The Ideal Husband - Part 2

• What should be the degree of a husband's affection for his wife?
• Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. (Eph 5:33)
• So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. (Eph 5:28)

• In addition to bestowing his love upon his wife, what honour should the husband give to her?
• Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered. (1Pe 3:7)

I find it interesting, that if I as a husband do not honour my wife ,and show her understanding, my prayers will be hindered by my attitude, and demeanour.

• What responsibility has the husband to his wife and to his household?
• Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. (1Co 7:3)
• But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. (1Ti 5:8)

• What blessings does God promise to a Godly husband?
• Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine In the very heart of your house, Your children like olive plants All around your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed Who fears the LORD. (Psa 128:3-4)
• Yes, may you see your children's children. Peace be upon Israel! (Psa 128:6)

Paul lays down the basis for happy wedded life in the words – “Wives, be in subjection to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them”. Perhaps these instructions are not always well understood. Sometimes one of verses, and sometimes the other, is unduly emphasised.

Some men insist upon the first – “Wives, be in subjection to your husbands.” They interpret the words somewhat harshly, as if a wife were to be only as a servant to her husband, whose duty is to minister to his desires, to please him, to run at his every call and command. But it is not a Christian teaching.

In some older marriage services the words 'to love, honour and obey' as vows that are taken. It is to be particularly noted that Paul nowhere says – “Wives, obey your husbands.” In another place, where Paul gives another instruction, his words are – “Wives be in subjection unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is head of the Church”. No doubt the husband is the head of the household; but what a responsibility this teaching puts upon him! His wife is to be in subjection to him, “as unto the Lord.” He is to be to her what Christ is to the Church.

If a man will insist on his wife fulfilling her part, he must also insist on honestly fulfilling his own part, – all the sacred duties which are his as a husband. What, then, is the husband’s share in this happy home making? “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself up for it”. A husband is to love his wife. Is love despotic? Does love put its object in a servant’s place? No; love serves. It seeks not its own. It desires “not to be served, but to serve.” It does not demand attention, deference, service, subjection. It seeks rather to serve, to give, to honor.

Finally .................................. a thought for today

Looking for perfection in a man? Look to Jesus.

The Ideal Husband - Part 1

• What position does the husband occupy in the family?
• "For the husband is the head of the wife" (Eph 5:23)

• What beautiful illustration of head ship precludes any abuse of this prerogative?
• For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. (Eph 5:23)

• To whom will the godly husband be subject?
• But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. (1Co 11:3)

• How should husbands relate to their wives?
• Husbands, love your wives and do not be bitter toward them. (Col 3:19)

J. R Miller wrote in "Week - Day Religion". Religion is love, and a religious home is one in which love reigns. There must be love in action, love that flows out of all the house intercourse, showing itself in a thousand little expressions of thoughtfulness, kindness and unselfishness, and gentle courtesy.

There can be very few more beautiful pictures of wedded love that were penned by the wife of Charles Kingsley as she closed her loving memoir with these words : “The outside world must judge him as an author, a preacher, a member of society, but those only who lived with him in the intimacy of every day life at home can tell what he was as a man. Over the real romance of his life and over the tenderest, loveliest passages in his private letters a veil must be thrown, but it will not be lifting it too far to say that if in the highest, closest of earthly relationships a love that never failed – pure, patient, passionate – for six and thirty years, a love which never stooped from its own lofty level to a hasty word, an impatient gesture or a selfish act, in sickness or in health, in sunshine or in storm, by day or by night, could prove that the age of chivalry has not passed away for ever, then Charles Kingsley fulfilled the ideal of a ‘most true and perfect knight’ to the one woman blest with that love in time and to eternity. To eternity, for such love is eternal, and he is not dead. He himself, the man, the lover, husband, father friend – he still lives in God, who is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” And why should not every marriage in Christ realize all that lies in this picture? It is possible, and yet only noble manhood and womanhood, with truest views of marriage and inspired by the holiest love, can realize it.

Surely true head ship is a picture of this type of love. The love that Christ has for his Church

Finally ..................... a thought for today

What matters to Jesus is what's on the inside.