Security for the Wife
Apart from love and affection, security is the next fundamental emotional need of women. However, financial stability does not necessarily equal emotional security. One can achieve great financial independence and yet have a very insecure wife. On the contrary, if the wife is emotionally secure with the husband, she will be willing to go through any kind of financial struggles with him.
1Jn.4:18 “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment.
Though this verse refers to the love of God, however, on this earth, God also uses a human’s love to bring security to others. Just as God use parental love to provide security for the child, God also uses a husband’s love to bring security to the wife.
Value Them
Eph.5:25 “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it.”
Simply, it means that the husband is supposed to adore and value his wife and make her feel the reality of this verse, and not treat it merely as a superficial or abstract truth. The husband must let his wife feel the loved of Christ through him. Then the wife will feel the security of God through her husband’s love, just like we as a church feel secure through the love of Christ for us. God’s love, experienced through the husband’s love, become heart knowledge, not just head knowledge. Value & Security are interlinked, if the wife doesn’t feel valued, she doesn’t feel secure.
This is a commandment from God, and He has committed to every husband the responsibility to embody, as a person, the ultimate revelation of Christ’s love, to his wife. In fact, every father represents God to his family. This is not an option! Just as Christ is the head of man, the husband is the head of his family. “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”. (1Cor.11:3). The question is, “As fathers and husbands, do we represent God rightly or wrongly to our family?”
As a couple enters into a marriage covenant, they usually make a marriage vow before God to cherish each other…. till death do they part. The word ‘cherish’ means to intentionally & actively make each other feel loved, treasured, and dearly appreciated. And when we fail to do so, we are breaking our vow not just to our spouse but to God. Men, being the head of the home, have the responsibility to first exemplify this to their wives.
1Pet.3:7 –“Likewise you husbands, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered”
What does Peter mean when he exhorts the husband to “dwell with them with understanding” when all men know that it is almost impossible to understand a woman? Ha Ha!
Some would favor the view that Peter was appealing to the husband to provide understanding to his wife based on his knowledge of his wife’s weaknesses - recognizing her needs, her uniqueness and delicateness as a woman. While this knowledge is important for the husband to minister to his wife, but it might not be the only thing that Peter wanted to emphasize here.
I think it is safe to say Peter’s primary emphasis is the husband’s understanding of his role in relation to the Gospel. The husband is to live with his wife with the biblical understanding that he is to subordinate his own selfish desires to bless his wife, just as Christ did for the Church.
As Christian husbands, we are to follow the example of the Lord Jesus as the ultimate ‘suffering servant’. We are to manifest the servanthood of Christ towards our wives, just as Christ demonstrated His servanthood toward the Church. Our Lord did not cling to His elevated status of headship over men and demand that we serve Him but instead, He became the servant and the savior of men.
Likewise, a husband should not endeavor to ‘use’ his headship over his wife for his own benefit or satisfaction, but instead use it as a means of serving his wife. Rather than demanding honor from his wife, he should be “giving honor” to her. To honor someone is to attribute value to them, to esteem them.
The husband should not only be giving honor when his wife is submissive and fulfilling her responsibilities. He should do this even when his wife is ‘failing’. Christ loves us not only when we are ‘strong’, when we are obedient, but especially so when we are weak and struggling.
Understanding of God’s intention for marriage, as revealed in His Word, helps the husband to dwell with his wife in a way that pleases Him and honors his wife in the right manner.
Lastly, it is important to note that Peter ended his thought with the warning that failing to live with his wife in this way will affect the husband’s own communication and intimacy with God - “that your prayers may not be hindered”!