How to use this guide
Read one chapter before your group or family conversation, not during it. Answer the questions honestly rather than theoretically, naming a real instance from your own household rather than speaking in generalities. If you are using this with your wife, decide together whether any question needs a private conversation instead of a shared answer, and honor that boundary.
Chapter 1: The Man at the Door
The book's core distinction here is "the two kinds of absence," physically present but functionally gone. Where in your week are you physically home but not actually present? What would it look like to enter fully for just the next hour you are home?
Chapter 2: Headship Without Tyranny
Authority in this chapter is framed as sacrifice, not domination. Name one recent decision where you led by giving something up rather than by asserting control. Name one where you didn't.
Chapter 3: The Altar in Your Living Room
This chapter calls a father to lead family worship rather than leave it to his wife. Who currently initiates spiritual conversation and prayer in your home most often? What is one small, repeatable practice you could start this week?
Chapter 4: Teaching Your Children the Word
Consider your children's actual grasp of Scripture right now, not what you assume it is. What is one truth you could teach them this week, and in what ordinary moment (a meal, a drive, bedtime) could you teach it?
Chapter 5: A Mother Honored
The chapter calls a husband to honor his wife publicly as a co-heir, not merely privately as a partner. When did you last credit your wife's contribution to your household in front of someone else? What has she done recently that deserves that credit?
Chapter 6: The Family Economy
Reflect honestly on your household's actual financial habits, not the plan you intend to follow. Where has want crept in through carelessness? Where has control crept in through anxiety about money?
Chapter 7: Discipline as Discipleship
Think of your most recent correction of a child. Was it aimed at their good, or was it aimed at relieving your own frustration? What would it have looked like to pause before correcting?
Chapter 8: Teaching Your Children to Work
What real responsibility do your children currently carry in the household? Is it enough to build actual diligence, or is it mostly symbolic?
Chapter 9: When Your House Is in Disorder
Without detail that belongs only in a pastoral or private setting, name one area of your household that is currently in disorder because of your own failure. Who outside your household knows about it?
Chapter 10: The Household and the Church
How is your household's rhythm actually connected to your local church, beyond Sunday attendance? What is one way your family could be more woven into the church body this month?
Chapter 11: What Your Household Will Say After You're Gone
If your household described, honestly, what you built and modeled, what would they say? What is one thing you would want to be different by this time next year?
For groups meeting together
Close each session in prayer for one another's households by name, not in general terms. Where a chapter surfaces something serious (ongoing conflict, disorder, or failure a man cannot safely process alone), point him to his pastor and, where relevant, a qualified counselor, rather than trying to resolve it in the group discussion itself.
Go deeper
Read The First Republic to begin, or pair this guide with the existing Men of the Republic 8-week Bible study if your group is working through both books in sequence.
Next step: Get The First Republic, or find a group through For Brothers.