Honor Your WifeAugust 22, 2008

This is a topic that I have been thinking about for awhile. I am by no means an authority on this topic and could stand to pay more attention to the way the bible says we should treat our better half.

In the same way, you husbands must give honor to your wives. Treat your wife with understanding as you live together. She may be weaker than you are, but she is your equal partner in God’s gift of new life. Treat her as you should so your prayers will not be hindered. 1Peter 3:7

  1. What does this passage say to you about marriage? How do you interpret the word “weaker” in this verse? Does Matthew 5:23-24 work into this verse?

And further, sumit to one another out of reverence for Christ. For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything. For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her hold and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. And we are members of his body. Ephesians 5:21-30

  1. Why does Paul devote twice as many words to telling husbands to love their wives as to telling wives submit to their husbands? If a husband, sacrificed everything for his wife, made her well being a top priority and cared for her the way he would care for himself, how would that come across to a wife? Would she naturally submit?

Understand this, my dear brothers and sister: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. James 1:19

3.When our wives talk with us, do they feel that their viewpoints and ideas have value?