By Brother Michael W. Larsen
11 June 2006
Adult Education Hour
1 Corinthians 7:3-4
Introduction: This morning, we will look at the “Duties of Husbands and Wives.” In the first sessions we looked at a basic theology of marriage. The next session we looked at the 3 main purposes for marriage. Last week saw the concepts of headship, authority, and submission.
This week, we want to put some meat on the bones. My hope is that this morning we will be able to get to what some of these ideas mean for normal married couples living everyday life.
One thing that I think bears mentioning before we get into specific duties themselves is a misconception with respect to the word “duty.” When most people think about duty, they think about work, drudgery, routine (take out the trash, do the dishes, go to work, pay taxes), activities that are expected of us – that we must do – rather than those things that we want to do.
This seems to be especially true in the area of romance and marriage. We think that romance and our activities toward our spouses should be spontaneous, done out of excitement, done according to the overflow of feelings that we feel at that moment. Only then are our feelings and activities “genuine.” Actually, it’s mostly unmarried people who say that. Married people know that it is possible – actually, forget possible – guaranteed that you will not always spontaneously feel like doing what is right or godly before our spouses. It’s at that point that we get into the biblical definition of love.
In the bible, love is a decision of the will, not always instead of being a feeling (though sometimes it is that), but at least in addition to being a feeling. Doing what the Lord commands with respect to our marriages; fulfilling our duties to our spouses (even when we don’t passionately feel like it), doesn’t undercut or “dry out” love for them. On the contrary, it shows that we truly do love them. With that in mind, let me share with you several duties of each partner that Wilson talks about in this chapter.
A husband must always remember that, his role in a marriage is an image of the way Christ loves the church. He is a living picture so the way he lives sends a message to the world about how Jesus is and how He relates to His church.
If a husband serves his wife faithfully and well (if he imitates Christ in his character), then he speaks well of Christ. If he leads and serves and treats his wife and family poorly or weakly, he lies about Christ and His relationship to His church. A husband either speaks well or speaks poorly of Christ, but he cannot be silent. He will either speak one way or another, and his duty is to speak well of Christ by being a godly husband. That’s review of last week but it’s groundwork for the others.
Every husband is charged with taking particular care of his wife with the hope and responsibility of “bringing her to maturity in Christ,” of helping her to grow in her relationship with the Lord, of presenting her more blameless before God. He is singled out for that role in his wife’s life. No one else on the planet has primary responsibility for her in the same way.
This has ramifications for everyday life. The extent to which your wife feels cared for cherished, loved, valued (by you), secure, is all on you. Her spiritual growth is incumbent on you. It’s not as if she has no role in her spiritual growth, God will hold her accountable for her own spiritual growth as a Christian, but you as her husband will bear responsibility for her as well. As we learned last week God holds the husband ultimately responsible.
An analogy is a garden; if one wants a garden to blossom into fruition and beauty, he must care for it tenderly and consistently. If he doesn’t care for it, he is foolish to expect anything but weeds. A man who does not take particular and tender care of his wife, who then expects her to be fruitful and lovely, is not really a true husband at all. The Greek word for him is probably meathead.
(Mention “evangelical servant” section from week two.)
There is a mundane element to this duty as well. In addition to providing for his wife spiritually and emotionally, he is responsible for her physical well being also. He must provide money for the food she needs. He must provide for the clothing and shelter she needs. He must provide generally for her health and well being. There are a number of passages in the OT about regulations referring to the obligation that a man has to provide for his wife. (See Ex. 21:10-11, for example) The NT passage that communicates the idea most clearly is I Timothy 5:8. If the Husband is a picture or is speaking about Christ and the Church, and he does not care for his wife then he is saying that Christ does not provide for His church! That is blasphemy.
This probably sounds odd to our modern sensibilities, but it is a purely biblical idea. We tend to associate jealousy with negative things – selfishness, possessiveness, even violence – in short, sin. Certainly these different manifestations of jealousy mixed with sin are seen in the world. Having said that, there is such a thing as Godly jealousy, which the Lord rightly has for His people, and which we as husbands should have for our wives. This kind of jealousy involves chiefly protectiveness, and over the right things. A godly husband will keep track of his wife’s relationship with God, her friendships, how she spends her time, whether she is growing spiritually –openly and lovingly – not for his own benefit or ego or security, but for the purpose of protecting her fidelity to Christ and to him, for the purpose of guarding her against temptation, discouragement and the like. In other words you need to be engaged and care about what is going on in your wife’s life! God is characterized as dealing with His people in this way. In some instances it may be a sin NOT to be jealous for our wives.
This one seems pretty basic. But the idea here is not just to provide your wife with the option of sexual intercourse. There’s more to it than that. The passage in I Cor. Indicates that your body is no longer your own but is now also hers. She has authority over it. It is
to be used for her benefit, her pleasure, her edification. That means meeting her sexual needs, not just having sex with her. That can mean making sex pleasurable for her physically (not being a selfish lover), but it also means caring for her, loving her, building intimacy with her long before what most men would consider a “sexual encounter” begins.
We might even infer from the passage that the husband fulfilling the wife’s sexual needs takes precedence over her fulfilling his needs. Don’t take this duty lightly as a husband. Know her needs and meet her needs.
Another aspect to this is that a husband should not deny his wife the opportunity to bear children.
see Num. 30:1-15
Husbands, you are ultimately responsible. God expects you to be involved and the decisions. This is a protective and loving function to care for your wife or daughter. The husband is the head of the home. He donimates, even if he does so by abdication or neglect. A husband “speaks” on every commitment his wife makes. If he says nothing, that is tacit approval. If his wife is overcommitted and burned out and he hasn’t noticed, that is bad leadership. Be involved in what your wife does, and help to guide her in it. Help her to say no if need be. Again, sin can of course be mixed in here. Don’t tell her to slow down to satisfy your own selfish desires or to be dictatorial, but for her benefit and the good of the family. You are responsible for her welfare.
Again, this is a repeat of the basic message for wives from last week. In Christian marriage, the primary role of a wife is to support and respect her husband. While the emphasis for the husband is on love, the primary emphasis for the wife is respect, honor, support, even obedience. We talked about this last week.
(God said be fruitful and multiply, Raise up godly seed, children are an inheritance from the Lord, Older women teach the younger to love their children, her children rise up and call her blessed, etc.)
This is not always a popular one today. We will cover this more fully in a later lesson, but realize that if you as a wife are able to bear children, but choose not to indefinitely for reasons of career or some selfish reason, you as a wife (or more appropriately, you as a couple), are on tenuous ground scripturally. Likewise, it is generally against God’s design of the family for children to be placed in full-time care outside the home or for the husband to be the primary at-home caregiver. This does not mean that a wife may never work outside the home, but it means that her priority is the home (including the children). Raising children is hard! Gen 3:16 Never the less it is God’s doing and a wife’s duty is to obey God and bear children for her husband.
We talked in an earlier lesson about how the husband and wife are a team in this battle of life. The wife as the “helpmeet” enables the husband to fulfill God’s calling for him and his family. If the husband is out slaying the dragons and nobody is holding down the fort then he can not accomplish his task. He would have to stop the battle, return to shore up the home fort thereby losing ground in the battle. I know that’s a really short treatment of a controversial topic, but we will cover this in more detail in a later lesson.
A wife’s primary domain is the family’s home. As the husband is admonished to work hard outside the home to provide for the family in his role, so the wife is to be diligent inside the home. This is a difficult task especially with little ones and being exausted at the end of the day is most likely evidence that you are doing things right! Prov. 31 If she is competent, and she should be, in due time her industry will take her outside the home. The scripture does not teach that a woman’s place is in the home but that the home must be her priority. She provides and prepares food, she makes financial decisions etc..This characteristic figures prominently in the profile of a godly wife that we find in scripture.
The godly wife is truly a great blessing to her husband, her children and our society! This is possibly the most important person on earth. You have heard it said that the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. The impact of godly wives is tremendous. Value your contribution in your industriousness and support of your husbands calling because God does!
Again, a basic. For temptation avoidance, for intimacy, for the good of the relationship and the husband’s fulfillment. Your body is his now, as his body is yours. As with the husband’s duty here, this doesn’t just mean offering intercourse. It means meeting his sexual needs (responsiveness, care for him, willingness to compromise or accommodate on frequency if need be). This is extremely important and should not be underestimated.
A woman’s duty to her husband and family is not just what she does, but how she does it. Keeping a home and family well (even with no outside the home work) is hard. Yet the response of a wife to this will help set the tone for the feel of the home. Ladies you are actually in control of the mood, ambience and attitudes in the home. Prov. 31:26, Prov 19:13, Prov 27:15 This is a very important area of the marriage relationship. God has given women great abilities with the tongue. And they must use this ability to HELP their husbands. A wise woman knows the power of her words and will conform them to the Word of God. “She opens her mouth with wisdom, and on her tounge is the law of kindness”
Ladies be very careful here.
I Peter 3:1-2 Chaste means clean, innocent, modest, perfect. Your husband may not always do right but it will be your proper behavior that God will use to convict him. Let God work.
Titus 2:4-5 You are an example and teacher of younger women on how to please God with your live.
A wife should generally consider her husband her primary teacher in things of the Lord. The Pastor teaches the whole flock but the husband has the ultimate responsibility and accountability for his wife and family. Now, a good husband will be a good teacher, and not every husband is great at that, but it should be the wife’s goal and intention to be taught and discipled by her husband.
Encourage him in this if he is not doing it. Send him to a more mature Christian man if he needs a tutorial, but give him that position in your life.
Support and respect his leadership in this way that God has designed. God has placed your husband in your life as one of the primary agents by which you learn about Him. It is his duty to teach you. It is your duty to seek to learn from him. Encourage your husband in this for your benefit and for his.