First, Broad Credit to Pastor Kevin Deyoung. I have taught on these verses previously and I want to credit everything good to him and acknowledge. Everyone ought to read his articles and books on this topic. Specifically chapter 5 of Men and Women in the Church: A Short, Biblical, Practical Introduction which is an exposition of Ephesians 5.
Second, Since it is a singular verse that gives two really broad principles dwell with understanding, show honor, given three principles about your wife. We will pull in broader principles from numerous other bible passage on husbands.
Third, if you are not married. We can say, in different areas of your life you have leadership, care, and act as a Brother and Father spiritually. So through the years I have had several godly men and elders who were not husbands and fathers to individual families, but they were husbands and fathers to their Church, the broader church, their place of work, and their community. The Apostle Paul himself seems to fit this category. While Peter appears to have a wife and family. This may be why Peter’s instructions are so brief and practical and Paul reflects to the theological root a little more than Peter.
Lastly, Sisters, please see the relevance of thinking about slightly less than 50% of the population. And being able to reason wisely on what a godly man or husband Is.
Read: 1 Peter 3:7 Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered. (ESV)
Four Questions today.
#1 Why Just One Verse?
#2 What is dwelling with Understanding?
#3 How is Honor shown?
#4 How to love like Jesus loves the Church?
Why Just one verse? Peter spends 6 verses on the occasion when only the wife is a believer because she was socially vulnerable.Now, because the husband’s position was less socially vulnerable if only he was a believer. Peter is Briefer but this one verse is still necessary because Peter wants the Leader, the head of the home to use his authority wisely and to be a blessing as a believer. So that the watching world could see how the Christian husband leads his home with Faith & Love both when his wife believes and when she does not believe.
Kevin DeYoung notes that in Ephesians 5 The Commands are at the specific points of fallenness. That is also our context of 1 Peter 3.
So just as Peter sees how a good thing internal and external beauty can become twisted. And instead must be cultivated with godliness.
Now Peter shows how a good thing – strength and leadership can become a bad thing, unthoughtful, inattentive, lack of leadership, and instead smug spiritual superiority and uncaring of your wife’s spiritual growth and good.
So to correct our fallen distortions of Masculinity Peter, Paul, and Jesus command Husbands to several duties.
Husbands are to live with their wives with love & honor. They are to lead, understand, provide, and protect their wives.
This positive vision, if embraced, will be the good blessing that expels the curse of the fall.
Two Principles of how this leadership and headship is entered into before we unpack this one verse.
First, Remember, Marriage is VOLUNTARY, it is a good creational ordinance, it can even be said to be the statistical norm and vision for the majority of people and good. But at the end of the day – As Jesus says, there is no marriage in heaven (Matt. 22:23–33; parallels in Mark 12:25). And Further, some are for a season, or for life called to singleness.
For those who have voluntarily taken marriage vows to: to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for rich or for poor, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my faithful promise...And the wife takes the same vow but with the addition to obey…reflecting that The husband is the head of the wife. “as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands” (Eph. 5:24)
Because of these two realities—the headship of the husband in the created order and the analogy of Christ and the church—the wife should freelysubmit to her husband.
I say that to point out that
The man is never told to submit the wife unto himself. Instead, the woman is told to submit herself unto her husband. It is a submission freely given, never forcibly taken.
1) It is freely entered into in Marriage vows. And so should Always discussed in pre-marital counseling.
#2 What is dwelling with Understanding?
Peter says Live with your wives with understanding
This is Intentional presence, “doing life together”
We neither want work obsessed never present husbands, nor do we want husbands so consumed with home they are unable to fulfill Work, Church, and community callings as well.
Family, Church, Work, and Community are apsects…But our wives and families should not be sacrificed to a single other calling that has become an obsession.
Further the command is to live - with your wives – You took vows to this one individual woman. So like a horse with blinders on fulfill this.
But it is not live with your wives…by hiding away, never talking, helping, having family meetings, going over the budget together, or planning your future, priorities, family policies, or asking how she is doing. No. It is with UNDERSTANDING. Or another translation “Consideration” or “Study her until you understand her.”
The old trope of “confusing women,” “men can’t understand women,” can be hurtful
Yes, while holding the truth that Men and women often process relationships, problems, and priorities differently
This should never be an excuse to lazily not understand your wife or women in general.
You both speak English. So study her by observation, Ask good questions, stop to listen, think about what blesses, benefits, harms you can remove, and simply have the conversation with her and other wise people until you have earned you PhD in your specific wife.
A Second Component of Understanding means you must be growing in wisdom, knowledge of both the world – so understanding in how to care for and lead the physical household AND
second, spiritual wisdom how to lead and care for souls entrusted to you. What is spiritually healthy and sound doctrine. When to say, hey, I know that sounds good spiritually on the surface, but look here in the word, look at the gospel, Christ, sound doctrine.
Kevin Deyoung says, Leading “in an understanding way” means taking responsibility to know your wife’s needs, spiritual condition, and context, and making decisions with her good in view. …Even as she seeks to follow as a Helpmate with your good in view.
If you do so your prayers together your following Christ together will not be hindered but instead flourish.
Right look at the end of verse 7, “That your prayers may not be hindered.”
The call to “show honor” demands leadership that elevates rather than diminishes, good leaders both continue to grow themselves. to mature themselves. And as they grow and mature as leaders, they will cause those under their care to grow as well within their calling. This parallels Ephesians 5:23–24’s “headship with Christlike love.”
So #2 dwelling with Understanding?
Question #3 How is Honor shown?
By honoring the weaker vessel.
Not exactly the end of year trophy you want “most improved” “best defender” “weaker vessel”
This phrase, this Idiom or expression, weaker vessel: Quite simply the phrase contrasts the fine china, a beautiful vase vs. the 5 gallon bucket.
Both are beautifully co-heirs of grace. In Christ by faith. Equal in dignity.
But you wouldn’t use the 5 gallon bucket to bring beauty, warmth, and the finishing touch to a home.
Nor would you use the finer-vessel that vase to cart the water in in order to water the Ox as a farmer.
One is for tea, or to serve medicine out of. The other is for hauling water or for when a pipe bursts.
This doesn’t declare inherent weakness or a one size-fits all kind of strength in men and women but it does as we said last week create an eager posture to ask how does the good design of both internal and external beauty that can be strong complement the good design of internal and external strength.
It is a real difference.
It is a natural and scientific difference that is measurable.
And when we ignore nature, when we watch 20 marvel movies where black widow weighs 120lbs and takes out 220lb Russian body builders we have left reality for a fantasy.
But neither to we forget just how tough a pair a Farming Husband and Wife. Relative. Real Difference.
And on the flip side, we kid ourselves if we ever think our good differences, strength and weaknesses ever mean we are not co-heirs in Christ Jesus with souls that will last forever.
Two people who have equal value and dignity before their creator.
You may go back and listen to what Peter had for godly wives precious in God’s sight last week’s sermon.
For the next 15 Minutes are so let us drill down into wisdom for just how to lead and live with understanding.
Or Asking #4 How are Husbands to love like Jesus loves the Church?
If we are Following and Helping…What do you want? A Good leader.
Followership imply? Leadership right? Maybe even worthwhile leadership we hope. Following Means…Responding to his initiative.
If the verb for wives is support, respect, and follow. Then what comes to your mind from Ephesians 5, Matthew 19, Genesis 1-2, the various good husbands throughout scripture?
The verbs for the husbands are: [1] lead, [2] sacrifice, and [3] care for them as Christ does for the church.
This means men should be taking spiritual initiative to lead their home to
Eat Dinner together, Go to Church each Sunday, worship (pray, sing, read) together. Set the priorities of family goals for the good of your church, community, and family itself.
This means men should lead with an understanding of how their leadership impacts their wives. (Talk, Pray, Talk, Pray through decisions. But the final call must be shouldered by the husband.
In Ruth chapter 1. Elimelech moves his family from Bethlehem to Moab. He prioritized physical comfort over spiritual faithfulness. His sons married pagan wives, and he and all his sons died. The Lord worked through a poor decision to bring Ruth back, there is redemption, there is grace. But as you read Ruth 1, it is striking that it is considered poor leadership by Elimelech. In modern terms he moved for a better paying Job, but there were no good churches or community in the area. So a bigger house but spiritually poor house. Until Naomi leads her 1 daughter in law to the Lord God and we have redemption.
SO #1 Lead: Taking the initiative over passivity.
Husbands should always be thinking what the next right and godly thing the family should be engaged in and the spiritual goals for the family. Then the wife should heartily be helping to make it a vital reality.
Think of the sadness of Peter in verses 1-6 of the wife with an unbelieving Husband. The unbelieving husband does not lead his family to church, he does not open the family bible, sing a song, pray with his wife and for his children.
But in Verse 7. He studies his wife, he sees the spiritual needs as He takes the initiative to have his prayers and spiritual leadership unhindered.
If a family is not regular in Worship on the Lord’s Day, and leading the Spiritual conversations of the home, the burden of responsibility falls on one person. (Now I didn’t say, all the factors involved fall on one person just the burden of leadership).
Eph. 5:25-27 “Love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish”
If husbands take this seriously they will cherish their wife’s growth in godliness & holiness. As well as their children.
Caveat: Growing up, our bible time in the morning was pretty regular. 9AM every day. For some, I know car rides are the redeemed time. For some the breakfast table. For others it is immediately after dinner time – 3-5 nights a week…
My dad, hugely faithful man. did NOT make family worship each evening. My family, its fits and starts with 3 littles.
Joel Beeke has some advice here on how to do this. And I’ll be first in line to say, I am not as consistent as I desire to be BUT there are times and Seasons. God is gracious. We are but dust. And what an opportunity to open up the whole counsel of God with our Kids. Beeke’s Family Worship bible has excellent questions for each chapter of the bible.
Alright, but what if you say, I am in high school, a retired empty nester, or not married: Personal government and responsibility before family government and responsibility.
If this is not your stage of life bring these considerations ovto your personal bible time and fellowship where you study the word with other believers.
A Man should be a blessing and building up the relationships around him while singleand while young. Find a place to be a leader in/and practice being a follower of other godly men!
Sacrifice: Jesus died for the church. We practice Self-sacrificial leadership
At base: doing things while tired but would rather not, but it’s the right thing to do.
Come into rooms loving the people in the room by coming in sacrificially smiling and joyful even when tired.
A worthy aspiration for Husbands is to with joyful strength bring warmth and safety in the family room in the evenings.
Sacrifice is tangibly: being present at home, magnanimous (overlooking offenses), patient, honey-do-lists, co-laboring around the house.
Dwelling with understanding means there is a flexible dance with care and chored.
sometimes work does mean there are seasons of working long-hours and sacrificing at work for family
sometimes there are health concerns. Or seasons with infants or kids with special needs
DeYoung: “You may need to forfeit climbing the corporate ladder in order to be a decent husband. You may be called upon to give up your hopes and dreams in order to take care of your wife after she falls ill or is injured.” (71)
Chrysostom: “Yea, even if it shall be needful for thee to give thy life for her, yea, and to be cut into pieces ten thousand times, yea, and to endure and undergo any suffering whatever,—refuse it not. Though thou shouldest undergo all this, yet wilt thou not, no not even then, have done anything like Christ.”4 [Lead, Sacrifice, and Care]
Care: Cherish her as your own body (Eph. 5:28).
She is your other half, your own flesh and bone. You don’t abuse your body; you build up, protect, and nourish it. Likewise, cherish and care for your wife. “Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them” (Col. 3:19).
Implications for abusive husbands? John Calvin, “the man who does not love his wife, is a monster” – Calvin
Honorable Men Provide: Food, clothing, security (emotional, spiritual, and physical)
“there are worse things than men feeling deep within themselves that women are to be protected, not exploited, defended, not demeaned, and treated with special honor instead of nothing special whatsoever. “ (72)
There is a dreadful dismissal of this in our day, seen in videos of men in anger justifying hitting a woman.
There is a brokenness to the social contract men and women used to have.
DeYoung quotes Mary Eberstadt saying, “the sexual revolution—with its laissez-faire [lax] attitude toward sex and its insistence that men and women are the same when it comes to sex—has left women vulnerable and frustrated. “The furious, swaggering, foul-mouthed rhetoric of feminism promises women what many can’t find elsewhere: protection.”Women, more than ever, need to know that men will treat them by a different set of rules and will seek the well-being of women above their own.” (72)
“In the book A Return to Modesty, Jewish author Wendy Shalit comments on the quaint etiquette rules from the past—rules like “a man always opens a door for a woman,” or “a man carries packages or suitcases for a woman,” or “a man rises when a woman comes into the room,” or “if a woman drops her glove in the street, you’d certainly pick it up,” or you never “race a woman, young or old, for a vacant seat.” Shalit acknowledges that “one can certainly criticize these rules as sexist, and many have.” But she continues, “The simple fact is that a man who observed all of the above rules was a man who treated a woman with respect, a man who was incapable of being boorish.” Women were not to be treated like men; they were to be treated differently, like women. Consequently, “in the old view, if you weren’t considerate to women, you weren’t really a man.” (73)
This isn’t to defend for all cultures and all times this exact list. But the principle of list certainly.
To this point Kevin DeYoung says, “If men in general ought to treat women with special care and kindness, how much more so for our own wives.”
D. L. Moody once remarked, ‘If I wanted to find out whether a man was a Christian, I wouldn’t ask his minister. I would go and ask his wife. . . . If a man doesn’t treat his wife right, I don’t want to hear him talk about Christianity.’” (73)
Closing argument by Deyoung: Marriage is a picture of Christ and the church. If there is no distinction in how we related to each, no ordering, no self-sacrificing headship, no joyful submission, we are left with Christ and Christ or the church and the church.
God is trying to show something in our marriages. If we disallow sexual differentiation, we are not allowing to shine forth the very heart of marriage itself. Yes, God created marriage for companionship and for [intimate union] and for children, but most of all, he created marriage to reveal this profound mystery of Christ and the church. This is a high calling. His plan is for a watching world to look at husband and wife and see such gentle, joyful submission and such self-denying, loving leadership that it gets a picture of the beauty that is the relationship between Christ and his church. Nothing less than God’s full glory is at stake.
Let us never view the bible’s commands for marriage, men, and women in both the church and family as a few random and arbitrary rules or isolated verses but as a consistent biblical model for blessing.
May our marriages, families, and church be both formed by the Holy Spirit and also witnesses to the work of the Holy Spirit and an accurate reflection of Christ Jesus. And may we resist the foolishness of a world in this area.
Prayer
Benediction
