Monthly Bible Study

Oneness with your spouse can only be achieved if both people know and fulfill their biblical role within the marriage. This week we will be focusing on the husband’s role from God’s perspective. God ordains that the husband should be the head of his household. Imagine if you went to work tomorrow and there was no boss, no CEO, no president. It wouldn’t take long before confusion took over and then everyone was fighting for the title of the person in charge. You see, someone has to take the lead, someone has to be in charge, whether that’s in a work role or at home in your marriage. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Ephesians 5:22-24. Many times when we think of someone being in charge, we think about a work environment with a boss and employees. That is not what God wants a marriage to look like. He wants the husband not only to be in charge but to meet the needs of his family, even if that means sacrificing himself-his wants, desires, and even his time and money. If the needs of his family are not more important than his own needs, he is not fit to lead.

Biblical leadership is very different than worldly leadership. The kind of leader that the bible is referring to is one that leads with a servant’s heart. Jesus is the king of kings and yet we saw Him washing the disciple’s feet. Secondly, Jesus also showed us that to lead well means to teach and instruct those whom you lead. Jesus was always teaching His disciples something. We see in 1 Corinthians 14: 34-35 that Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church. Wives are to seek knowledge from their spouses, but a husband can only teach what he knows. If he is not in the word and learning himself from God’s word, leading and instructing his family will be nearly impossible. Lastly, Jesus wants husbands to lead with love and compassion. A husband leading his house like a dictator will only lead to unrest and revolt. Leading in God’s love, however, will create a beautiful relationship. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. Ephesians 5:25-28. So husbands love and lead the way Christ modeled for us while He was here on Earth. Look to Him as your perfect role model, sow a good seed and your harvest will be bountiful.

Why are there so many unhappy and unfulfilling marriages these days even among Christians? It’s most likely because we do not follow God’s blueprint for a marriage. In the book of Genesis, we see that right after God makes woman from Adams flesh, His first command to them is to leave their parents. That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. Genesis 2:24. Since this is the first order of business from God, it is most likely pretty important, but what does it look like for us? As a child, we are instructed to honor and obey our parents. We look to them for wise Godly counsel, they give us rules to follow and consequences when they are not. It is their obligation to provide food and shelter. We spend a great deal of time under our parent’s roof, obeying their rules, etc. This can often lead to grown children feeling that they still need to please their parents. We still want to make sure that they approve of our spouse, our job choices, where we live, etc. But once we are married that dynamic changes drastically. After marriage our first loyalty should still remain with God, our spouse becomes second in line and then parents fall into third place. We must be more willing to do what makes our spouse happy rather than our parents. For those of us who always try to please people (me) this can be quite the challenge.

Once married, a husband and wife commit themselves to one another and promise to take full responsibility for their marriage despite what problems may arise during that relationship. Jesus reminds the Pharisees of this when they start questioning Him about divorce. He tells them, But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female. ’‘For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” Mark 10:6-9. In many ways getting married is like becoming a Christian. We leave our old ways behind and make a personal commitment to the Lord that we will follow in His ways no matter how bad things on this Earth get. The path of being a Christian is never easy, nor is being married. In both situations we are required to put others before ourselves, we are asked to sacrifice things that we love or want, and we definitely don’t always get our way. However, we are promised that if we remain faithful and finish the race, our reward will be great. Sometimes we won’t get to see those rewards while we are here on Earth, but I promise you, any reward from God is going to surpass any difficulties we endure in this life. So finish the race, my friends, whether it’s in your Christian walk or in your marriage, God is waiting for you at the finish line.

Life is full of unmet expectations. After all, I expected to be a princess, living in a palace with a bunch of horses and of course, my prince whom I am happily married to, and we never ever fight. Sure that sounds ridiculous to most people, but how do our normal expectations compare and the scale of ridiculousness? Did we imagine that our marriage would be void of any arguments? Did we expect to get married and live happily ever after? Do we expect our husbands to be perfect, never sinning, never making us angry, etc? What unrealistic expectations do we have for our marriage and/or our husbands? Many of our fights as husband and wife start because someone expected things to go a certain way and they didn’t. What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have to because you do not ask God. James 4: 1-2. How many times do we simply not ask God for what we want because we “don’t want to bother Him”? I know I do that all the time. But there is a big difference between needs and wants. I WANT to live in a castle but what I NEED is shelter. I WANT things to go my way all the time but what I NEED is to follow God’s way. When we don’t get what we want, we tend to throw an adult size tempter tantrum, stomp our feet, pout, then lay on the floor and cry but how often do we notice that even though we don’t have what we WANT, we have everything we NEED.

Oftentimes times we fight with our spouse because we think we have some unmet need, but in reality, God has our needs covered. We argue and get angry because we don’t get what we WANT. We want, we desire, we crave and all these emotions if left unchecked can turn into unmet passions that may or may not even be legitimate. Stop looking to your spouse to fulfill all your passions and desires. Your husband is there to lead you in the way that God commands him. And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:19. Needs are not wrong, we all have them. They serve as a daily reminder of how weak we are and how we need God every second of every day. But we must maintain a hard line in the sand between wants and needs. We also cannot expect our husbands to fulfill every want and need that we have. He is a flawed human being just like you and me. Don’t put that kind of pressure on your husband. Don’t worry about anything, but pray and ask God for everything you need, always giving thanks for what you have. And because you belong to Christ Jesus, God’s peace will stand guard over all your thoughts and feelings. Philippians 4:6-7 

Have you ever wondered why you are nicer to your co-workers than you are to your spouse? What about how you extend so much grace to the family behind you at church rather than your children? Maybe it’s because we care too much about what people think of us. We certainly don’t want our co-workers, or fellow churchgoers to know what we are really like. How quickly I can lose my temper, or how judgmental I am deep down. You would think that the person who we love most in this world, we would want to treat the most loving, but that is not normally what happens. If you are beating yourself up right now, don’t. Humans have had this problem since the beginning of time. Leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion he asked His disciples to pray, He was about to be put on trial and murdered, but what did the disciples do? They continually fall asleep. Really, who could sleep at a time like this? Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Matthew 26:40-41. In our human-ness, we are so weak and frail. It literally doesn’t take more than 24 hours without food, water, or sleep for people to completely unravel. This is why we need Jesus because, without Him, we can do nothing on our own.

Even Paul, as wonderful as he was after his conversion, still struggled with his sinful nature. He says in Romans 7:18-19 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. We, just like Paul are in a constant state of rebellion against God. We are proud, selfish, and self-exhaulting, and that’s on a good day. So how do we handle this kind of rebellion? Just like Paul, we take full acceptance of our sinfulness and maybe even declare ourselves to be the worst. Then our problem is no longer our spouse, but us. When you think of yourself as the worst of sinners, you now lean towards extending huge amounts of grace to your spouse for having to put up with you. We start extending grace the way Jesus does. When we put ourselves in last place, everyone else becomes more important to us than us. Matthew 20:16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” So put yourself last today and see what God does with your heart.

How do you know if the one you are about to marry is the one? The divorce rate in America is over 50%, how do you know, yours won’t be one of them? How do you know with so much to agree on and all the intricate parts of marriage, that yours will stand the test of time? The fact is, the only one who knows is God, but if you and your husband keep God at the center of your marriage, your outlook is much brighter. You see right after God created the world, He made Adam but didn’t want him to be alone so then He made Eve and joined them together in marriage. Marriage is so important to God that He created it right away, as soon as one man and one woman inhabited the Earth. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

The man said,

“This is now bone of my bones

 and flesh of my flesh;

she shall be called ‘woman,’

 for she was taken out of man.”

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. Genesis 2:22-24. 

 In the New Testament, you will learn that the church is Jesus’ bride and we are getting ready for an amazing wedding ceremony when He returns. So why do we have to worry about our relationships, when God is the designer of marriage? If you keep reading Genesis you will see it didn’t take long for sin to enter the world, and that my friends is where things start to fall apart. But don’t you fret your pretty little head, God has made a way out of every problem for us, even death. So we cling to Jesus with all of our might and hold fast to His promises.

So when you fight with your spouse, consider a few things about who you are, and who Christ is. First Jesus had to come to Earth to save us from our sin. Paul tells us in Romans 3:23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That means we are all sinners, we all are tempted, we all fall into sin. So don’t think when you are arguing with your spouse that you are the better Christian and that you are a perfect angel from God. Secondly, only God is perfect, and even though God is perfect and we are sinners, He still continuously forgives us. There is not a time where as believers, we ask for forgiveness and He replies with, just give me some time, or I’m still so mad at you. No, His response is always immediate forgiveness. So forgiveness for our spouses should look the same. We should never hold back on love or forgiveness because God never holds those things back from us. Third God is long suffering. Think about the Israelites in the desert or how humanity constantly turns their backs on God, yet he keeps calling us home and forgiving us. Our relationship with our spouse should be the same way. We should never grow tired of loving and forgiving them. Of course, all these are impossible to achieve without God’s help. So seek Him today. Seek His strength, His love, His gentleness, and His forgiveness. None of these things will guarantee you a perfect marriage, but through Christ, all things are possible.