down, pray, and refer when the couple needs more than pastoral care.

How many sessions should premarital counseling have?

There is no fixed rule. Seven sessions of 60 to 90 minutes, weekly or every other week, cover the ground above without rushing any of it. Meeting at the church, in your home, in the couple's home or online all work, as long as the setting lets both of them speak freely.

Before the first session, ask each of them to write a page about their story: faith, family, how they met, what worries them. It will tell you which questions to ask first, and which ones to save for later.

If you want each session drafted around what you already know about the couple, with a guide for you and a page for them, see how the premarital counseling curriculum works in Hokmah Expositor. The questions above stand on their own either way.

Sources

• The Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 24, "Of Marriage and Divorce," Orthodox Presbyterian Church, https://opc.org/wcf.html
• The 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, chapter 25, "Of Marriage," The Reformed Reader, https://reformedreader.org/ccc/1689lbc/english/Chapter25.htm