The Christian wife

Study No. 3
THE CHRISTIAN WIFE
- Part 1

COUNT TO TEN, AGAIN.

At her Golden Wedding Celebration, my grandmother told guests the secret of her happy marriage:

"On my wedding day, I decided to make a list of ten of my husband's faults which for the sake of our marriage, I would overlook.

As the guests were leaving, a young matron whose marriage had recently been in difficulties asked my grandmother what some of the faults were that she had seen fit to overlook?

Grandmother said, "To tell you the truth, my dear, I never did get around to listing them. But whenever my husband did something that made me hopping mad, I would say to myself, 'lucky for him that's one of the ten!" Shelley Basset. National Enquirer.

God gives instructions to His Church -

1 Corinthians 1:10
"Now I exhort you, brethren, by the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree, and there be no divisions among you, but you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgement."

...the only way this is possible is by all coming together and agreeing with God's Word.

What is the dividing point that determines the work of God or the work of satan through a woman's life?

1. Her personal relationship with Christ.
2. (Equally important), Her obedience to all the written Word of God. (The same criteria decides who is doing the work through a man's life.)

God gives instructions to the individual families in His Church -

Ephesians 5:22-64
"Wives be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord."

The Greek word "subject" is "hupatasso". It's primarily a military term meaning "to place in right order", indicating the arrangement of troops for moving into battle. When a wife becomes voluntarily subject to her husband, she moves into the proper place of spiritual warfare for defeating the devil.

The underlying principle of subjection is obedience. However, submission is an attitude of love that wants to obey.

Ephesians 5:22 through 24 shatters the women's liberation idea that Ephesians 5:21, "And be subject to one another in the fear of the Lord", says that husbands and wives are to obey each other. Ephesians 5:21 is actually the heading for these three categories of submission that follow:

1. Ephesians 5:22-24 -- wives be subject to husbands (followed by Ephesians 5:25-33, which goes on to tell the husbands that they must love their wives as well as lead them.)

2. Ephesians 6:1-3 -- children are to obey their parents (Ephesians 6:4 goes to tell fathers that they must love their children and train them up in the Lord as well as discipline them.)

3. Ephesians 6:5-8 -- slaves be subject to their masters. (The Bible cleverly abolishes slavery and prejudice by getting at the roots of both, as in Ephesians 6:9, which teaches that slave owners were to treat slaves with "agape" love, choosing to do the highest good for them.)

No Christian would suggest that parents should be subject to their children! And husbands are not meant to be subject to their wives, either -- but cherish, provide for and protect them.

Ephesians 5:23
"For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Saviour of the body."

Obviously, the head and the body need to work together -- otherwise there is paralysis. Paralysis in a marriage destroys a marriage.

Ephesians 5:24
"But as the Church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything."

(NOTE: the Greek word "everything" means "everything!") However, all of life can actually be fitted under one of the following three categories:

1. SPIRITUALLY -- submitted to her husband and obedient in all things in the Lord -- Ephesians 5:22-24, 1 Peter 3:1-6.
2. MENTALLY -- encouraging to her husband -- Ephesians 5:33 (Amplified Bible).
3. PHYSICALLY -- (with an important vice-versa). The husband's body belongs to the wife, and the wife's body belongs to her husband -- 1 Corinthians 7:2-5.

SPIRITUALLY. 1 Peter 3:1-2 (we'll go through verses 3 through 6 later in this chapter):

"In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands, so that even if any of them are disobedient to the Word, they may be won without a word by the behaviour of their wives, as they observe your chaste and respectful behaviour."

(NOTE: the word "conversation" in the King James version of 1 Peter 3:1 means "behaviour", it has nothing to do with talking, except as talking is part of good behaviour.)

The point is, as Colossians 3:17a reads:
"And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus..."

(...when you do something in the name of Jesus, you do it as if He were doing it. Jesus never "preached at" people, He lived the life of example and won people by His love.)

Notice that 1 Peter 3:1-2 is talking about a rascal! It's talking about a man who isn't obeying the Word of God. Either:

1. An unsaved husband.
2. A rebellious Christian husband.
3. A Christian husband who, at some point, refuses to obey the Word of God.

Wives will change them "without a word to them..."

When a wife tells God instead of tongue-lashing her husband, she's going to see her husband changed. Why? 1 Corinthians 11:3 - "But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ."

Notice: "The head of every man is Christ..." Many wives fail to acknowledge Jesus as the head of their husbands or trust Jesus to direct their husbands. They try to do it themselves. But if a wife becomes "head" to her husband and starts to direct him, it will turn him away from hearing God's voice in his spirit.

It would be correct to say that the husband is the head of the wife and the wife is the neck of the husband, because the neck can turn the head! 1 Kings 19:28; Isaiah 37:29 and Ezekiel 29:4 and 38:4 show that God can put hooks in the leaders and turn them to the left or to the right. In marriage that's done in response to a wife who prays.

Proverbs 21:1
"The King's heart is like the channels of the Lord; He turns it wherever He wishes."

But, if a wife wants to see that happen, it has to be done "without a word to him." Pray! (and always, when praying for a change in your husband, add "and Lord change me where I need changing, too." Be very open to that.)

The result of unsubmitted wives:

1. Unhappy marriages that are out of order (1 Corinthians 11:3). In fact, the practice of putting women on pedestals began to die out when men found that the girls could give orders better from that position!!!
2. Teenage brats! Sassy and insolent to their parents and all other adults. God links these two, the foolish son and the contentious wife in Proverbs 19:13.
3. Divorce is rampant among families where the wife is unsubmitted.

MENTALLY. Ephesians 5:33 (Amplified Bible)

"However, let each of you (without exception) love his wife as (being in a sense) his very own self; and let the wife see that she respects and reverences her husband, that she notices him, regards him, honours him, prefers him, venerates and esteems him: and that she defers to him, praises him, and loves and admires him exceedingly."

Wife -- is that the picture in your marriage?

Why should a wife submit? Why should she constantly seek only to build her husband up?

Ephesians 5:28 -
"So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself."

(NOTE: the opposite is also true - if a man doesn't love himself, he will not love his own wife!)

Ephesians 5:33a:
"Nevertheless, let each individual among you also love his own wife even as himself."

As marriage teacher June Nichols says, "A man will love his own wife only in direct proportion to how much he loves himself." She's right! Man has a fantastic ego! Because it's so big, it's easily bruised. The wife who keeps bruising her husband's feelings about himself by telling her husband all of his faults, makes him feel unlovable. Any husband feeling badly about himself cannot love his wife at the very same time.

Does your husband really know you need him? Or does he feel that you could get along just as well without him? Unless he feels you need him, he will not recognize his own worth, will not love himself and therefore, will not be able to love you.

It's worth repeating -- a man will love his own wife only in direct proportion to how much he loves himself. Remember -- if he can't get the feeling of self-worth from your attitude toward him, he'll look elsewhere for it.

SOME TIPS ON HOW TO MENTALLY PLEASE YOUR HUSBAND:

1. Become "intimately" acquainted with your husband. You're beginning to know your husband when you know what makes him glad, what makes him sad and what makes him mad! Be aware and comfort him when he's tired or sick. Get closer with him when you sense he's feeling lonely. Soothe him with gentle and encouraging words when he's angry. Be interested in his work, his hobbies, his interests, etc. Be his "Encourager".

2. Fit into his plans. Be your husband's supporter even when he's wrong. Hold your advice and criticism until he asks for it, if possible. Pray and trust God to direct him.

3. Know what's "different" about him - minister to his personal differences. When you know what makes him happy and gives him pleasure - do it! Don't criticize him because of his idiosyncrasies - recognize they are what makes him your unique husband.

4. Constantly be his affectionate wife. "Sex" and "affection" are not the same. Give him plenty of sex. But also be affectionate verbally as well as physically. Develop personal habits and manners to please him. Dress to please him. If he yells at you about something you do, or don't do, take mental note of what he's said and work hard to be what he wants.

Husbands, if you're reading this - DON'T EVER YELL AT HER!!!)

PHYSICALLY. 1 Corinthians 7:2-5 (Amplified Bible)

1 Corinthians 7:2-5
"But because of the temptation to impurity and to avoid immorality, let each (man) have his own wife and let each (woman) have her own husband."

(NOTE: Sex is not immoral as long as it is between a husband and his own wife. One purpose of marriage is "to avoid immorality". Heb.13:4 agrees.)

1 Corinthians 7:4
"Let the husband fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband."

It's too bad when any married person feels that sexual love is a "duty" to perform with their mate, but if that's the way either mate feels, God says, "Nevertheless, Do It!!!"

1 Corinthians 7:4
"The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does: and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does."

Nothing could be clearer. Both mates have authority over their partners body. God places no limits precisely because it is His desire to give the maximum amount of freedom to married love-making.

1 Corinthians 7:5
"Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again lest satan tempt you because of your lack of self control."

God invented sex! Sexual love is good for a married couple morning, noon or right in the middle of the night! Either mate should feel free to "turn their partner on". God says, in essence, "If you want to make love with your married mate, go get 'em!"

In Genesis 2:18, we learn two extremely important things:

FIRST, here is God's forever statement about marriage: "Then the Lord God said,'It is not good for man to be alone."

SECOND, here is the very purpose God had in mind when He originated the idea of wives: "I will make a companion for him, a helper suited to his needs" (LB)

Genesis 2:19-22
"And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them: and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. And the man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. So the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of the ribs, and closed up the flesh at the place. And the Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man."

Genesis 2:23 (LB) continues:
"This is it!" Adam exclaimed. "She is part of my own bone and flesh! Her name is 'woman' because she was taken out of man."

Marriage wasn't man's idea - it was God's idea - just as sex was. Man didn't say, "I'm lonely." God saw it wasn't good to be alone. A wife is "bone of her husband's bone." She completes her husband.

Wives supply the tenderness, the femininity, the softness -- all those things that make men joke about not being able to understand women! Your husband may not be able to figure you out, but he knows he needs your contribution, and he's empty away from you. Knowing that you're especially designed to meet his needs is a wife's first step in being a good counterpart. Let that knowledge give you confidence in yourself as a wife. A man needs his wife not for companionship, not just for sex, but for completion of his entire personality.

One of the definitions for the Hebrew word "helpmate" is "one to face him". God made a wife for her husband as "one to face him", not as an accuser. Satan will do that through the world. What does God think of a wife who is always arguing and picking at her husband?

Proverbs 21:9 (LB)
"It is better to live in the corner of an attic than with a crabby woman in a lovely home!"

Proverbs 21:19 (LB)
"Better to live in the desert than with a quarrelsome, complaining woman!"

The Holy Spirit said these things! Is it any surprise that some husbands want to stay away from their wives??!!!

Proverbs 15:17 (LB)
"It is better to eat soup with someone you love than steak with someone you hate!"

Proverbs 12:4 (NASV)
"An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who shames him is as rottenness in his bones."

God isn't mocking women or trying to discourage wives. He's attempting to tell you something extremely urgent -- wives who nag, complain, whine, fight, throw tantrums, etc. are driving their husbands away from them. God wants it stopped.

In fact, God says, the wife plays the key role in the husband's life. Again, look at Proverbs 12:4, this time the Living Bible:

"A worthy wife is her husband's joy and crown; the other kind corrodes his strength and tears down everything he does."

Notice that a wife can be "her husband's joy and crown" -- if he is the "head", look where he places her. The crown is lifted up and placed on top of his head! That's how He sees the "worthy wife."

If there is something the wife needs to tell her husband in order to help the two of them improve their relationship, she should make sure all three necessary ingredients for communication are all functioning:

1. TIMING. Never present a complaint to the husband within the first sixty minutes of his arriving home from work. And don't present it at all if:

- he is under unusual tension or stress;
- he isn't feeling well;
- he has recently been stung by circumstances and events.

Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, "Don't flatter yourself that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. The nearer you come into relations with a person, the more necessary does tact and courtesy become. Except in cases of necessity, which are rare, leave your friend to learn unpleasant things from his enemies; they are ready enough to tell him!"

2. SETTING. Never present a complaint to the husband with anyone else present. He won't learn. He'll only defend himself. Even the children should be out of earshot.

3. MANNER. Never attack the husband verbally. Remember, every attack means lost ground. There is no such thing as a "little" attack. Some wives say, "I only said one thing!" That's like telling Hiroshima, "We only dropped one bomb!" Don't trigger his defensive mechanisms. Instead, be as warm and loving as possible. As Dr. James Dobson puts it in his vital book, 'What Wives Wish Their Husbands Knew About Women', "Let it be known to your husbands that you are attempting to interpret your needs and desires, not his inadequacies and shortcomings."

Remember, a wife is told by the Lord to love her husband and not to say a negative word to him even if he is disobeying God's Word (1 Peter 3:1). So, she violates God's command every time she takes correction into her own hands. But prayer really does change things. Pray more for him if he hasn't seen your point yet, but be willing to leave the final decision to God through your husband. If God, Himself, doesn't think a change is needed in your husband, who are you to argue against God? Submit to his higher wisdom -- you might be wrong. Or God may be doing something else in your husband and saying Wait for that change.

Ruth Graham, wife of evangelist Dr. Billy Graham, frankly shares that for two years after she married him she continually tried to persuade him to take her to China so that they could be missionaries there. She says, "I told him that I was a missionary doctor. Later I went to High School in pre-war North Korea, so I knew and loved the people of the Orient." But she says, "Finally, one day Bill asked me, 'Do you believe God brought us together?'" I said, "Yes!" So he said, "Then He will lead me and you will do the following." "So, I've been following ever since!" Think what the world would have missed if Billy Graham had listened to his wife instead of to the Lord!

There is a prevailing principle throughout the whole Word of God that is summarized in
1 Corinthians 11:9: "For indeed man was not created for the woman's sake, but woman for the man's sake."

You'll either see that as a horrible curse or for what it really is -- your liberation! It reveals the purpose of every wife's existence.

A wife isn't called to remake her husband, but so that her husband through her would be made complete.

It is the humiliation of woman that she was made for man. It is the glory of the woman that only she can make what he's intended to be.

Dr. Richard Dobbins, the noted Christian psychologist says that when thousands of men were asked to list the four most important desires they have for their wives, they answered in this order:

1. A reasonably good housekeeper.
2. A reasonably good cook.
3. An interesting and exciting sex partner.
4. A good mother for their children.

GOD SAYS A WIFE'S MOST EFFECTIVE PLACE FOR MINISTRY IS AT HOME.

Titus 2:3-5
"Older women, likewise, are to be reverent in their behaviour, not malicious gossips, nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, that the Word of God may not be dishonoured."

The University of Michigan's Institute of Social Research recently conducted a study of 3,000 high school seniors from all over the United States. The teenagers were asked what they thought about the role of the father and the idea of employed wives working outside the home.

85% of the seniors turned thumbs down at any thought of the wife working full time while the husband stayed home to do the housework, and 64% of them also rejected the idea of the wife working full time and the husband only working part time. The study struck a real blow at the ideals of women's lib, while it agreed much more closely with Titus 2:3-5.

I read an item somewhere that said Mrs Billy Graham has a sign over her sink that reads, "Divine services held here three times daily!" Hallelujah! That should be a sign of our times!

The greatest danger of working outside the home is that the working wife will lose her love for her family because they will seem "in the way" due to her becoming independent and/or exhausted.

It's time that the Church fully realized that women's lib and the Bible are diametrically opposed. The highly publicized Women's National Conference held in late 1977 in Houston, Texas, (supported by five million dollars given by the United States Government) drew up the following resolutions and is still urging our nation to pass them into law. Here's what women's lib really want:

1. Elimination of all way veterans preferences in employment.(USA)
2. Sex integration for all prisons.
3. Free abortions for all.
4. Federally financed, free 24-hour child care for everyone.
5. Wages for housework paid for by government tax money.
6. Federally funded, lesbian mother's legal defence fund.
7. To teach homosexual sex education in schools without parental consent.
8. Force all public and private schools (Christian Schools included) to hire homosexual teachers.

IF YOU'RE NOT FOR THESE THINGS, YOU'RE NOT FOR WOMEN'S LIB!

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