Feel free to use this material in any way that supports His cause! In addition to the FindingJoyInMarriage.doc file being available from the shared library https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1JQV9oEZwRL_H7Whck66UuRGruJQ2nfyk?usp=sharing, Finding Joy In Marriage is available as a paperback or Kindle book from our author page https://www.amazon.com/Bill-and-Roberta-Taylor/e/B09DTMSHT8/
Brain research shows how to receive the joyful marriage God intended
Any interaction between a man and a woman can trigger a dopamine reaction which changes a couple’s brains to bind them to each other.
Dopamine is the “pleasure hormone.” People badly want anything that generates dopamine. Men and women can easily become addicted to each other. Recovering from any addiction can be very hard.
“Drugs such as cocaine and amphetamine target dopamine neurons.[1]
. . . love, on a biochemical level, is a lot like addiction. The healthy addiction of a lifelong monogamous sexual relationship even has measurable physical benefits.”[2]
Being addicted to a spouse who treats you kindly helps you live longer, but an unkind spouse can cause a lot of harm. You must make sure a potential mate treats everyone kindly before getting emotionally connected. Give Your Spouse Rest on page 20 explains the importance of kindness. Why would a man open his heart to a woman who hurts him? Why would a woman open herself to a man who hurts her?
Kindness isn’t enough. Marriages can’t last without deep emotional connections but men and women connect very differently. Making a man feel connected to her is simple but hard for a woman. Making a woman feel connected to him is difficult and scary for a man. Strong connections protect both parties from being tempted to cheat by connecting to others. Chapter 4 on page 35 shows how these connections work.
Women share their emotions freely but want physical privacy. Men freely share their bodies but want emotional privacy. They must each learn the other’s way of connecting and fulfill the other’s needs.
Having Sex Changes Your Brain on page 69 summarizes research that proves scientifically that traditional marriage customs work out best for couples and their children just as God wrote in His Word.
Older women are commanded to teach younger women about men to help them avoid grief: women their own age have no clue. Older Women on page 25 explains Lesson #1. Think About Eve’s Life on page 63 tells how God’s punishments of Eve have affected women ever since.
Chapter 1 - Is Our Man-Woman Thing
Trashing You
or Blessing You?. 1
What Does Your Spouse Want?. 2
What If You’re Just Living Together?. 6
Chapter 2 - The Bible Explains Marriage in One Verse. 7
He Took Rebekah and She Was His Wife. 8
Women Connect Through Emotion. 11
Wives Need Comfort in Times of Grief, Sorrow, or Stress. 12
Isaac Loved Rebekah And Then He was Comforted. 14
Why Does God Require That Pastors Be Married?. 16
The Tragedy of Ignored Comfort 18
Chapter 3 - Science Supports God’s
Commands for
Holy Matrimony. 19
Give Your Spouse Enough Rest to Feel Safe in Marriage to You. 20
Brain Research and the Mating Instinct 25
Putting Marriage on the Table. 29
God’s Expectations When A Woman Marries. 31
A Mother’s Three Gifts to Her Children. 31
Rewards of Obedience to God. 32
Chapter 4 - God Draws Women and Men Together. 35
Chapter 5 – Having Answers Before and During Marriage. 37
Advantages of a Meek and Quiet Spirit 40
Men Don’t Always Respect or Honor Women. 41
Women need Answers when a Man Approaches. 42
The Course Of True Love Never Did Run
Smooth
- William Shakespeare. 46
Putting Marriage on the Table. 46
Being Confident She’s Wanted. 49
Why Our Purity Was Important 50
I Serve God by Serving You. 52
Men and Women See Marriage Differently. 53
And We Lived Happily Ever After. 53
A Wife is What Her Husband Makes Her. 59
The Simplicity of God’s Marriage Rules. 60
Chapter 6 - God Explained What
Happened to Women
After the Fall 61
Everybody Sees how God Punished Adam.. 62
Think About Eve’s Life in the Garden. 63
Greatly Multiply thy Sorrow Through Sensitive Emotions. 64
Thy Desire Shall be to thy Husband. 64
Chapter 7 – Having Sex Changes Your Brain. 69
Don’t Touch until after Marriage. 71
Men Must Possess Their Wives in Honor, Not in Lust 74
Few Treat Others As People Instead Of
Treating
Them As Men And Women. 75
Other Reports Which Show How God Did What He Did. 77
Seminal Fluid Absorbed into a Woman’s
Bloodstream
Improves Her Mood. 77
9 Surprising Things To Know About Semen. 78
Britannica Confirms That Semen Contains Hormones. 78
Chapter 8 - Handling Conflict in Marriage. 79
Disagreement Should Not Lead to Conflict 79
Making You Angry is Usually an Accident 82
The conflict is about you, not the other person! 83
Never say, “you,” always say “I” when angry. 84
Good Faith is Unbelievably Important 86
What You Believe Determines What You Do. 87
Relating to God and His Word. 89
Chapter 9 – More Sources of Conflict 91
Chapter 10 - Sources of Conflict – What We Say and Do. 105
Chapter 11 - Comparing Marriage and Salvation. 117
A Glorious Wife, Without Spot or Wrinkle. 126
Chapter 12 - How God Made Men and
Women
Think So Differently. 129
Knowing versus Understanding. 131
It can be Hard to Explain. 136
Chapter 13 - Ruth’s Rules for Finding Rest in Marriage. 141
The Sacrificial Cost of a Husband. 142
God Teaches Women How To Marry. 143
Background of the Book of Ruth. 144
Rule # 1 – Prepare to Glorify God with Your Husband. 146
Rule # 2 – Go Wherever He Goes. 151
Rule # 3 – Be Sure He Gives You Rest 152
Rest from Praise and Appreciation. 159
Rule # 4 – Don’t Play Hard to Get, Be Hard to Get 164
Rule # 5 – Get Advice from a Godly Grandmother. 166
Does He Praise You and Value You?. 167
Rule # 6 – Make Sure He Opens His Heart to You. 169
Ask the Man to Show Himself 171
1-Sep-25
About the Authors
Bill’s parents were missionaries to Japan. For thousands of years, Japanese lived by growing rice in flooded paddies. Muscle-powered farming is such hard work that the Japanese character for “man” combines the characters for “field” and “strength” because a man provides strength in the fields. Women were totally dependent on men for food. Japanese men exploited their power so much that modern Japanese women want nothing to do with men or with having children. “Relationships are just too much trouble.” Japanese culture is doomed because the women have decided not to birth the next generation.
Having grown up in the Bible, Bill rejected the way Japanese men treated their wives in favor of the Biblical approach. Christianity is the only faith that places women and men on equal footing before God:
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28
As he earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he saw that MIT men weren’t considered to be good husband material, but he wasn’t sure why.
His wife Roberta started helping teach Sunday School at 13; that gave her a teacher’s heart. She earned a degree in Elementary Education and taught 6th grade until Bill claimed her for his own.
By the time they married in 1971, most of his friends were already divorced. They soon realized that God had given them something precious in their joyous marriage, but they could not explain it. When her sister and his brother divorced, they had nothing to say even though God had told them to study marriage.
After 50 years of trying to explain God’s plan so others could enjoy the blessing God intended for all couples, they got marriage down to just 2 words, “only praise” page 27. God gave every woman the ability to be an extraordinary treasure for a man, but that won’t work unless he convinces her that he thinks of her, speaks of her, and treats her as an extraordinary treasure given to him by the Lord God Almighty.
Roberta insisted that Bill treat her as a treasure and as his only potential wife from before the first date.
Chapter 1 - Is Our Man-Woman Thing Trashing You or Blessing You?
Before He spoke the world into existence (Jn. 1:3[3]), Jesus knew Adam would sin (Rev. 13:8[4]; 1 Pe. 1:20[5]). He knew He would die a painful death to offer us a way to have our sins forgiven so we could go to Heaven. He knew this, yet He loved all of us enough to create us anyway.
God loved us enough to create us even knowing that we’d sin. He planned marriage to give us a taste of the joys of Heaven on earth, but there‘s a condition: we must do marriage God’s way (De. 5:29[6]).
Most men and women want to get together and form couples. This should bring joy, but the Internet describes many painful relationships. Many unhappy people are convinced that the relationship would work if only the other person changed. They’ll complain that their “significant other” won’t attend counseling. Waiting on the other person to change makes the sufferer a helpless victim hoping for an unlikely miracle.
Does your relationship hurt badly enough to make you want to change yourself instead of waiting for the other person to improve? To beg God to show how you should change? The most important change is to stop talking to the other person about the problem. If talking could improve the relationship, it already would have. More talk is a waste of time even when your spouse’s soul is in danger:
Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; 2While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. I Peter 3:1-2
This describes a Christian wife who wants to keep her husband out of Hell but it also applies to men who want a relationship to change. “Conversation” doesn’t mean talk, it means behavior. Words don’t show Christ’s love or your love to your spouse, what counts is what you do:
My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. I John 3:18
What you do shows your love. Nothing will change unless you shut up and change your behavior to show more love. Pray for guidance while changing yourself to show that you sincerely want change.
Showing gratitude is a good start. Thank God for giving your spouse to you in marriage. If you’re honest, you’ll see that you put burdens on your spouse. Thank your spouse for letting God bring you together and for putting up with you. Try to be less of a burden.
Warning: The word “may” in 1 Pe. 3:1 above means that there is no guarantee that changing yourself will improve matters. The other person may think you’re being sneaky instead of trying to make life better. The better your changes make your spouse feel, the more suspicion you may get. Changing may make things worse as your spouse gives you a hard time to see if you mean it. This could rise to the level of actual abuse.
What Does Your Spouse Want?
One way to make it better is to give more of what your spouse wants. I was shocked when the Holy Spirit led my wife to explain her need to talk. “I’m really looking forward to being married,” she told me. “I like talking to you. We can talk more in a day of marriage than in a week of dating.” She put a ridiculous amount of talk into our marriage vows!
That’s more talk than a man can imagine, she expected hours per day! We’d talked a lot while dating because we couldn’t do anything else. I thought once marriage was a done deal we wouldn’t have to talk about it any more. The Holy Spirit led her to tell me that talking to her more than I could imagine was a vital part of her marriage vows.
The Book of Esther shows how much wives yearn to talk to husbands. King Ahasuerus made Esther his queen. When Haman persuaded Ahasuerus to let the Jews be murdered, Mordecai urged Esther to ask her husband to stop the slaughter. She said she might die if she tried:
All the king's servants, and the people of the king's provinces, do know, that whosoever, whether man or women, shall come unto the king into the inner court, who is not called, there is one law of his to put him to death, except such to whom the king shall hold out the golden sceptre, that he may live: but I have not been called to come in unto the king these thirty days. Esther 4:11
Someone wanting to talk to Mr. Trump without being called won’t get into the White House. The guards physically block anyone in the White House from coming “unto the inner court.” There’s an exception: the secret service won’t get physical if Melania Trump enters the Oval Office.
King Ahasuerus’ guards would never get physical with one of his wives. Threatening death was the only way to keep his wives from coming to his office to talk to him. That is how badly wives yearn to talk to husbands. A man must meet his wife’s need to talk to keep her from being tempted to talk to other men. Opening his heart to her comforts her and helps him convince her that he loves her in her way.
A man’s sex drive shocks women. In “Sex and Culture,” Dr. Unwin wrote, “The sexual behavior of women before marriage is the decisive factor in cultural success. Men are mainly motivated by sex. If they can get it without marriage, they contribute less to society.”[7] [emphasis added] My wife teaches women that a husband expects to have her five times before breakfast, lunch, dinner, and bed. He’ll seldom have that much strength, but that’s his plan (Ge. 29:21[8]).
Women share emotions freely but want physical privacy. Men share their bodies but want emotional privacy. Women don’t understand how difficult and scary even thinking about emotions is for men; talking is worse. A husband finds it hard to understand how giving herself to him makes his wife feel dependent on him. This frightens her unless he has convinced her that he likes taking care of her and belonging to her.
Talking On Her Terms
Two of our friends understood that their wives wanted them to open their hearts enough to meet their wives’ need for talk.
Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered. I Peter 3:7
The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. Proverbs 31:11
In spite of God’s command for to honor a wife by talking to her enough to learn about her and God’s promise that it was safe to do it, both men struggled with their fears. Men aren’t used to thinking about feelings; it took time for each of them to know his feelings well enough to talk about them and more time to overcome the habits of years.
The more difficult a command is, the greater the reward. Their wives learned how to help then as they shared their feelings, joys, and frustrations. They understood how much their husbands valued them and were able to comfort more often. This relaxed all of them.
“The healthy addiction of a lifelong monogamous sexual relationship even has measurable physical benefits.”[9]
Their marriages are bringing more joy to all of them as they learn more about each other and can serve each other more effectively.
Making Love On His Terms
Many women have told my wife, “I don’t know about your husband, but my husband’s perfectly satisfied.” My wife explains that when the husband decides when to have sex, lovemaking is measured in times per day; when the woman chooses, it’s times per week or per month.
A woman thought her husband was satisfied and said, “The Bible says I should submit to you. You can have me whenever you want me.”
To her surprise and shock, he said, “Oboy!” He made love to her on the spot, and again the next morning, and again the next night and on and on. She saw that she’d been wrong; her husband had far more desire than she’d satisfied. This was hard for her because he didn’t meet her need for open-hearted talk, but he found the money to buy her a dishwasher and other household items she’d been wanting.
God made men possessive. A man takes care of his truck, his boat, his gun, and other things that matter to him. Encouraging him to have her as often as he was able to have her convinced him that she belonged to him. Sex is important enough to a man that taking care of his wife had high priority. He’d known her wants all along but they weren’t important to him as long as she belonged to herself. Once she convinced him that she belonged to him, she moved to the top of his caring list.
Giving herself binds her husband to her and to their children:
“Vasopressin [the neurochemical that affects a man’s brain as oxytocin affects a woman’s brain] seems to have two primary functions related to relationships: initiation of bonding of the man to his mate and attachment to his offspring. . . . it plays an important role in initiating sexual bonding and bonding between fathers and children.”[10] [emphasis added]
Sex binds a man, but much more slowly than it binds a woman. It was frightening to feel herself bound so strongly to him without seeing any concern for her until he felt bound enough to consider her needs.
Edifying One Another
A recently-saved woman didn’t want her husband to go to Hell, but she found that talking about salvation made things worse. Knowledge sharing is one way God wants His people to edify one another (1 Thess. 5:11[11]) and to provoke one another to good works (Heb. 10:24[12]).
Hearing of her frustrations, a church woman who trained therapy dogs thought that her husband’s very hard upbringing meant he didn’t know what love was. This made it impossible to hear about Christ’s love or to love his wife. She suggested a very affectionate dog breed.
As the husband started loving the dog, the dog realized that her husband didn’t love her and nipped at her. Her husband accused her of stealing his dog when she gave dog treats. She got her own dog. The two dogs get along well. Her husband loves both dogs. He is learning what love is and how to love his wife.
This wouldn’t work for a household that couldn’t accommodate pets. The point is that talking about the problem drew on the combined experience of many sympathetic people. If that idea hadn’t worked, another suggestion might work.
What If You’re Just Living Together?
The woman usually wants marriage so it’s up to her to get it. A woman who pushes for marriage must realize that she could lose him entirely.
Lovingly but firmly, she must say, “Unmarried sex is wrong before God and before man. I love you and want to give my life to you, but I will no longer give you my body outside marriage. Marry me, and I solemnly promise that I will belong to you and follow your leadership. As my husband, you may have me several times a day even when I don’t want you, but you may no longer have me without marriage.” Say that and separate from him sexually! This is hard unless she walks out the door!
He’s had her without taking any responsibility so she has to show him he’ll gain from marrying. She can add, “Many couples who lived together break up after marrying. They expect that it will get better, but it won’t unless we change. Making love several times per day will make me belong to you. For that to work, you have open your heart to me and belong to me when I need to talk. If we choose to belong to each other, we can give each other a taste of the joys of heaven, right here on earth.”
He won’t believe her unless she stops. Having had her, he knows how to make her fall and tries to get her again. If she surrenders, she’s lost because he will be convinced that she uses sex to manipulate him.
Adopting a path of virtue is the best way to get him to value and respect her enough to marry her in sincerity and honor. If he doesn’t marry her, she’ll want to marry someone else. She will know the pain of giving herself and her heart without marriage. That should give her strength to tell another man, “No, that mistake hurts, and never again. No sex until we’re married and I won’t marry you unless you grow up, get a job to support me, and show me that you’ll open your heart to me.”
Someone worked hard to figure out how to make the first move without waiting on the other. The rest of this book explains God’s plan for a marriage that gives the joy God intended for all couples.
Chapter 2 - The Bible Explains Marriage in One Verse
And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death. Genesis 24:67
· Isaac supplied the tent – he paid the bills. A man’s proposal must include food, clothing, and shelter. A boy can’t pay for her; all he can do is play with her. That never ends well for either of them.
· She became his wife – they had both made public marriage vows.
· Isaac loved Rebekah and then he was comforted. Every wife can comfort her husband, but it’ss emotionally exhausting. Being reminded that he loves her comforts her and renews her energy so she can keep comforting him. This requires daily praise by both husband and wife as taught in the Song of Solomon (Song 1:2[13]).
80-90% of how a marriage works out depends on how a husband values his wife, but she sets her value before they marry (Pr. 31:10[14]). Even young girls want male attention, but playing boy-girl games before you’re ready to marry is like playing with matches and gasoline before you’re ready for a fire. Playing around can end in three ways:
1) You can break up. This prepares you for divorce later.
2) You can marry before you're grown up enough or have enough income. Mature adults have trouble with the duties and responsibilities of marriage; it’s much harder on younger people.
3) You can get involved physically without commitment to each other, which adds to the emotional damage of breaking up.
“Going steady” can easily arouse a couple. Men shouldn’t get physical with women outside marriage even if they don’t have sex:
Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. 2Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. I Corinthians 7:1-2
The Greek word for “touch” includes starting a fire. Would a man take his mother’s arm to keep her from falling? Of course. Would he try to get his mother or sister sexually aroused? Of course not.
“From an experiment on hugging, we also know that oxytocin [a hormone that draws couples together] is naturally released in the brain after a twenty-second hug from a partner.”[15] [emphasis added]
Emotional involvement if they aren’t ready to marry often leads to fornication which makes it hard to form loving marriages later. The early twenties are a time for growing up; it's not a time for playing grown up.
When God gives a woman to a man to be his wife, he must fulfill his God-given duty to nourish her and cherish her (Eph. 5:29[16]) by serving her (Mk. 9:35[17], 10:42-44[18]) as long as they both shall live. God expects her to serve him by being his help meet (Gen. 2:18[19]), reverencing him (Ep. 5:33[20]), comforting him, and guiding his house.
Isaac Supplied the Tent
Men paid the bills from the beginning. When God told Adam he’d eat “by the sweat of thy face,” God made no provision for Eve to eat. Women aren’t strong enough to hunt or farm without machinery. A woman starved unless she could please a man enough to make him willing to feed her. Generations of depending on men made wives need constant reminders that their husbands enjoy feeding them and caring for them.
He Took Rebekah and She Was His Wife
For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour; Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God: That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter: because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified. For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness. He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit. I Thessalonians 4:3-8
Some say a man possesses his own body, but “vessel” in “the weaker vessel (1 Pe. 3:7[21])” receives. The man gives; the woman receives.
A man sanctifies a woman and sets her apart by marrying her before taking her. God calls it “fraud” when a man persuades a woman to fulfill his lusts without marriage by claiming to love her. God avenges this by denying the man most of the joy God intended for marriage.
Fraud followed by bitterness isn’t a good start for marriage. God gives a man his desire when he takes a woman by lying to her, but fraud brings leanness into his soul (Psalm 106:15[22]). This can’t heal unless the man takes responsibility and confesses his sin to her and to their parents.
“Took to wife (Gen. 26:34; 1 Ki. 16:31; 1 Chr. 7:15)” shows that the men married before taking. The chemicals he puts into her body calm her. She loses her sense of independence and wants to cling to him and belong to him. This can be scary even if he marries her before taking her.
If a man takes a woman outside marriage, she knows he failed to protect her as Adam failed to protect Eve from the serpent. It’s hard for a woman to follow a man she can’t trust to protect her. He must keep her trust after marriage. If she says “ouch,” he should stop. It’s stupid for a man to show his wife that he doesn’t care about hurting her.
Isaac Loved Rebekah
Older women are able to teach younger women how to love husbands (Titus 2:4[23]) because comforting a man is so simple that the Bible explains it in one verse (Song 8:3[24]). There’s no formula for making a wife feel loved because women are so different from each other, but the Bible describes the result. As Naomi told her daughters goodbye, she prayed:
The LORD grant you that ye may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband. Ruth 1:9a
Naomi wanted her daughters to find ease, comfort, rest, and security in knowing that their husbands chose to value and appreciate them as taught in the Song. Watching any couple shows whether she has rest in belonging to her husband. Many women experience this instead:
For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee. Proverbs 23:7
A man can say he loves a woman and provide for her without opening his heart to her. God has the same problem:
This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. Matthew 15:8
Married people love cheerful giving (2 Cor. 9:7[25]) from spouses. Consider the high school sports hero. As he leads his team to victory, cheerleaders try to see which of them can encourage him the most. He tells one of them he loves her. She hasn’t been taught what a man means by “love” and gives herself to him. That doesn’t end well for her.
The book “Unprotected” by Psychiatrist Miriam Grossman https://a.co/d/fIG4k9d confirms that casual sex can be damaging. Having treated more than 2,000 university students for depression and other emotional problems, she wrote that a woman can be very depressed when she finds that her boyfriend had no interest in her beyond sex. Most women associate sex with commitment; most men don’t.
The husband in the Song has opened his heart and belongs to her:
My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies. Song of Solomon 2:16
I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the lilies. Song of Solomon 6:3
What was Delilah’s complaint against Samson?
And she said unto him, How canst thou say, I love thee, when thine heart is not with me? Judges 16:15a
Delilah was upset that Samson wouldn’t belong to her. He said he loved her, she gave herself to him, but he wasn’t hers. What good was he to her? Why not get some cash and be a national heroine by selling him to the Philistines? What she did wasn’t nice, but who lied first?
Women Connect Through Emotion
Women open their hearts to help each other bear the burdens of husbands, children, and houses (1 Tim. 5:14[26]). They don’t know it’s as scary for a man to open his heart as for a woman to open her body. Japanese say “One hair of a woman's head pulls harder than ten yoke of oxen.” No matter how strongly a man is attracted to a woman, he may be afraid to open his heart for fear of being hurt or vexed:
And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death; Judges 16:16
God says it’s OK to open his heart to his wife:
The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, Pro. 31:11a
Just before our wedding, my fiancé told me she was really looking forward to being married. I was too. I thought we were on the same page, but she went on. “I like talking to you. Once we’re married, we can talk more in a day than we can talk in a week of dating.” That helped me understand Esther’s need for talk which is described on page 2.
Her explaining her need for talk made me overcome my fears of discussing feelings with her, but I had no idea how to nourish and cherish her emotions. It took a year or so for me to begin to understand what she said about her feelings and to learn how to think about mine.
While I was learning, God showed her how important her submission was to me. I have limited circulation in my hands. Late in November, I grabbed her. She shrieked, “Stop! Take your hands off me!”
She was shocked by the look of deep hurt on my face. She gasped, “Your hands are very cold!” That was the 1st I’d been aware of this. I ran some hot water, warmed my hands, we made love, and I was OK.
That showed her how very much I needed her to be my treasure.
Wives Need Comfort in Times of Grief, Sorrow, or Stress
Women deal with hurts or stress from injury or the grief of a loved one’s death by talking. A man can be frustrated when she discusses a problem that can’t be fixed or a problem he could fix but she doesn’t want him to fix. If a man stops listening, he’ll hurt her instead of comforting her. Her frustration blocks her from helping others who are in need (2 Cor. 1:6[27]). Women can get help from other women, but her husband is her best source of comfort for stress, grief, sorrow, frustration, or tension.
This can be hard. My wife’s sister’s husband died. My wife had to deal with her grief so she could give hope and uphold her sister and her family in their grief. She told me about the funeral on the phone and on the way back from the airport. I heard her tell a friend at church. She told me everything she’d told her friend. She went over this emotional experience at least 20 times. She felt differently each time, but heard the same thing, over and over. I had to care each time in spite of boredom.
God is just. My wife thinks I want to do the same old thing over and over. Receiving her comfort is new and different to me each time, but to her, it’s “Again? Didn’t we just do that?” God expects us to value each other’s things (Phi. 2:4[28]) and it’s pretty obvious what they are.
The more a man has his wife, the more she wants to talk. The more a man talks, the more he wants to have her. They must “be subject one to another (1 Pe. 5:5[29])” to make this work. The Bible tells how:
The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. 5Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency. I Corinthians 7:4-5
The wife not having power means she must open herself to her husband as needed to keep him from temptation. Traditional marriage vows said “to have and to hold.” A man marries to have her; she marries so he’ll hold her. My wife warns women of his dream of 5 times before breakfast, lunch, dinner, and bed to emphasize how utterly different a man’s view of sex is from hers. The Holy Spirit had her tell me she planned to talk more in a day of marriage than in a week of dating. This warned me that her view of marriage was utterly different from mine.
Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also? Genesis 18:12
Make your husband yours during the strength of his youth:
The more often a man has his wife, the more she wants to talk. The more a man talks, the more he wants to have her. They must “be subject one to another (1 Pe. 5:5[30])” to make this work. The Bible tells how:
He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it. Matthew 10:39
For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it. Mark 8:35
The wife not having power means she must give herself to her husband to keep him from temptation. Some marriage vows say “to have and to hold.” A man marries to have her; she marries so he’ll hold her. She should make her husband hers during the strength of his youth:
“Vasopressin [the neurochemical that changes a man’s brain as oxytocin changes a woman’s brain] seems to have two primary functions related to relationships: initiation of bonding of the man to his mate and attachment to his offspring. . . . Often referred to as the ‘monogamy molecule,’ vasopressin seems to be a primary cause of men attaching to a woman with whom they have close and intimate physical contact. . . . it plays an important role in initiating sexual bonding and bonding between fathers and children.”[31] [emphasis added] A woman gives her children a father by belonging to him.
It takes hours and days of back-and-forth talk to become one as Jesus expects (Mt. 19:5-6[32]). Women open their hearts all the time and don’t see how scary it is for men. 1 Cor. 11:9[33] says that women are made for men. Few men know how scary it is for women to belong to men.
My son’s wife asked about church policy. It took 45 minutes of question and answer for me to understand her question because she thought so differently from my wife. It took 15 minutes to explain my answer. After another 10 minutes, it turned out that my answer was wrong. We worked out the right answer together.
A man can’t spend that much time learning about more than one woman. Obeying God’s command for a husband to know his wife well enough for her to learn what pleases him limits him to only one wife.
Isaac Loved Rebekah And Then He was Comforted
Rebekah could comfort Isaac after he convinced her that he loved her.
I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me. Song 7:10
The wife asks her mother for advice about her husband:
I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother's house, who would instruct me: I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate. 3His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me. Song of Solomon 8:2-3
Her mother tells her that she has more capacity than he; she can drain off all of his sexual energy. That makes it hard for other women to get his attention. If she sends him off to work loaded, he'll be tempted by other women (Pr. 6:28[34]). Comforting her husband often binds him to her and to their children.
Marriages are held together by mutual comfort; a woman gets comfort by heart-to-heart talk, a man is comforted belly-to-belly. How many marriages would fail if husband and wife never criticized and looked for little things to appreciate instead? Jesus gives His people rest:
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Matthew 11:28-30
A wife bears the yoke of pleasing her husband. God commands him to live with her according to knowledge of her (1 Pe. 3:7[35]). The only way to get this knowledge is by hours and hours of daily open-hearted talk. This opens his heart to her. Learning of him makes his yoke easy and his burden light, and shows her that he belongs to her as taught in the Song.
Marriage prospers when a man treats his wife as his undeserved gift from God and she acts like his precious gift from God. Treating marriage as a gift from God makes it wonderful enough to be worth the burden of husband and wife caring for each other and their children:
Let thy fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe: let her breasts satisfy thee at all times, and be thou ravished always with her love. Proverbs 5:18
Blessing her husband’s fountain whenever he’s ravished with her love is part of her marriage burden. Talking to her is part of his burden.
Naomi gave Ruth the best advice on getting marriage you’ll ever hear:
Then said she, Sit still, my daughter, until thou know how the matter will fall: for the man will not be in rest, until he have finished the thing this day. Ruth 3:18
Boaz wasn’t thinking of marriage, but when Ruth brought it up, it was such a good idea that he ran out the very next morning and married her. Why? For the same reason Jacob worked for Laban for seven years:
And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in unto her. Genesis 29:21
Because he wanted her, and he had to marry her to have her.
Her value falls (Pr. 31:10[36]) if she gives herself without marriage. What would marriage give him that he doesn’t have? A woman shouldn’t play hard to get, she should be hard to get. He must give his life for hers.
Why Does God Require That Pastors Be Married?
If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly Titus 1:6
A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife 4One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; 5(For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?) I Timothy 3:2, 4-5
An unmarried man has no “house” to rule. How can he learn how to take care of the church of God? Pastors must be married fathers.
We know 2 churches which appointed unmarried men as youth pastor. Accusations of misbehavior nearly destroyed both churches. A pastor who’d done successful church plants spent 3 years with a married pastor who had no children. God couldn’t bless the effort and it failed.
Page 2 explains why a pastor doesn’t have time to connect directly to all the women in his congregation; he must work through his wife.
My wife’s college friends stopped relating to her. She thought it would change after we married, but it wasn’t until she gave birth that she could relate again. Pregnancy changes a woman’s emotions. His wife can’t connect to the church women without having had children.
Ruling his house and raising children “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Eph. 6:4)” requires that he know a lot about them. His wife has a different view of their children and talking to her builds his knowledge. A pastor must spend more time talking to his wife than non-pastors because he also needs her view of the souls of the spiritual children whom God places under his care:
Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you. Hebrews 13:17
If he gives his wife a position in the church by praising her work (Pr. 31:31b[37]) and asks, “Was there anything else I should announce,” women will ask her for details. This helps his wife get information he can’t get and her different view when he discusses plans may give him ideas.
Opening his heart to her about the concerns and griefs of his spiritual children helps her feel that he belongs to her and makes her better able to comfort him. Comfort is essential for surviving the pastorate: spiritual children can bring as much grief as biological children, sometimes more.
And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved. II Corinthians 12:15
Comforting her husband 2 or 3 times per day improves his wife’s mood. It also makes them both healthier:
“The healthy addiction of a lifelong monogamous sexual relationship even has measurable physical benefits.”[38]
A husband must talk to his wife enough to relieve her stress and heal her sorrows. She suffers because of their spiritual children just as he does. She needs extra talk to heal the extra hurt and to have enough emotional energy to help others. If he does this, visiting wives will see that his wife is calm, appreciated, and that she has a firm place in the ministry. They’ll want to come back so their husbands can learn how it’s done. This makes his wife the most important member of his church.
My wife has told many pastors’ wives about her “5 times” rule. Most react in shocked horror, showing that their husband’s haven’t talked enough to convince them of his love. Only one said, “Of course! How else can I protect him from being tempted by all those unhappy women?”
If a pastor allows his connection to his wife to weaken through neglect, it’s easy to become somewhat connected to women in the congregation. His “emotional harem” weakens their connections to their own husbands. The pastor’s wife may not understand all of what’s going on, but her feelings of neglect and jealousy grow when this happens.
Trials help us relate to others in the congregation, especially the newly-saved (2 Cor. 1:4[39]). Pain of miscarriage, death of a relative, a broken leg, or illness can often help others relate to us and trust God, but it’s hard for a pastor’s wife to share grief unless she knows her husband will uphold her and comfort her by talking to her as much as she needs.
The Tragedy of Ignored Comfort
Every pastor we know well enough to learn what he does calls other pastors for advice about problems. This not only ignores the earthly source of comfort God tried to give him, it means his problem description won’t include his help meet’s knowledge of the congregation. My wife and I ask for advice about raising our children, but only after talking enough to make sure that we agree on all details of the problem.
Why would a pastor seek comfort from colleagues? When anything goes wrong in a child’s life, the child screams for mommy. Children appreciate fathers, but know that women are made to give comfort.
Ignoring her knowledge keeps her from helping him. Cutting her out of discussions makes her feel unloved. How can she comfort him without knowing his heart? Pastors burn out and leave pulpits or the church flies apart when they don’t receive the comfort God intended for them.
“I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth (3 Jn. 1:4).” A father has a hard time raising his children without his wife’s help. A pastor has a hard time raising either biological children or spiritual children without his wife’s help. Pastors miss the joy and comfort God intended by neglecting the help meet God gave to help him do the work God called him to do.
A pastor can sometimes absorb so much emotional energy from the congregation that he can’t handle his wife’s emotions. If he restores his wife’s emotional energy by talking to her, she can not only absorb more of the energy from the congregation, she’d be able to comfort him a lot more often. Her comfort relieves his stress so he can handle more.
What did God say about His servant who buried his talent in the ground instead of using it as He expected? That warning applies to all husbands, not just to pastors.
Chapter 3 - Science Supports God’s Commands for Holy Matrimony
The way you answer these questions decides how your marriage goes:
· Where do you find truth? Do you find truth in the Word of God or in “the oppositions of science falsely so called (1 Tim. 6:20)?”
· Is God good? Every Christian says that God is good, but they don’t act like they believe it.
If men truly believe that God is good, they wouldn’t complain so bitterly about the way God made women. If women believed in their hearts that God is good, they wouldn’t complain as much about men.
Marriage done God’s way gives a taste of the joys of Heaven on earth, but Churches have forgotten how Holy Matrimony works. When lost people see we can’t handle this life better than they, why should they care what we say about the life to come?
Men want women and women want badly to be wanted by men, but the Internet is full of complaints about relationship problems. If a man doesn’t meet her needs, there’s no way the relationship can work, but few women have the words to explain their needs to a man. Even if he wants to make her happy badly enough to work at it, he can’t fix it if she can’t tell him the problem. This book has the words she needs.
As the sexual revolution was getting underway, my grandmother told me, “Women ask for very little and that’s what they get.” Women drive marriage and civilization by insisting that men marry them, care for them, and help raise their children. Pres. Reagan said, “If it weren’t for women, men would be swinging clubs and sleeping in trees.” A responsible man works hard caring for his car, boat, or whatever matters to him. Boys can’t handle the responsibilities of marriage and play with girls instead.
Without a wife, a man would sleep in a cave or in his truck. If his wife chooses to belong to him, he spends great effort caring for her. A man’s drive to work to keep his wife happy and comfortable drives civilization.
Older women must teach women about men (Ti. 2:4-5[40]). Older men must teach men to honor, praise, respect, and protect women (Ti. 2:6[41]).
Research has found that our brains can be flooded with dopamine when a man and woman interact. Any interaction can trigger neurochemicals which change the couple’s brains to bind them together.
“Drugs such as cocaine and amphetamine target dopamine neurons.[42]
. . . love, on a biochemical level, is a lot like addiction. The healthy addiction of a lifelong monogamous sexual relationship even has measurable physical benefits.”[43] [emphasis added]
Dopamine is the “pleasure hormone;” people badly want anything that generates dopamine. God uses dopamine to addict couples to each other for our good, but there are many harmful ways to use dopamine.
God made women for men (I Cor. 11:8-9[44]). Giving herself to a man binds her to him. Sex binds a man to her but not as strongly. Breaking up can make it hard for either of them to form a strong marriage later.
“One significant but sad outcome of becoming involved in an intense romantic relationship that breaks up, especially if it has become sexual, is emotional upheaval. Men can experience these feelings, but women suffer more . . .”[45] [Emphasis added]
Being addicted to a spouse who treats you kindly helps you live longer, but an unkind spouse can cause a lot of harm. You must make sure the other person treats you kindly and is kind to other people you meet before letting yourself become emotionally connected.
Let’s review the most important part of any joyful marriage!
Give Your Spouse Enough Rest to Feel Safe in Marriage to You
Naomi gave us the foundation of marriage:
The LORD grant you that ye may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband. Ruth 1:9a
A hurtful spouse is like a bad addiction. My wife asked God to choose her husband. God couldn’t give her to me without sanding off some rough spots, so God led her to ask me not to criticize her. “Your opinion of me will be very important to me,” she said. “I want to love you very much. The more I love you, the more your disapproval will hurt me. I won’t be able to love you as much as I want to love you if you hurt me.”
Men can understand that. Men, you know why you married your wife. She probably doesn’t know why you married her, women marry for other reasons, but you know. Why make it hard for her to love you?
Nowhere in the Bible does a husband criticize his wife. I want to make it as easy for her to love me as I possibly can. I watch what I say so she can feel safe and find rest in belonging to me. I’ll say, “That didn’t work out as well as we expected…” Note the “we.” She tries hard to please me so I’m part of all she does. My taking responsibility means I’m not criticizing her when things go wrong. Scripture gives us more:
There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword: but the tongue of the wise is health. Pro. 12:18
Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them. Colossians 3:19
She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. Proverbs 31:26
People who love each other can be hurt badly by unkind words. We try to be sure our tongues are health.
Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: 32And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. 1Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; 2And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour. Ephesians 4:31-5:2
Our sins have been washed away. When God looks on my wife or me, He sees the purity and perfection of His Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 6:11[46]). To be a follower of God, we must see each other and think of each other and speak of each other as having the same perfection that God sees in us by His grace.
Jesus sent His disciples out as God had sent Him and gave them the Holy Spirit (Jn. 20:21-22[47]). Peter led them to go fishing instead. Jesus came after them, fed them, and then asked Peter “Do you love Me?”
Peter had seen Jesus weep. He knew that if he let himself love the lost as Jesus had, he would be hurt when people he loved chose not to accept the gospel. Jesus’ questions didn’t make Peter love Jesus, but made him admit to himself that he loved Jesus. Admitting his love made Peter want to please Jesus; he spread the Gospel for the rest of his life.
I understand Peter because my dad never admitted to himself that he loved my mother. He said he did but words mean little:
This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. Matthew 15:8
Being a missionary wife is hard: learning enough of a foreign culture to share womanly feelings is far more difficult than learning enough to spread the Gospel. When my wife tried to talk about raising me, my mother had felt so unloved and had had so little conversation that she’d forgotten how to do women-talk! She spoke of leaving dad.
A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones. Proverbs 17:22
Feeling neither loved nor appreciated dried my mother’s bones. She thought dad would leave her when she was diagnosed with cancer, but he took early retirement and cared for her until she died. She finally knew he loved her, but by that time it was too late.
She died at 62; her mother lived into her nineties. Given the choice of living 30 more years feeling unloved or dying knowing she was loved, she’d have chosen early death. Don’t dry your wife’s bones.
My wife trying to treat me as perfect makes it safe for me to rest in loving her and vice versa. Men don’t want to admit their feelings for fear of being hurt. Our care to have the law of kindness in our tongues makes it safe for us to love each other. Our love for Jesus makes us want to please Him by loving each other and serving each other. We strive to make our home safe for everyone’s feelings, emotions, and hurts. That makes our home safe for us and for our children.
When a woman wants a man to change, she should make her point without saying anything. Some say, “A woman can’t change a man by loving him. He changes himself when he loves her.” God says:
Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation[48] of the wives; I Peter 3:1
That means without saying anything. When we married, I’d lived 9 years in non-family situations. When I tracked mud into our house, she grabbed a rag and silently wiped up behind me. I quit doing it.
I’ll say, “That didn’t work out as well as we expected…” Note the “we.” She does most things to please me so I’m part of all she does. My taking responsibility means I’m not criticizing her when things go wrong.
When you die, people will remember the very last thing you said. Never say anything which wouldn’t please you as a last memory of you. You can apologize, but you can’t un-say anything, not ever.
“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, / Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit / Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, / Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.” ― Omar Khayyám
Men aren’t used to thinking about feelings and don’t want to recognize feelings for fear of being hurt: every man knows that women can slice men to ribbons:
And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death; Judges 16:16
Emotions scare men. He may not want to admit his love to himself. God knows this, so He wrote that it’s safe to love a virtuous wife:
The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, Pro. 31:11a
Wives, how can you expect him to open his heart to you if you hurt him? Men, how can you expect your wife to open herself to you if you hurt her? Kindness is fundamental to healthy marriage addiction.
Handling Conflict
What do you do when your spouse hurts you? It will happen: people get thoughtless, or selfish. Your hurt is about you, your spouse may have no idea you’re upset. Discuss your hurt honestly, but talk about yourself, not your spouse. Say, “I was hurt when I heard . . .” or “I felt unloved when this happened . . .” Never say “when you” as if you’re blaming your spouse, that leads to fights. Keeping your spouse out of the problem makes you allies working together to solve a problem instead of fighting about what the problem is. This is discussed in detail on page 85.
Servant Leadership
God values women and men equally (Gal. 3:28[49]) but He gave us different roles. God expects a wife to submit to her husband and to follow him. A man maintains her addiction by fulfilling his God-given duty to nourish and cherish his wife (Eph. 5:29[50]) by serving her as long as they live.
But Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them. 43But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: 44And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. Mark 10:42-44
If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all. Mark 9:35b
Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. Matthew 20:28
Servant leadership works only on willing followers. Men know they should lead. We’ve seen couples where the man doesn’t think his wife follows and tries to dominate her. This can happen if he hasn’t taken the time to explain in detail. She can’t follow unless she understands.
Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. John 15:15
Explaining promotes a wife to friend. Ladies, don’t marry a man who won’t explain. Men, don’t marry if she won’t follow, but explain.
Brain Research and the Mating Instinct
Hooked: The Brain Science on How Casual Sex Affects Human Development https://a.co/d/23NZaPL explains how sexual hormones change our brains to bind sexual partners together.
Hooked explains God’s command that men and women marry before having sex in 173 pages. If God explained His commands, the Bible would be too big for hand-copying. God expects us to obey through faith.
The most up-to-date research suggests that most humans are “designed” to be sexually monogamous with one mate for life. This information also shows that the further individuals deviate from this behavior, the more problems they encounter.[51] [emphasis added]
God made women for men (I Cor. 11:8-9[52]). Giving herself to a man binds her to him. Sex binds a man to her but not as fast. Breaking up can make it hard for either of them to form a strong marriage later.
Older Women
Older women are commanded to teach younger women about men. Lesson #1 is that when a man says he loves her, he wants to bed her.
A woman must know the difference between being wanted and being valued. Rachel knew that Jacob valued her enough to work for her father for seven years to earn the right to marry her (Ge. 29:21[53]). Boaz knew a hard-working, virtuous woman would make a good wife; he married Ruth because he valued her (Ru. 4:13a[54]) enough to vow to take care of her.
If a woman’s on the pill, a man feels she expects to have sex, so why not with him? If she isn’t on the pill, she can say “No, I’ll get pregnant. Not unless we’re married, and I won’t marry you unless you grow up and get a job.” Isaac gave Rebecca a home (Gen. 24:67[55]). If a man’s offer doesn’t include food, clothing, and shelter, it’s not Biblical. If he can’t pay, all he can do is play with her and discard her. God hates that!
Older women must also teach that God created every woman to be His treasured gift for one man, not a sex toy who wanders from man to man hoping to find love. More support from Hooked:
“Those who abstain from sex until marriage significantly add to their chance for avoiding problems and finding happiness.”[56]
“. . . we know that people who have had sex before they entered into marriage have a higher divorce rate than those who had not had prior sex.”[57]
“. . . the inability to bond after multiple liaisons is rooted in the fact that our behaviors actually physically change our brains. The pattern of hooking up and breaking up and hooking up again can eventually override the natural bonding that occurs between two intimately involved individuals.”[58]
“. . . love, on a biochemical level, is a lot like addiction. The healthy addiction of a lifelong monogamous sexual relationship even has measurable physical benefits.”[59]
Some tell women not to kiss because kissing may give a man ideas. That’s wrong. Men don’t get ideas, men have ideas. Kissing can give her ideas. When both parties have the same idea, it’s hard to stop.
“It was the hardest thing we ever did, but we’re so glad we waited. We had to talk through our disagreements. We couldn’t just feel close by having sex; we had to really work things out.”[60]
“The hardest breakup I ever had was with the first person I had sex with. Fifteen years later, I still don’t think I’m over him. I still dream about him and think about him and compare every guy since then to him. I’m married now and I feel like it’s a threesome in my heart. He is still there. It is like he is a part of me and I still can’t get over him.”[61] [emphasis added. Sleeping around didn’t help her!]
Only Praise
The Song of Solomon explains how to maintain a happy marriage.
1) There is no criticism in the Song, it’s full of praise for little things. Married people need constant praise, support, and appreciation from each other. Thank God for marriage and for your spouse!
2) It starts with the wife praising her husband for getting physical with her (Song 1:2[62]). Feeling appreciated by his wife makes a man more willing to care for her and to appreciate her by praising her. What happens when a wife praises her husband for kissing? Sex exalts a man:
Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. Psalm 19:5
3) The husband is totally involved with his wife. He's so addicted to her that he see other women as people, not as women. He tells everyone that she's uniquely perfect:
Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee. Song 4:7
My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her. The daughters saw her, and blessed her; yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her. Song 6:9
4) The wife has the security of knowing her husband belongs to her:
My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies. Song of Solomon 2:16
I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the lilies. Song of Solomon 6:3
How does a man convince his wife he belongs to her? Open his heart to her, in detail. She can’t follow without knowing where he’s going.
Why A Man Wants A Woman
A man pursues a woman because he knows how much joy she can give him. She must explain that God created her to be His treasured gift for one man, not a sex toy who wanders from man to man seeking love.
Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD. Proverbs 18:22
What do babies do when anything goes wrong? Scream for mommy. Toddlers run and find mommy. A child knows that daddy’s wife is a Good Thing; a husband should know this and proclaim it to everyone.
Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. Proverbs 31:10-12
There is a difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband. I Corinthians 7:34
For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. 9Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. I Corinthians 11:8-9
God made women sensitive to how men treat them and strengthened their desire to be with a man as a punishment, see page 68. Women must be careful about getting emotionally involved with men:
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. Proverbs 4:23
A woman shouldn’t let herself get emotionally tangled with a man until after he marries her.
Jesus told us that men marry, women are given in marriage. A wife is a gift from God Almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth, to her husband:
They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, Luke 17:27a
In a church wedding, some old guy comes in with the bride. What’s he doing? He says that he and her mother are giving her to her husband. Their blessing is helpful, but a wife is also a gift from God:
If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? Matthew 7:11
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. James 1:17
A wife will be a good and perfect gift from God to her husband. He must honor her emotions!
1 Peter 3:7 commands giving honour unto the wife. Being honored by her husband gives her rest.
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Matthew 11:28-30
A woman who’s involved with a man wears the yoke of pleasing him. Will he make his yoke easy and his burden light by helping her learn of him? She can’t please him without knowing his wants in detail.
Putting Marriage on the Table
If a man expresses interest and there’s a possibility that she and he might marry, she must establish her price before the first date. She must explain that she’s God’s good and perfect gift to her husband, and insist on marriage before giving herself to him.
When I first offered to buy my wife lunch, she said “Yes,” but before we left church for the restaurant, she set her terms and conditions:
“Before you spend any money on me, you should know that I’m looking for a husband. I’m not just looking for fun; I want to get married. I’m not saying you have to agree to marry me before we go out, but I want you to agree that the purpose of being together is to decide whether you and I should marry. God made me to be a treasure for some man. If you aren’t that man, fine, we can part friends, but I’m not a toy. I don’t want a man to play with me; I want a man to stay with me.”
Putting marriage on the table was part of guarding her heart. A woman who lets herself fall in love with a man who isn’t willing to marry anyone is crusin’ for a brusin’; she’s in for a world of hurt.
When she spoke of my spending money on her, she signaled that she expected me to pay her way. Long ago, a woman wouldn’t give herself to a man without marriage and wouldn’t marry unless he’d grown up enough to support her. Even back in 1971, many women lived with men without marriage, paid “their share” of the rent, and became “friends with benefits.” She let me know she wasn’t going to do that.
When God told Adam he’d eat by the sweat of his face, God gave no way for Eve to eat, see page 65. Women aren’t strong enough to hunt or farm without machinery. For generations, a woman starved unless she pleased a man enough for him to choose to feed her. The Bible sums up marriage in one verse:
And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death. Genesis 24:67
She made the same points before dating. She expected me to pay, she wanted marriage, she expected me to treat her as a treasure, and she planned to be a treasure. She emphasized marriage by telling me she wasn’t a toy. She’d seen her friends involved with men who saw nothing wrong with sex outside marriage even if the woman wasn’t willing.
Every man knows a woman can give him the joys of Heaven. I was attracted to her, I liked talking to her, and she told me she planned to be God’s treasure for her husband! I knew exactly what it would be like to have her be God’s treasure for me. If she wanted to be my treasure, I’d be a fool not to marry her. I said, “Sure,” and we went to lunch.
Before dating, a woman should ask him to agree that the goal is to see whether he and she will marry, his life for her life. “A wise woman buildeth her house,” starting before marriage. Page 147 tells how Ruth’s marriage came about. Cultures are different, but God’s principles don’t change. Few women know how to get married; a woman can save herself a lot of grief by knowing how marriage comes about.
I had no idea that she had no idea that it would cost her all of her independence to be my treasure. To her credit, when she found out that I wanted to make love to her 3 or 4 times per day, she realized that was what God expected of her and did her best to belong to me.
God’s Expectations When A Woman Marries
American society has turned against stay-at-home mothers. When my wife was raising children, she was told not to waste her time: “Put ‘em in day care and get a job. Do something worthwhile!” Fifty years later, the anti-motherhood movement has become much stronger. God said:
I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, I Timothy 5:14a
Weakening motherhood destroys societies. A Greek soldier who died in battle was carried home on his shield. If he ran, he’d throw his shield away to run faster. Greek mothers taught their sons, “Come back carrying your shield or on it.” At that time, Greek warriors were the best in the world – Alexander the Great conquered from Greece to India. When Greek mothers stopped teaching their sons to fight to defend their homes and families, Rome conquered Greece.
When the sun never set on the British Empire, the saying was, “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.” Children were taught to spread the gospel and British rule everywhere. They knew, “Behind every successful man, there’s a woman” because a wife’s encouragement and her husband’s desire to care for her drive a man’s career.
A woman should think about fatherhood. Is he healthy? She doesn’t want a sickly child. Is he smart and responsible enough to hold a job that will support her and her children? Is he interesting to talk to? Does he have good ideas? Does he consider Scripture and think before he acts? Will he explain logical reasons for what he does? Does he value her suggestions and knowledge? She can’t help him if he won’t listen to her.
A Mother’s Three Gifts to Her Children
Working mothers have neither the emotional energy nor the time to raise their children; they subcontract mother hood to hirelings. God expects mothers to give their children three gifts:
The first gift is putting her life on the line to give her child life. Death in childbirth is less common than it was but it happens. A woman walks the valley of the shadow of death out of love for her unborn child.
Jesus created us knowing Adam would sin and that He would have to die to give us salvation. Mothers illustrate His love for us by wanting children enough to risk their lives; men should honor women for this.
The second gift is a father with strong emotional and financial ties to her child. A man may talk of birds and bees, but in his heart where it counts, a man doesn't believe he has anything to do with making babies. The baby is hers - she had it last - but what has her baby to do with him?
The only way to give her child an emotionally and financially committed father is to belong to him thoroughly before getting pregnant. If she requires that he commit himself by marrying before giving herself and then convince him that she belongs to him by encouraging him to have her whenever he can, her children also belong to him.
“The time my father got me, his mind was not on me.” What was he thinking as you were conceived? Was he thinking at all?
“Vasopressin [the neurochemical that changes a man’s brain as oxytocin changes a woman’s brain] seems to have two primary functions related to relationships: initiation of bonding of the man to his mate and attachment to his offspring. . . . it plays an important role in initiating sexual bonding and bonding between fathers and children.”[63] [emphasis added, “bond” means “become addicted.”]
The third gift is the gift of a mother. Having risked her life to give her child life, having given up her independence by belonging to her husband, God expects her to give up her career and dedicate her life to nourishing and cherishing her family.
She must be content to live on what her husband earns, encourage him in his career, and mother her children. Women with jobs have neither time nor emotional energy to teach their sons how to be Biblical husbands or to teach their daughters how to be Biblical wives.
Rewards of Obedience to God
If a wife belongs to her husband, her happiness also belongs to him. It took me about a month to learn that making my wife happy by spending money on our house made me far happier than anything I could buy for myself. Eph. 5:25-30 tells husbands to give their lives for their wives. I earn so much per hour. When she spends that much, I’ve given one hour of my life for her, but her happiness rewards me.
It may be hard to find birthday or Christmas gifts for a husband. God made men want just one thing. If she’s truly and gladly his, that’s all he really wants and she can spend the money on the house. If she isn’t his, he’ll buy toys to make himself happy but that won’t work. Ecclesiastes 2 tells us that Solomon’s work was vanity and chasing after wind because he did it for himself. A godly husband’s work isn’t vain because he does it for his wife, children, and church. His wife should appreciate him often!
Nothing straightens a man like having a woman lean on him. Having her be happy in being his makes it easier for him to open his heart to her.
To Sum Up
God made sex powerful to hold marriages together until death:
“. . . love, on a biochemical level, is a lot like addiction. The healthy addiction of a lifelong monogamous sexual relationship even has measurable physical benefits.”[64] [emphasis added]
Sex calms a wife[65], takes away her independence, and makes her more sensitive to how she thinks he feels about her. If she thinks he’s unhappy, she won’t want to feel that and will evade him. If he convinces her he rejoices in her, she’ll rejoice in his joy as she gives herself to him.
Anyone can see if he has made her comfortable enough to rest in belonging to him that she can rejoice in giving herself that often. We need to teach that scientific research supports God’s old paths:
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10
Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein. Jeremiah 6:16
Christians aren’t raising enough faithful children to fill the church:
Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? Luke 18:8b
We must convince young people that both science and the Word of God show that God’s old paths of virtuous, permanent marriages are best for couples and for their children.
Chapter 4 - God Draws Women and Men Together
Men want women; women want to be wanted. God expects women to be valued. Marriage done God’s way brings great joy. Couples should be able to make marriages work, but many find great pain in relationships.
Marriages don’t last without deep emotional connections between husband and wife, but men and women connect very differently. They must both learn how to meet the other’s need for connection.
Men become close by sharing intense experiences, unlike women who draw close by talking about their deepest feelings and share experiences by talking about them. War veterans shot at 40 years ago still get together to talk about it. Once trust forms, they’re bound ‘til death because a man’s life often depends on the faithfulness of those around him. A firefighter dies if the other person holding the hose goofs.
Veterans keep getting together because even the bonds of sharing deadly combat need maintenance. It’s hard for women to share such ties. A woman isn’t satisfied by hearing how the men were shot at, she wants to know how they felt about it. Men don’t say how they felt, that’s private. They care who stood and fought instead of running when the bullets flew. Talking doesn’t build a man’s trust, “You had to be there.”
Men talk about experiences, but not to build relationships as women do. Men tell “virtue” stories to teach others how to behave, women tell “feeling” stories to build emotional ties. Women feel that heroic stories are unrealistic while men feel that relationship stories are pointless.
Sex is God’s way to bind a husband to his wife through intense shared experience, see page 32. Sex hormones bind his wife to him, make her feel that she belongs to him, and humble her, see page 20.
Having learned the importance of sex, my wife teaches that a man wants to have his wife 5 times before breakfast, lunch, dinner, and bed. That shocks most women; I was shocked when the Holy Spirit led my wife to explain her need to talk. “I’m really looking forward to being married,” she told me. “We can talk more in a day of marriage than in a week of dating.” She put a ridiculous amount of talk into our marriage vows!
Giving herself to me was the most frightening experience of her life: nobody had warned her that God made her to belong to a man. Opening my heart as I had promised was as scary for me as being mine was for her. The idea of letting his wife into his heart scares most men.
The more often a man has his wife, the more she wants to talk. The more they talk, the more he wants to have her. They must “be subject one to another (1 Pe. 5:5[66])” to make this work. The Bible tells how:
The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. 5Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency. I Corinthians 7:4-5
The wife not having power means she must open her body to her husband whenever he can have her. If she drains off ll his energy, other women won’t tempt him. If she sends him out loaded, he’ll be tempted by other women and they could both be burned.
God expects a man to open his heart to his wife often enough and thoroughly enough to learn her needs:
Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge I Peter 3:7a
The only way he can get knowledge of her is through hours and hours of open-hearted talk. The man not having power of his body means he must open his heart to her often enough to satisfy her emotional needs. If he doesn’t meet her emotional needs, she’ll be tempted to commit emotional adultery by talking to other men.
It’s a sacrifice to meet your spouse’s needs: it won’t be what you want to do. The Bible says its fraud against your marriage if you don’t make the ties between you strong enough to protect each other from temptation. A couple shouldn’t marry unless they want each other badly enough to meet these needs gladly for the rest of their lives. She learns whether he trusts her enough to open his heart while courting; trust makes it easier to open herself to him. They also find out whether they can create a “safe space” where they can rejoice in each other, page 20.
Chapter 5 – Having Answers Before and During Marriage
Holy Matrimony done God’s way gives both husband and wife a taste of the joys of Heaven, right here on earth. God tells us how to do that.
Yea, all of you [the entire church which includes all married couples] be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. I Peter 5:5b
O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever! Deuteronomy 5:29
Hear the pain in God’s voice! This came after God plagued the Egyptians so that they drove the Jews out of Egypt, parted the Red Sea, gave them water from a rock, and they worshipped a golden calf!
You can’t separate God’s love from His holiness. His love makes Him want to bless us, but His Holiness means He can’t unless we keep His commandments! You can choose to follow Him or go your own way:
And he gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul. Psalm 106:15
God put very strong desires into men and women so that we’d pair up in marriage to give Him children:
Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. Psalm 127:3
A man will marry and care for her if he values her highly enough and marriage is the only way she’ll let him have her. If he can have her without marriage, what would marriage give him that he doesn’t have?
[Holy Matrimony where spouses choose to appreciate and serve each other] greatly increases the chance for a child to be raised in a nurturing two-parent home, which studies have shown provides a child the most advantageous environment for growing into his or her potential.[67] [emphasis added]
Scripture tells how to do this. “The words of King Lemuel, the wisdom his mother taught him (Pr. 31:1).” Working mothers have neither time nor emotional energy to teach their sons to nourish and cherish wives, so a woman must be ready to explain why she insists that a man follow God’s plan of marriage.
Answers for the Lost
God expects us to be ready to explain our joy in this life (1 Pe. 3:15[68]). People seeing the fruit of the spirit (Gal. 5:22-23[69]) may ask why we have more hope and joy than they. We have the honor of laboring together with God. We plant and water (1 Cor. 3:6-9[70]) by telling people how to find the joy of the Lord (Neh. 8:10[71]) in marriage and in all of life.
God expects couples to dedicate their lives to serving Him by serving each other, their children, and His church. As a Christian, you should be convinced that God loves you, He wants your life to glorify Him, and He created your spouse to bless you. His word has the keys to a joyful life.
Romans 7:4[72] uses the word “marriage” to describe the relationship between an individual Christian and Christ. Holy Matrimony is a picture of the unbreakable bond between Jesus and each of His believers. Lost people see unhappy Christian marriages and divorce. If we can’t handle this life any better than they, why should they care what we say about the life to come? Divorce damages our children and our testimony.
John 3:16 sums up salvation, can you teach one verse which shows how marriage works? See page 7.
Churches must teach us to thank God for marriage. Older women must teach young women about men (Ti. 2:4-5[73]). Older men must teach young men to honor, praise, respect, and protect women (Ti. 2:6[74]).
Titus 2:4-573, Eph. 5:22-24[75], and Eph. 5:33103 tell women to obey and follow their husbands. My wife had faith that obeying God would bless her even though she couldn’t understand how. She had to find a man whom she trusted and respected enough to obey, who was going where God wanted her to go, and who would help her glorify God with him.
Men, it’s hard for a wife to respect you if you aren’t respectable. How can she honor you if you aren’t honorable? She can’t obey if she doesn’t understand what you want; she can’t follow unless she knows where you’re going and unless she trusts you. Here’s a problem: God made men and women think very differently, for good reason. Women often have a hard time understanding a man’s thinking or his plans.
Some men say that women are too emotional to understand men, but “a prudent wife is from the LORD (Pr. 19:14b).” The exact mixture of logic and emotion that God gave each woman is from Him. A man who complains about her thought process is questioning the wisdom of God who created her. A man’s wife needs a lot of explanation. A husband must explain his plans. No matter how much longsuffering it takes!
And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, 25In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; II Timothy 2:24-25a
This is for all Christians, not just for husbands, particularly the part about “in meekness instructing.”
Advantages of a Meek and Quiet Spirit
Women must be taught to behave modestly to avoid unwanted male attention. Modern society teaches girls to dress in revealing clothes and to flirt to attract attention from men. That’s anti-Biblical:
Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; 4But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. I Peter 3:3-4
In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; 10But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. I Timothy 2:9-10
Society teaches women to act like toys. Godly behavior is the opposite of flirting, dressing in “marketing mode,” or signaling men “come play with me.” If you aren’t giving it away, don’t advertise.
Ever watch a boy play with a toy truck? He pushes it one way then another way until he gets tired of it. Then he throws it away and grabs another toy. It’s wrong for a man to stir up a woman’s emotions by playing with her, but many play with women who advertise availability.
When Magic Johnson told of having AIDS in 1991, I read that women dressed in low-cut spandex and lined up outside locker rooms. Athletes would come out, choose a toy from the lineup, and take her to bed.
How could a woman give herself to a man who didn’t even know her name? The general feeling was, “We’re nothing and will always be nothing. But in bed with a hero, his greatness rubs off on us.” They hadn’t been taught that God created them to be His treasured gift for one man, not sex toys who wander from man to man seeking love.
“. . . the inability to bond after multiple liaisons is rooted in the fact that our behaviors actually physically change our brains. The pattern of hooking up and breaking up and hooking up again can eventually override the natural bonding that occurs between two intimately involved individuals.”[76]
Men Don’t Always Respect or Honor Women
Sinful men pervert God’s gift of attraction between men and women and may rape or murder just to get pleasure from a woman. Sarah was so beautiful that Abraham had her say that she was his sister because he feared he’d be murdered in Egypt (Gen. 12:10-20). Sure enough:
The princes also of Pharaoh saw her, and commended her before Pharaoh: and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house. Genesis 12:15
Pharaoh didn’t ask if Sarah wanted to be in his house. Adam didn’t ask Eve if she wanted to be called “woman (Gen. 2:23)” or “Eve (Gen. 3:20).” Did Esther want to belong to King Ahasuerus (Est. 2:8[77])? Did David ask Bathsheba if she wanted to date him (2 Sam. 11:4[78])?
Isaac was afraid the men of Gerar would murder him for Rebekah. The local ruler wasn’t happy about being told she was his sister:
And Abimelech said, What is this thou hast done unto us? one of the people might lightly have lien with thy wife, and thou shouldest have brought guiltiness upon us. Genesis 26:10
Rape would be only a light moment of pleasure because Rebekah had no right to her own body. She was married, however, so her rapist would have been guilty of a property crime against her husband.
The Bible isn’t alone in describing a man’s attitude of taking rape lightly. “The Sexual Assault Case That Shook Ancient Rome”[79] explains:
A prominent politician was accused of raping a 12-year-old actress—in 54 B.C. The way his legendary lawyer dismissed it speaks volumes about how we prosecute these crimes now. . . .
It was more than 2,000 years before the #MeToo movement, but a scene similar to the ones we’ve witnessed so often lately was already playing out. A prominent politician was on trial for corruption and bribery, charges bolstered by dirt his enemies had dug up from his past: the violent sexual assault of a young girl.
Those charges of corruption and bribery were a serious matter, but to the men in the court, the rape charge was nothing. It was harmless boys-will-be-boys misbehavior — something half the men there were guilty of themselves. [emphasis added]
Women complain about “rape culture” but put themselves in danger by getting drunk. If a woman leaves her purse in a convertible with the top down, is it a surprise if someone steals it? People shouldn’t steal and men shouldn’t rape, but should women be careful?
Treating sex as play harms women. A woman should be valued for far more than sex. Being toyed with and discarded can make it hard for her to trust a husband enough to give herself to him as freely and as joyfully as he and God expect. “Not in Lust” on page 79 discusses the scientific difference between love and lust.
Women need Answers when a Man Approaches
God helped us a lot as my wife and I courted and married. We understood the basics from Bible reading and attending church, but we made two bad mistakes that could have damaged our marriage, but God protected us because we’d involved Him.
A woman needs answers when a man’s interested in her. A year before I found her, my wife thought she’d marry her boyfriend. He was a church youth group leader who could be very negative. Some weekends were wonderful because she liked spending time with the man she loved. Others were awful when he tore her down. She never knew how their time together would go. She became timid and introverted, not wanting to say anything for fear of being criticized or corrected unkindly.
Her parents had always loved her and encouraged her. She’d been an outgoing person before she met him. They were worried at seeing her become withdrawn and uncertain from being around him.
Finally, she asked God if she ought to marry him. To her shock and dismay, God plainly said, “No.” Knowing her distress, the Holy Spirit brought a missionary who knew his family. He said her friend had a critical spirit and there was no way she’d be able to make him happy. When she asked her boyfriend about it, he huffed, “That’s the way I am. If you don’t like it, good bye!” so she stopped seeing him.
What was her mistake? She hadn’t guarded her heart:
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. Proverbs 4:23
She let herself fall in love with a man without asking God! Our heartfelt emotions drive what we do:
For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Proverbs 32:7a
But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. Matthew 15:18
Our hearts define what we are, but we should rule our emotions:
He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls. Proverbs 25:28
Having learned why she should let God direct her (Pr. 3:5-6[80]), she asked God to choose her husband.
A year went by. She prayed, “Oh God, please, send me a husband or make me content without one.” One day, as she opened her hymnbook, she felt that she’d been seen by a man behind her. “Is this my husband?” she thought. She was thinking of marrying me before she even saw me!
She felt my interest in her. This “situational sense” is how God protects women from bigger, stronger men. Gavin de Becker’s “The Gift of Fear” https://a.co/d/4t8Ik2u describes women who were robbed or raped. They said they felt uneasy, but told themselves not to be silly and kept walking. His book says to pay attention when we feel something’s wrong and discusses ways to tell which fears are real and which are not. A woman can see into a man’s heart if she looks (Judges 16:18a[81]). Many women ignore God’s gift for protection and won’t look because they’re afraid they might see something negative and have to call it off . . .
We talked for an hour or so after church, then I told her I was going to date her. I didn’t ask her, I told her. Way back then, women’s lib told women not to follow any man. I needed to know if she’d follow me.
For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. Mark 10:45
If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all and servant of all. Mark 9:35
A man must lead a woman by serving her. That works only if she’s willing to follow, so I had to find out if she’d take direction.
She knew I was taking command. Wheels turned behind her eyes 15 or 20 seconds. She heard God ask, “Who’s going to choose? You or me?” She gulped and said “OK.” She gulped even though she wanted to date me and was pretty sure God planned to give her to me. Having seen her friends hurt badly by men, she knew that getting involved with a man would have a profound effect on her life. She’s not alone.
Rebecca veiled herself before meeting Isaac (Gen. 24:65[82]). It wasn’t the custom to veil or Isaac wouldn’t have told her to say she was his sister (Gen. 26:7[83]). Why did she veil? She knew Isaac’s plans would have a strong effect on her. All she knew about Isaac was that he was a relative who could fling the bling (Gen. 24:53[84]). She hoped to find rest in marriage to him. Covering herself gave her a little space.
Her Terms and Conditions
I asked my future wife to lunch at the next opportunity. She said “Yes,” but as we were leaving church for the restaurant, she gave her real answer. “Before you spend any money on me, you should know that I’m looking for a husband. I’m not just looking for fun; I want to get married. I’m not saying you have to agree to marry me before we go out, but I want you to agree that the purpose of being together is to decide whether you and I should marry. God made me to be a treasure for some man. If you aren’t that man, fine, we can part friends, but I’m not a toy. I don’t want a man to play with me; I want a man to stay with me.”
Putting marriage on the table was part of guarding her heart. When a woman lets herself fall in love with a man who isn’t willing to marry anyone, she’s crusin’ for a brusin’; she’s in for a world of hurt.
When she spoke of my spending money on her, she signaled that she expected me to pay her way. In the past, a woman wouldn’t give herself to a man without marriage and she wouldn’t marry unless he’d grown up enough to have a job. Even back in 1971, many women lived with men without marriage, paid “their share” of the rent, and became “friends with benefits.” She was letting me know she wasn’t going to do that.
The Bible sums up marriage in one verse, page 7:
And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death. Genesis 24:67
She made the same points. She expected me to pay, she expected marriage, she expected me to treat her as a treasure, and she planned to be a treasure. She re-emphasized marriage by saying she wasn’t a toy. She’d seen friends get involved with men who didn’t see anything wrong with sex outside marriage even if the woman wasn’t willing, see page 43.
God made women for men (Gen. 2:18[85], 1 Cor. 11:8-9[86]). A woman who loves a man puts on the yoke of pleasing him (1 Cor. 7:34[87]). She needs a man who’s naturally pleased with her the way God made her.
Men want women because every man knows a woman can give him the joys of Heaven. I was attracted to her, I liked talking to her, and she tells me she plans to be God’s treasure for her husband! I didn’t know she had no idea what being my treasure meant, but I knew exactly what it would be like to have her be God’s treasure for me. If she meant that, I’d be a fool not to marry her. I said, “Sure,” and we went to lunch.
The Course Of True Love Never Did Run Smooth - William Shakespeare
On the way, I did something very Japanese that made her angry. She could have gotten in her car and driven home. If she’d done that, I’d have been badly hurt and we probably wouldn’t have married.
She thought, “This guy’s smitten with me. He didn’t offer to buy me food to make me mad.” Instead of showing anger, she gently asked why I’d done it. When I told her, she liked my reason. She saw that there would be many such issues, but she could trust me to open my heart and tell her why. When I opened my heart to her as Boaz opened his heart to Ruth the day they met (Ruth 2:11-12[88]), she knew that we’d be OK if I told her why. Her assuming I didn’t want to anger her got her a husband. Assuming good faith is a key to happy marriage, see page 85.
“I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken!” – Oliver Cromwell
Putting Marriage on the Table
Was it Biblical for her to mention marriage first? Boaz didn’t think of marriage. Once Ruth gave him the idea, he rushed out and married her.
Get marriage on the table early. If a man won’t agree to consider marrying a woman who plans to be God’s treasure for her husband, there’s something wrong with him and she shouldn’t waste her time.
Answers While Dating
She’d asked God to choose her husband. I didn’t know how to nourish and cherish her, so the Holy Spirit led her to tell me a lot about her. I know this was of God because I understood what she said. After we married, her mind works so differently from mine that it took me a year to begin to understand her thoughts, see page 135.
On our second date, she told me she wanted to be a virgin on her wedding night. She’d asked God to protect her years ago, now she asked me to help God protect her. I knew God commands purity so I was OK with this. My classmates were pretty casual about sex. It was a good thing the Holy Spirit told her to remind me that God expected me to protect her from the moment we met until the hour of my death.
How Would I Rule Her?
She knew I could rule her when I told her we would date, but she wanted to know how I’d rule. We were at my apartment with my roommate. She did something I told her not to do. She said, “You can’t stop me.” Ladies, if you challenge a man, he’ll be tempted to react physically. This puts you at risk. We didn’t understand the danger. I carried her to the shower and let her know she was asking for a soaking. “I don’t have any other clothes.” It was summer; her clothes would dry in a few hours.
She said, “I’ll behave,” so I never turned the shower on. I didn’t yell; I didn’t hit her. She knew I’d rule gently so it would be safe to promise to obey me. She rested in following me and started saying “Yes, sir” as the spirit moved her. Resting in me changed her body language so much that at our first visit to her parents’ house the next week, her mother thought, “She’s calm. She feels safe with him. They’ll marry soon.”
Challenging me wasn’t a good idea, but we didn’t know any better. She’d accepted God’s guidance but that didn’t keep us from making mistakes. I hadn’t thought enough about dating to know how else to deal with her challenge. A friend of ours locked his wife out in the snow until she agreed to get with his program. Was that a better way? Servant leadership works only on the willing; she had to choose to follow me.
Protecting Her Purity
We had no idea how important purity is to Holy Matrimony, but we found out why God had her tell me how much it meant to her. My desire for her had been building since we met. She’d made purity important so I played things very cool for weeks. We knew fornication was wrong; we were saving ourselves for marriage.
She was put off because I was so aloof. She was about to marry me, she was about to commit her life to me, and she wanted to know I loved her and that I wanted her badly enough to stay with her. She said, “You’re acting so cold and aloof, I’m not sure you really want me!”
This 2nd ill-advised challenge blew me away. Not knowing any better, I reacted as a man. I was doing my best to keep us pure, and she didn’t know I wanted her! There are times when there’s nothing you can say to a woman, there are times when the only way to convince her is with action. I put my arms firmly around her and kissed her thoroughly, just like romance stories, I put a burning kiss on her upturned face.
I didn’t know kissing could trigger her desires:
Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. 2Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. I Corinthians 7:1-2
“Touch” carries the meaning of kindling her or arousing her. Having had no instruction in that area, I had crossed God’s line without understanding the danger to our future happiness. Some tell younger women not to kiss because it may give him ideas. That’s utterly wrong. Men don’t get ideas, men have ideas. Kissing can give her ideas. When both parties have the same idea, it’s hard to stop.
“From an experiment on hugging, we also know that oxytocin [a hormone that draws couples together] is naturally released in the brain after a twenty-second hug from a partner.”[89] [emphasis added]
She relaxed for a few seconds, then struggled, then went limp. I finished kissing and looked at her. She was stunned. She was panting lightly; her face was flushed. I picked up her hand and it flopped down to her side, she was limp. My kiss had set her off, her hormones were in charge; she was mine for the taking.
I then did the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. I’d had ideas since I first saw her. That kiss worked on me, too, I was no longer cool or aloof, I wanted her as badly as she wanted me to take her. I backed her up into a chair, I backed up to another chair, and sat down to get my breath.
After a few minutes, she said, “Wow, you really do want me!” I said, “Yeah, but we better get out of here,” and we got. We were never, ever alone again until after our wedding.
She told me what happened. She said, “I felt a falling sensation, that’s when I struggled, then I was lost. You could’ve done anything you wanted with me, and I couldn’t have done anything about it. I couldn’t yell, I couldn’t struggle, I was yours.”
That’s how date rape happens, a man rubs her or kisses her at the wrong time, and she’s his. The man will say, “She wanted it.” She may have wanted it, but so what? Eve wanted the forbidden fruit and Adam, whom God told to protect the garden (Gen. 2:15[90]), failed to protect her from her desires. Page 75 explains how men and women should interact.
“It was the hardest thing we ever did, but we’re so glad we waited. We had to talk through our disagreements. We couldn’t just feel close by having sex; we had to really work things out.”[91]
How can a woman follow a man or obey him when she knows he failed to protect her from his desires or from her desires? If he took her without marriage, how can she trust him not to take other women? If she gave herself without marriage, how can he trust her? Distrust and anger are not a good foundation for marriage.
“. . . we know that people who have had sex before they entered into marriage have a higher divorce rate than those who had not had prior sex”[92]
There is a cure. The man is the leader so he must apologize to her, to her parents, and to God. If she enticed him, she also must apologize to him and to her parents. Then God can cleanse them (1 Jn. 1:9[93]).
Being Confident She’s Wanted
A woman wants to be sure that a potential husband wants her badly. If she’s attracted strongly enough to a man to consider spending the rest of her life with him, she wants him to be absolutely nuts over her.
The time will come when she's got the flu, she's pregnant out to here, the kids are leaking at both ends, the house is hip-deep in diapers, and she's too sick to do anything about it. If he's really smitten with her, he'll stick around and help her instead of running off. How does she know?
Before the welfare system, a father knew his daughter and grandchildren could starve if her husband left her. Prospective bridegrooms among the Fulani tribesmen in Nigeria prove their manhood and their desire for the woman by submitting to a severe flogging.[94]
And Caleb said, He that smiteth Kirjathsepher, and taketh it, to him will I give Achsah my daughter to wife. 17And Othniel the son of Kenaz, the brother of Caleb, took it: and he gave him Achsah his daughter to wife. Joshua 15:16-17
Othniel wanted Achsah badly enough to risk his life in battle. Legends tell us that knights in the Middle Ages performed daring deeds to win a lady’s favor, a concept rooted in the chivalric code.
“To be a great knight, you ought to have consideration of civilians, for women,” Wollock says. “The greatest knights are inspired by the love of some lady out there and want to impress her and win her love by doing great deeds.”[95]
A woman wants to know how much he wants her, but challenging a man physically isn’t a safe way to test his desire. Her father or other male relative can measure his commitment when talking with him.
Why Our Purity Was Important
Serving God by belonging to me cost her far more than she had expected. My wife knew that God told Eve that her desire would be to her husband (Gen. 3:16[96]) and she knew that women are made for men (I Cor. 11:8-9[97]), women must think about those passages. She thought God meant that she’d want to get married. She’d wanted to be a wife and mother all her life; she thought she understood what God had in mind.
Nobody had told her what to expect. She didn’t know that God had designed her hormones so that she’d really be mine. After our wedding, she was shocked at how strongly she yearned to belong to me. My making love to her had deeply changed her feelings. She’d expected to love me, but she was shocked to lose her sense of independence as God gave her a deep, frightening desire to belong to me and to serve me.
Much like dopamine, it [oxytocin] is an involuntary process that cannot distinguish between a one-night stand and a lifelong soul mate. Oxytocin can cause a woman to begin to bond to a man even during what was expected to be a short-term sexual relationship. She may know he is not the man she would want to marry but intimate sexual involvement may cause her to be so attached to him she can’t make herself separate. This can lead to a woman being taken off-guard by a desire to stay with a man she would otherwise find undesirable and staying with him even if he is possessive or abusive.[98] [emphasis added]
Deu. 21:14, 22:9 and Eze. 22:10-11 say that a man humbles a woman by taking her, that’s part of the cost of a man in her life. A wife should choose to humble herself in marriage as Jesus humbled Himself on earth:
And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Philippians 4:8
Humbling herself by belonging to me and serving me gladly helped her children have a father, but her strong feeling of belonging to me made her feel she was falling through space. Losing her independence was the scariest experience of her life. She couldn’t sleep!
Her mind wanted her to run and get back her independence, but instead of running, she went in the next room and cried out to God, “Oh, Lord, what have I done, I let this man take me, now I belong to him!”
She prayed, “God, I asked you to stop me if he wasn’t right for me, and You didn’t.” She knew God was faithful. All her days, she’d prayed that God would work on her heart to make her the wife He wanted her to be. This feeling didn’t make sense, but such a strong feeling from within her had to be God working on her heart as she’d asked Him to do. She prayed, “Lord, You must really want me to belong to him. If that’s what You want, I’ll do my best to submit to him and to belong to him.” Having chosen to humble herself by belonging to me, she came back to bed.
Years later, she thanked me for not taking her before the wedding. “You gave me your grandmother’s ring,“ she said, “and you promised before God and both our families that you’d take care of me, and I was still terrified. If that had happened before you’d committed yourself to me, I’d have had to work hard to turn off that part of my feelings, and I might not have been able to turn them back on.”
I Serve God by Serving You
The next day, she said, “I’ve been thinking about being your wife.” I thought, “We’re married, what’s to talk about,” but she had told me talk was important, so we talked. “The Bible says God wants me to belong to you, obey you, and submit to you,” she said. I thought, “We’re on the same page!” but she wasn’t done. “I’ll do my best to do that,” she said, “but I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for God because He told me to. I’m serving God by serving you because God wants me to serve you.”
I thought very hard about that. The next day, I said, “God wants me to lead you and take care of you. The Bible says that anyone who would be first of all must be least of all and servant of all. If I’m to lead you as God wants, I have to lead you by serving you. You said it well – I’ll serve God by serving you because God wants me to serve you.”
Marriage, like salvation, is an undeserved gift of God. The only way to be saved is to repent, die to your former life, and be married to Christ (Ro. 7:4[99]). A husband won’t deserve his wife’s submission, his wife won’t deserve his giving his life to nourish her; those are undeserved gifts of God. God expects married people to serve Him by serving each other.
Jesus said that husband and wife are no more twain, but one flesh. The only way two people can become one is for each of them to die to themselves in favor of their new family. Each must give the other the same love and grace God gave in salvation (I Pe. 4:10[100]). As Christ chose to love you regardless of your sins, you and your spouse must choose to love and serve each other no matter what ‘til death do you part.
As God sees you as perfect, you must treat each other as perfect; you can do this by the Grace of God. Watching her husband love her in spite of her failures increases her love for Christ and for him, and vice-versa (II Cor. 5:14a[101]). When lost people see a couple give God’s grace to each other, they’ll want God’s grace, and we have the privilege of laboring together with God (1 Cor. 3:9[102]) to tell people how to get God’s grace.
Salvation is about God giving – for God so loved that He gave. My wife so loves God that she let God give her to me; I so love God that I let God give me to her. Our love for each other flows from our love for God.
Men and Women See Marriage Differently
A healthy man can make love 3-4 times per day, sometimes 5 or 6, but his ability drops with age. Learning what being my treasure meant (page 30) taught my wife to tell a young lady that her husband plans to have her 5 times before breakfast, lunch, dinner, and bed. That’s how she’ll choose to serve him. That shocks her and may make her angry.
My wife then points out that she’ll want her husband to open his heart to her at least that often. That’s how he chooses to serve her. A girl somehow knows that opening herself to him that much will make her belong to him and that opening himself to her that much will make him belong to her. It’s hard for a man to open his heart to a woman who’s not his and it’s hard for a woman to open herself to a man who isn’t hers.
And We Lived Happily Ever After
A wife’s role is important, but the husband has more influence on her happiness than she. Having told how God prepared us both for marriage, it’s time to explain why our marriage worked out as well as it has.
She chose to let God give her to me. She’d prayed that God would work on her heart to prepare her for marriage; this strong feeling of being mine had to be from God. Once she accepted that, she was able to tell me she planned to belong to me and to serve God by serving me.
It never occurred to me that she wouldn’t belong to me. When I stood at the altar and vowed to God that I’d give up my right to pursue all the other women in the world and focus on her, I expected her to be mine. The Japanese word “shu-jin” is translated “husband.” “Jin” is “person;” “shu” is “Lord” as in “Shu yesu kiristo;” Lord Jesus Christ. Shujin is literally “lord person.” A Japanese wife can’t refer to her husband without calling him “Lord;” it’s built into the language as in Eph. 5:33[103]. My possessiveness is of God.
Many women honor their husbands with their lips (Mt. 15:8[104]; Mk. 7:6[105]) without honoring them with their hearts. If my wife had done that, I would have been deeply hurt and disappointed. I would also have been deeply ashamed which would have harmed my health (Pr. 12:4[106]). Very little shames a man worse than having his wife not belong to him; I know two men who had heart attacks while suffering this shame.
What Made Her Mine
As Naomi told Ruth how to get married, the wife’s mother in the Song tells her daughter how to stay married, see page 12.
Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love. Proverbs 5:18-19
And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger? Proverbs 5:20
Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well. Proverbs 5:15
Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? Proverbs 6:27
Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned? Proverbs 6:28
God teaches men to praise their wives. Being praised by her husband and children makes a wife feel happy and secure. Ecclesiastes says that nothing else a man does to have fun or live a worthwhile life works:
I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit. Ecclesiastes 1:14
Solomon listed many things that won’t give joy:
I said in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure: … I sought in mine heart to give myself unto wine … I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards: … I got me servants and maidens … I gathered me also silver and gold … I gat me men singers and women singers, as musical instruments, of all sorts. … Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labor that I had labored to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun. Ecclesiastes 2:1-11
Solomon tried it all, he found that there’s nothing a man can do to make himself happy, except marriage:
Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labor which thou takest under the sun. Ecclesiastes 9:9
When my wife chose to let God give her to me, her happiness became mine. Proverbs warns 5 times that an unhappy woman is a hardship (Pr. 19:13b[107]; 21:9[108], 19[109]; 25:24[110]; 27:15[111]), but when she was happy, life was good. When she delighted in giving herself to me, I got a taste of the joys of Heaven I’d expected when she told me God made her to be a treasure. I work at learning how to rejoice with her.
Comforting me calms her. I took her with me to Europe for a 3-day seminar. We stayed in the hotel for a few days afterward and were gone for a week. When we got back, our son asked, “What did you do to mon? She’s so calm and happy and content!”
She enjoyed the extra talk, but being reminded how God had made her so alluring to me and seeing the intensity of my desire for her helped. Page 77 explains how God made the chemicals of comforting me calm her, fight depression, and improve her mood.
My teaching our children to honor her also helped. Kids are born selfish; they must learn an attitude of gratitude.
Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her. 29Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all. Proverbs 31:28-29
Watching their father honor them and their mother teaches daughters that God requires that all men treat “The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity (1 Timothy 5:2).” Girls must be taught to insist that men deal with them in purity as God commands or they will be tempted to fall into sexual sin.
What Made Me Hers
I had a reason to learn about her besides God’s command (I Pe. 3:7[112]). I’d heard men complain about women. She told me her friends had said, “He may love you, but he won’t like you once you’re married” and they named the same things about women that my dorm mates disliked.
I knew that God is good. I’d written “For God so loved me that He gave me you.” She said she was a gift from God, the Bible said it (Pr. 18:22[113]), and God gives good and perfect gifts (Mt. 7:11[114]; Jas. 1:17[115]). Men who dislike characteristics which God made common to women are wrong. They aren’t defects; God made women on purpose to bless men.
I told my wife that anything true of most women was intended to bless all men; any trait unique to her was to bless me because God had chosen to give her to me. If I couldn’t understand how or why something about her blessed me, it was my problem, not God’s, and we’d figure it out. To build a strong bridge, I must understand concrete and steel; to build a strong marriage, I had to understand her nature and explain mine.
Once she understood my plan to explore the mind of God with her, she was happy to look into herself to explain herself to me. God expects a husband to dwell with his wife according to knowledge. My working to learn how she blessed me made her happy and helped me obey God.
I also wanted to know how she was like other women and what was unique to her. When she’d say, “My friends feel that way,” I’d conclude most women were like that. Sometimes it was, “I don’t know anyone like that,” for things unique to her. At other times, she’d ask; her friends either agreed with her or didn’t.
This was another area where my engineering mind led me to obey God. God commands that a husband know how to possess his wife in honor and sanctification (I Th. 4:4[116]). “Sanctification” means “set apart,” God expected me to know how she was like other women and how she was God’s special unique gift just for me.
The husband in the Song praises his wife in mind-numbing detail. He looks for little details about her to appreciate. She’s “but one,” (6:9) he sanctified her by setting her apart from all other women. She says she belongs to him (2:16[117], 6:3[118]) and in 7:10, “his desire is toward me.” She enjoys seeing how much he desires her. 8:2-3[119] shows that she likes belonging to him as my wife likes belonging to me.
In all this talk about her emotions, skills, feelings, and other characteristics, I opened my heart to her often. That made me belong to her. This was as frightening to me as opening herself to me had been for her, and I ended up belonging to her as she belonged to me. God designed us so that opening his heart to a woman makes a man belong to her; opening herself to a man makes a woman belong to him.
It’s not enough for a man to have a woman belong to him. Solomon owned 1,000 women (I Ki. 11:3). They were his property and had to do what he told them. There was none of this “I’m not in the mood” or “I have a headache.” This sounds like a masculine paradise, but how did it work out for Solomon?
Behold, this have I found, saith the preacher, counting one by one, to find out the account: which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found. Ecclesiastes 7:27-28
Solomon owned a thousand women, yet his soul was empty. Why? He could command then however he chose, but a woman won’t like belonging to a man who refuses to belong to her. Instead of having a woman enjoy belonging to him, he had 1,000 unhappy women running around the palace. No wonder his soul was empty.
This was Solomon’s fault. Belonging to a wife requires that he open his heart to her. So much talk takes so much time that a man can’t belong to more than one woman (Ex. 21:10[120]). “If a man loves a woman’s soul, one woman is all he needs. If all he sees is her face and figure, all the women in the world won’t satisfy him.”
My wife strives to make her words health to me. This makes it possible for me to feel safe in loving her, page 20. I feel safe opening my heart without fear that she’ll hurt me, which keeps me belonging to her.
I opened myself to her because I’d promised and I wanted to learn how God designed her to bless me. It took 20 years, but we can explain how the characteristics my dorm mates disliked about women bless men.
A woman can’t make her husband any happier than he makes her. Her happiness is greatest when he likes belonging to her and caring for her. Opening his heart to her teaches him ways to make her happy if he pays attention and she will learn how to please him. The happier a man makes his wife, the happier he will be.
This man is so glad to come be with his wife that he’s skipping:
The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. Song of Solomon 2:8
He’s rushing home where he wants to be. Is he coming home eagerly to admire the curtains? Or for some other reason?
A Wife is What Her Husband Makes Her
Although a man should be ready at any time to give his life to protect his wife from danger, God generally expects a man to give his life day by day to nourish her and cherish her. I earn so much per hour. When we spend that much on home, children, or church, I have freely given one hour of my life to walking God’s path of service (Mk. 9:35[121], 10:44[122]) as He wants me to walk (Ro. 12:1[123]).
God expects a man to love his wife as Christ loves His church:
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; 26That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 27That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. 28So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. Ephesians 5:25-28
Jesus presents us to Himself a “glorious church” in verse 27. Every man wants to present to himself a “glorious wife,” and there’s a simple way to do it – convince her he’s convinced that she is a glorious wife.
A woman heard that Johnny Lingo[124] paid 8 cows for his wife when the going price was 3 or 4. Johnny explained that every wife knew what her husband had paid. He might have gotten her for 1 or 2, but he paid 8 cows for her “Because I wanted an 8-cow wife.”
Remember the 3 rules for marriage: God is good, only praise, and treat each other as perfect. A wife is what you make her. You make her a glorious wife by opening your heart to her so that she knows you’re convinced that she is a glorious wife. Johnny Lingo overpaid for his wife to convince his wife that he valued her highly!
The Simplicity of God’s Marriage Rules
Salvation is two words, “only believe.” Staying married is “only praise.” We must praise our spouses as much and as often as God expects us to praise Him to keep us focused on an Attitude of Gratitude.
When God looks on you, He sees the purity and perfection of His son, your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (Is. 43:25[125], Heb. 10:17[126]). Eph. 5:1 commands, “Be ye therefore followers of God.” Follow God and see the purity and perfection of His Son, your spouse’s Lord and Savior.
God expects bride and groom to marry with one perfect heart. Keep your hearts perfect with the Lord your God and with each other. Think of your spouse as perfect. Talk of your spouse as perfect. Your words work back into your heart and you will treat your spouse as perfect.
Lost people agree that “only praise” leads to a joyful marriage, but say that people can’t live that way. The fruit of the spirit that comes from salvation (Gal. 5:22-23[127]) helps. The Bible-based guidance for avoiding conflict in marriage on page 85 gives a way to handle problems and hurts without saying anything negative about each other at all.
Chapter 6 - God Explained What Happened to Women After the Fall
God expects joyful Christian marriages to attract lost people who’ll want to know how we do it. The Genesis account of the fall tells a lot about marriage. This helps us find the joy God offers if we do marriage His way:
O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever! Deuteronomy 5:29
Adam was created to care for the garden and to “keep it” which means protect it. God formed Eve to help Adam after telling him not to eat from the tree of knowledge (Gen. 2:15-18[128]); Eve didn’t hear it from God. She added “neither shall ye touch it (Gen. 3:3)”[129] to what God said.
Adam wasn’t deceived (1 Tim. 2:14[130]). In order not to have been deceived, he had to have heard what Satan said, he was there “with her” the whole time. Why didn’t he tell Eve not to talk to the serpent, correct her misquoting God, or tell her not to eat the fruit she wanted so badly? It was his duty to keep her, that’s why God blamed him (Ro. 5:19[131]).
Eve hadn’t been formed when God told Adam not to eat the fruit. Did Adam add to what God told him when he told Eve what God had said? Ex. 19:10-11, 15[132] shows that Moses added “come not at your wives” to what God told him. Did Adam add to what God said as Moses had? The Bible doesn’t say. Asking a man his beliefs about who misquoted God shows his attitude toward women.
When Eve touched the fruit and didn’t die, she knew that what she believed God had said was false. Adding to the Word of God or misusing the Word of God makes it easy for Satan to question the Word of God.
Everybody Sees how God Punished Adam
Instead of confessing his sin of eating the fruit as a man would, Adam acted like a boy. He blamed Eve and blamed God for giving her to him. She followed his leadership and blamed the serpent (Gen. 3:12-13[133]). To this day, many immature men blame their wives when things go wrong instead of accepting the responsibility God gave men for leading wives.[134]
Anyone who’s tried to farm, plant a garden, or keep a lawn understands God’s punishment of Adam:
Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; 18Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; 19In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. Genesis 3:17b-19
It’s hard to get rid of weeds. This punished Eve – women can’t farm or hunt without machinery. A woman had to please a man enough to make him want to feed her (1 Co. 7:34[135]), or she’d starve. That gave women a strong desire to be with men even though men cause women a lot of work, frustration, sorrow, and grief mixed with joy.
Why do men feed women? My grandmother had become a “steel magnolia,” feminine, but tough as nails. She visited when our 1st was born and asked when she’d get a 2nd great grand. I spoke of cost, worry, and effort helping my wife through pregnancy and caring for a child.
She gave me “that look.” “Young man,” she said,” the pleasures of marriage you enjoy are God’s way of compensating you for the time, cost, sorrow, and work of raising children to serve Him (Mal. 2:15[136]).”
If a marriage isn’t as joyful as our loving God planned, the man should take the lead in fixing it.
Think About Eve’s Life in the Garden
She didn’t need a house - it never rained (Gen. 2:6[137]). They were naked; she didn’t need clothes (Gen. 2:25[138]). She could always find fruit to eat (Gen. 3:2[139]). Adam provided no food, clothing, or shelter, God did that.
And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. Genesis 3:7
The first thing they did after their eyes were opened was worry about clothes. Our multi-billion dollar fashion industry works because women care so much about clothes.
God made Eve to keep Adam from being alone and to help him:
And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. Genesis 2:18
Did Eve help Adam sew the fig leaves? Or did he sew alone?
After the fall, God’s punishments of Eve explain how women would get along with men:
Unto the woman he [God] said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. Genesis 3:16
Greatly Multiply thy Sorrow Through Sensitive Emotions
Most women have more sensitive emotions than men do. Being sensitive helps women learn how to please husbands, but God multiplies sorrow to women because their feelings are easily hurt. The Bible says:
Every wise woman buildeth her house: Proverbs 14:1a
A woman’s emotions are the cement that builds her house. There’s no logical reason for a wife to pour her life into serving her family, women do this on emotion. Men, would you like to be married to you? Could you do what your wife does? How can women do what they do? Women build homes and churches through love and emotion, but they can’t unless they’re free to express their emotions and are appreciated.
God punished Eve by giving women a strong emotional desire to please men (1 Cor. 7:34[140]). Husbands rule through praise: women do more of what’s praised. If all they get is criticism, they’ll do more of what’s criticized the most. How human! God gave women strong emotions on purpose, it was not an accident:
a prudent wife is from the LORD. Proverbs 19:14b
“Prudence” means thinking ahead; the way a woman’s mind works, that is, her prudence, is of the Lord. God made women think the way they do on purpose. The mixture of logic and emotion God gives a woman makes her want to serve her family and build her home.
God multiplied conception. How many babies would a woman need to populate the earth if nobody died?
Thy Desire Shall be to thy Husband
A woman desires to belong to a man who’s pleased with her (Song 1:2[141], 8:2-3[142]). A man desires to have a woman belong to him (Song 7:10[143]). Eve wanted to be with Adam enough to accept him claiming her and naming her (Gen. 2:23[144], 3:20[145]), but God increased women’s desire for a man in His punishment of Eve. Women must hear God’s warming:
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. Proverbs 4:23
A woman shouldn’t get emotionally involved with a man until after he marries her. 90% of how a marriage goes is set by how a man values his wife, but 90% of her value to him is set by how she values herself. A woman sets her price by what she does. If her price is a few dinners, she isn’t worth much. Her price should be his dedicating his life to caring for her until death by marrying her before she gives herself to him.
He Shall Rule Over Thee
Eve wanted independence. God arranged that her imperfect, sinful husband would rule her instead of God. Marriage should bring a wife joy (Song 8:2-3[146]), but she can’t make her husband any happier than he makes her (Ecc. 9:9[147]). How happy does he want to be?
My wife suggests making love 4 or 5 times per day to keep husbands happy. There's no simple way to keep a wife happy because women differ much more from each other than men do. Men and women have the same need for belonging to spouses, but they express it differently.
A wife wants her husband to open his heart to her more often than he has her. That’s how he gets knowledge of her as God expects (1 Pe. 3:7[148]). If he opens his heart as often and as gladly as he expects her to open herself to him, she’ll know he belongs to her. Belonging to each other gives them both a taste of the joys of Heaven, right here on earth.
A man wants his wife to open her body to him. She wants him to open his heart to her. He wants to put himself into her body. She wants to put herself - her words, her thoughts, her feelings - into his heart.
He leaves his seed in her body where it affects her mood and can give her a baby. She wants to leave her essence, her being, in his heart where it affects his thinking about her and how he relates to her. People can see if they belong to each other by looking at them or hearing them.
A woman said, “I was angry at how much you knew. But you’re clueless, I saw that your wife told you how women think.” God gave me a drive to write about marriage, but I had to listen and understand what my wife said so I could write it clearly enough for women to understand.
Readers see that a lot of ideas came from her. Having her works praise her is one of the rewards of being a virtuous wife (Pr. 31:31[149]). That works because I ask for her help and make sure she has time to help.
What Satan Offered Eve
And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 5For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. 6And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. Genesis 3:4-6
Page 65 explains God telling Adam not to eat the fruit. Somehow, Eve also believed that she wasn’t supposed to touch it (Gen. 3:3[150]). Satan told a partial truth in that Eve didn’t die physically when she sinned, but she died spiritually and could no longer enjoy God face-to-face.
She wanted the wisdom of being “as gods, knowing good and evil” so that she wouldn’t have to depend on God or on her husband to tell her what to do. She would be able to make her own choices.
Satan didn’t tell her that knowing good from evil didn’t mean she wouldn’t do evil. Having been punished himself, Satan knew that God would punish Eve, but he didn’t tell her that either:
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. Genesis 3:16
Having refused to follow God’s perfect leadership, Eve now had to follow her husband’s imperfect leadership. Instead of finding food in the garden any time she wanted, she depended on her husband to feed her.
The main message of “women’s liberation” is that a woman should not have to submit to her husband. The research described in Hooked shows that the hormones of lovemaking wipe out a woman’s sense of independence as she becomes addicted to the man who takes her.
The hormones remind her that she belongs to her husband and should depend on him. Not fulfilling her obligation to open her body to her husband not only leaves him vulnerable to temptation (page 12), deflecting her husband’s desire for her lets her keep the same sense of independence Satan offered Eve.
Chapter 7 – Having Sex Changes Your Brain
Taxpayer-funded research is in crisis because many “scientific” studies can’t be repeated. Confirming earlier results is a vital part of the scientific method; such failures undermine confidence in the scientific process. Basing medical treatment on false studies can kill people.
It’s hard to separate good science from bad. When science touches subjects found in the Word of God, we can see if science lines up with Scripture. For example, page 85 discusses a study on anger management which discusses call centers. Nobody calls when they’re happy; every call is from an unhappy customer.
The authors said “a soft answer turneth away wrath (Pr. 15:1)” and listed soft answers for different types of wrathful customers. This gave credibility to what the authors said. Hooked also agrees with Scripture.
Hooked: The Brain Science on How Casual Sex Affects Human Development https://a.co/d/23NZaPL explains how hormones produced by sex change our brains to bind us to our sexual partner. As God put it,
O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever! Deuteronomy 5:29
Hooked explains God’s command that men and women marry before having sex to build families and make children. Those commands take 5 or 10 verses in the Bible. Hooked has 173 pages. If God explained the reason for each of His commands, the Bible would be far too big for hand-copying. God seldom explains the reasons for His commands, He expects us to obey by faith.
The preface explains that Hooked contradicts popular narratives about human sexuality:
“There are a lot of people who won’t like this book because it explains why sex should occur in appropriate settings, what those settings are, and how scientific evidence today confirms these findings. . . . It provides a needed science and medical perspective to a solution often discounted as a moral, religious, or political issue. Indeed, sex preserved for the context of marriage is still the optimal decision for physical mental, emotional, social, and spiritual health.” [emphasis added]
[Holy Matrimony where spouses choose to praise each other and serve each other] greatly increases the chance for a child to be raised in a nurturing two-parent home, which studies have shown provides a child the most advantageous environment for growing into his or her potential.[151] [emphasis added]
Hooked shows that any interaction between a man and a woman can trigger neurochemicals which change their brains to bind them together. These drives are essential for human reproduction. In a marriage, sex can “addict” husband and wife to be content to live together all their days.
“Those who abstain from sex until marriage significantly add to their chance for avoiding problems and finding happiness.”[152]
“Drugs such as cocaine and amphetamine target dopamine neurons.[153]
In other words, love, on a biochemical level, is a lot like addiction. The healthy addiction of a lifelong monogamous sexual relationship even has measurable physical benefits.”[154] [emphasis added]
“The most up-to-date research suggests that most humans are ‘designed’ to be sexually monogamous with one mate for life. This information also shows that the further individuals deviate from this behavior, the more problems they encounter”[155] [emphasis added]
“But the beneficial effect of dopamine [a pleasure-giving hormone that is released during sex] for the married couple is that sex may play a role in ‘addicting’ them to each other and thus reinforcing their desire to remain together year after year.”[156] [emphasis added]
Don’t Touch until after Marriage
Some tell women not to kiss because kissing may give a man ideas. That’s wrong. Men don’t get ideas, men have ideas. Kissing can give her ideas. When both parties have the same idea, it’s hard to stop.
Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. 2Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. I Corinthians 7:1-2
From an experiment on hugging, we also know that oxytocin [a hormone that draws men and women together] is naturally released in the brain after a twenty-second hug from a partner.[157] [emphasis added]
“It was the hardest thing we ever did, but we’re so glad we waited. We had to talk through our disagreements. We couldn’t just feel close by having sex; we had to really work things out.”[158]
“. . . we know that people who have had sex before they entered into marriage have a higher divorce rate than those who had not had prior sex.”[159]
Sexual interaction can bind women into harmful relationships:
Much like dopamine, it [oxytocin] is an involuntary process that cannot distinguish between a one-night stand and a lifelong soul mate. Oxytocin can cause a woman to begin to bond to a man even during what was expected to be a short-term sexual relationship. She may know he is not the man she would want to marry but intimate sexual involvement may cause her to be so attached to him she can’t make herself separate. This can lead to a woman being taken off-guard by a desire to stay with a man she would otherwise find undesirable and staying with him even if he is possessive or abusive.[160] [emphasis added]
God made women for men (I Cor. 11:8-9[161]). Giving herself to a man binds her to him. Sex binds a man to her but not as strongly. Breaking up can make it hard for either of them to form strong marriage bonds later.
“I was so naïve he said we wouldn’t go all the way but he kept pushing and we finally did it. Now I care about him but am angry at him all at the same time. I don’t know if I can ever trust him fully again.”[162]
How can a woman follow a man or belong to a man whom she doesn’t trust? If he took her without marriage, how can she trust him not to take other women? If she gave herself without marriage, how can he trust her not to do it again with someone else? Distrust is not a good foundation for a marriage.
If he can have her without marriage, what would marriage give him that he doesn’t have?
“The hardest breakup I ever had was with the first person I had sex with. Fifteen years later, I still don’t think I’m over him. I still dream about him and think about him and compare every guy since then to him. I’m married now and I feel like it’s a threesome in my heart. He is still there. It is like he is a part of me and I still can’t get over him.”[163]
“One significant but sad outcome of becoming involved in an intense romantic relationship that breaks up, especially if it has become sexual, is emotional upheaval. Men can experience these feelings, but women suffer more . . .”[164] [emphasis added]
The pill lets people treat sex as nothing more than play. This harms women. A woman wants to be valued for far more than sex and can become depressed when she finds that a boy saw her as just a sex toy, see “Unprotected” page 10. Being repeatedly discarded can make it hard for a woman to trust any future husband enough to give herself to him as freely and as joyfully as God and her husband expect.
Although parents are the most significant influence in their children’s lives, few parents are willing to discuss Hooked to help their kids avoid the emotional dangers.
Making love binds a husband to his wife and to their children and strengthens the marriage:
“Drugs such as cocaine and amphetamine target dopamine neurons.[165]
In other words, love, on a biochemical level, is a lot like addiction. The healthy addiction of a lifelong monogamous sexual relationship even has measurable physical benefits.”[166] [emphasis added]
God generally arranges that men die before their wives because it is not good for a man to be alone and women are better able to comfort a widow than men can comfort a widower. The “measurable physical benefits” of sex help a husband live longer which shortens his wife’s time of widowhood.
David and Bathsheba
“The individual who goes from sex partner to sex partner is causing his brain to mold and gel so that it eventually begins accepting that sexual pattern as normal. . . . The pattern of hooking up and breaking up and hooking up again can eventually override the natural bonding that occurs between two intimately involved individuals. Although oxytocin, vasopressin, and dopamine continue to be released with sexual intimacy, the physical rut that is formed between the synapses [brain cell connections] subconsciously influences the continuation of the promiscuous behavior. The conflict between the natural behavior and the learned behavior can result, in some cases, in a boredom with sex itself.”[167] [emphasis added]
Behold, this have I found, saith the preacher, counting one by one, to find out the account: which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found. Ecclesiastes 7:27-28
Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun. Ecclesiastes 9:9
Ecc. 2 lists many things that gave Solomon no joy, but Ecc. 9:9 promises joy in loving “the wife” whom you love. Why couldn’t Solomon find joy with any of his 1,000 women? Why did David commit adultery with Bathsheba when he had so many wives? “Hooking up and breaking up and hooking up again” damaged their ability to bond to anyone and led them to seek new adventures, Solomon in idolatry, David in adultery:
“When connectedness and bonding form again and then are quickly broken and replaced with another sexual relationship, it seems to cause damage to the brain’s natural connecting or bonding mechanism.”[168]
Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold. Deuteronomy 17:17
God criticized David for wanting more than God had given him:
And I gave thee thy master’s house, and thy master’s wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things. 9Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the LORD, to do evil in his sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. 10Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife.
II Samuel 12:8-10
Men Must Possess Their Wives in Honor, Not in Lust
Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered. I Peter 3:7
That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour; 5Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God: I Thessalonians 4:4-5
“. . . the finding that the brain centers that produce feelings of romance and love are different and separate from the brain centers responsible for lust is a huge warning to adolescents and young adults. A selfish and manipulative person may have an intense desire to have sex with another person. To accomplish that goal, they may lie about being in love. It is important to know that the desire someone has for sex can exist without any feelings of caring, love or romance.”[169] [emphasis added]
“. . . they[women] say that they ‘give’ sex for security”[170]
A woman must know the difference between a man wanting her and a man valuing her.
Few Treat Others As People Instead Of Treating Them As Men And Women
The Bible tells us how unmarried people should interact:
The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity. I Timothy 5:2
I kept my first talk with my future wife person to person. From a transcript, you wouldn’t know whether it was a girl missionary kid talking to an American boy or a boy mish kid talking to an American girl. Once I knew that she was saved and that she was smart enough to be worth my time, I flipped to man-woman and told her I was going to date her. I didn’t know that just being close to me could trigger her emotions.
“When two people touch each other in a warm, meaningful, and intimate way, oxytocin is released into the woman’s brain. The oxytocin in the brain does two things: increases a woman’s desire for more touches and can begin producing bonding of the woman to the man she has been spending time in physical contact with, as her brain begins to be molded to connect her to the man.”[171] [emphasis added]
“From an experiment on hugging, we also know that oxytocin is naturally released in the brain after a twenty-second hug from a partner”[172] [emphasis added]
If a young woman becomes physically close to and hugs a man, it will trigger the bonding process, creating a greater desire to be near him. . . . if he wants to escalate the physical nature of the relationship, it will become harder and harder for her to say no.[173] [emphasis added]
A woman’s desire to give herself to a man who touches her is strongest during the fertile part of her monthly cycle.
There was a statistically significant difference between peri-ovulatory and luteal values for all examined outcome variables of interest, wherein levels of sexual desire, activity and arousal were higher in the peri-ovulatory phase[174] relative to the luteal phase.[175]
Men are sexually aroused all the time and learn how to control it. Women aren’t used to such feelings and can lose control when aroused. Page 50 explains how my wife-to-be couldn’t control herself after her hormones took charge when I gave an ill-advised hug and kiss shortly before we were married. Girls need to be warned that they can lose control of their desire for sex by getting too close to a man. Her purity depends on his character when it happens. He will say she wanted it.
A woman’s cycle also affects the way men are attracted to her.
Eighteen dancers recorded their menstrual periods, work shifts, and tip earnings for 60 days on a study web site. A mixed-model analysis . . . of about 5300 lap dances showed an interaction between cycle phase and hormonal contraception use. Normally cycling participants earned about US$335 per 5-h shift during estrus, US$260 per shift during the luteal phase, and US$185 per shift during menstruation. By contrast, participants using contraceptive pills showed no estrous earnings peak, averaging US$193 per shift.[176]
Fertility changed their dances enough that men gave higher tips than when they weren’t fertile.
There is no God-honoring reason for man-woman talk or behavior between people who are neither married to each other nor considering marriage. Men and women can converse as people by avoiding man-woman thoughts or emotions. Your spouse is the only person in the world whose sex should matter to you.
Man-woman talk is dangerous at work. You must please your boss to keep a job. It’s common for a woman to please a man boss or a man to please a woman boss just a little too much. This can lead to adultery or divorce, but starts with talk that doesn’t meet God’s standards of purity.
Other Reports Which Show How God Did What He Did
These reports explain the neurological mechanisms behind the binding effects described in Hooked.
Seminal Fluid Absorbed into a Woman’s Bloodstream Improves Her Mood
Many mothers suffer from depression after giving birth. This can severely limit a woman’s ability to function as an effective wife and mother. God gave a way to reduce this and commands women to use it. The article Vaginal exposure to semen elevates women’s mood explains:
- One study found that women whose vaginas were exposed to semen (i.e., ones who reported “never” using condoms) showed significantly better mood.
- The positive effects of semen on mood include fewer bouts of depression and suicidal thoughts.
- The effect of semen on mood could be advantageous for sexually active women over age 50 who are experiencing menopausal blues.
...sperm comprise only about 3 percent of semen. The rest is
seminal fluid: mostly water, plus about 50 compounds: sugar (to nourish sperm),
immunosuppressants (to keep women’s immune systems from destroying sperm), and
oddly, two female sex hormones, and many mood-elevating compounds:
endorphins, estrone, prolactin, oxytocin, thyrotrpin-releasing hormone, and
serotonin.
Vaginal tissue is very absorptive. It’s richly endowed with blood and
lymph vessels. [emphasis added]
9 Surprising Things To Know About Semen
“Another way a partner can be allergic to their partner’s semen is if she has an allergy to a particular food or antibiotic, for example, and the male partner has eaten the food or is taking the antibiotic to which she is allergic,” Dr. Reitano added. “The allergen accumulates in the male’s semen, and when it is placed in the vagina, the allergen is absorbed into the bloodstream. The female partner may develop widespread hives or worse.” https://www.health.com/sex/semen-facts [emphasis added]
Britannica Confirms That Semen Contains Hormones
Semen biochemistry, also known as seminal fluid is found here https://www.britannica.com/science/semen
Fluids contributed by the seminal vesicles are approximately 60 percent of the total semen volume; these fluids contain fructose, amino acids, citric acid, phosphorus, potassium, and hormones known as prostaglandins. The article is at this link:
Prostaglandin https://www.britannica.com/science/prostaglandin
Chapter 8 - Handling Conflict in Marriage
The best way to avoid conflict is to have an “attitude of gratitude” to God for creating marriage and to your spouse for being with you. If you have trouble avoiding anger, form a habit of writing down three things you appreciate each and every day. Thoughts of gratitude avoid anger.
Conflicts between employees put great cost on businesses, schools, families, and any social group. Scholars have spent years studying conflict and ways of dealing with it. At least 80% of these studies are wrong because other researchers don’t get the same answers. How do you tell a good study from a bad one?
To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. Isaiah 8:20
Biblical principles and conflict researchers come to the same conclusion, particularly for conflict between husbands and wives. The study of conflict agrees with the Bible so we can trust the research.
For example, the conflict study had a section on call centers. Nobody calls when they’re happy; every caller is upset. That section was full of “If they say this, you could say that.” The Bible says:
A froward man soweth strife Proverbs 16:28 – most callers are forward for one reason or another
Only by pride cometh contention: but with the well advised is wisdom. Proverbs 13:10
A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger. Proverbs 15:1
The call center section was a list of soft answers to give to callers who were froward in various ways. I don’t want to be forward when I call; I generally say, “Your computer is being mean to me, can you help me figure out why?” Call center employees are frustrated by the computer all day every day; this puts me and the call center person on the same side, trying to reason with an unreasonable computer together.
Disagreement Should Not Lead to Conflict
There will be disagreements in any marriage; there are always disagreements whenever two or more people try to do anything together. Disagreements may be more common in marriage because men and women think so differently. God commands husbands not to be bitter when wives do something inexplicable:
Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them. Colossians 3:19
Similarly, women say it’s hard to understand what a man had in mind no matter how he tries to explain.
Disagreement is inevitable; conflict is not. Disagreement becomes conflict when we let our emotions and feelings into the discussion. This chapter discusses ways to keep disagreement from turning into conflict.
He that handleth a matter wisely shall find good: and whoso trusteth in the LORD, happy is he. Proverbs 16:20
Logic and Emotion
God gave us the ability to think and act with our emotions, that is, from our hearts. He also gave us the ability to think and act logically, that is, from our minds.
God gave us emotional desires to form couples so we’d be fruitful and multiply. There’s no logical reason for a man to dedicate his life to supporting his wife and children. There’s no logical reason for a woman to dedicate her life to taking care of her husband and family. The strangest thing about babies is that having had one, and learning how much work they are, a woman wants another one, and more after that.
Our emotions, that is, what we do from the heart, show what we are:
For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Proverbs 32:7a
The Bible commands five times that we “love the LORD thy God with all thine heart,…” (De. 6:5[177], 30:6[178], Mt. 22:37[179], Mk. 12:30[180], Lk. 10:27[181]). Our hearts are so important to God that although these passages list mind, soul, and strength in various ways, heart always comes first. If God has our hearts, the rest follows.
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. Proverbs 4:23
But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. Matthew 15:18
We must keep, or guard, our hearts because our heartfelt emotions drive our lives. Keep your heart by giving it to God and keep it perfect with God as David did. Having his heart perfect with God didn’t mean David didn’t sin just as keeping your heart perfect with your spouse doesn’t mean you won’t sin. David never valued anything more than he valued God. He never valued any of the heathen idols. Keeping your heart perfect in marriage means you won’t pursue anyone else or value anyone else as you value your spouse.
The emotions that bind men and women together are powerful enough to hold families together in spite of many trials. God expects us to rule these powerful emotions with our logical minds:
He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls. Proverbs 25:28
You can stop conflict by holding your emotions in check and speaking calmly and logically.
Emotion drives Conflict
Disagreement turns to conflict when your emotions get aroused. Conflict in marriage can be especially damaging because the emotions that drive marriage are so powerful. You can discuss issues without conflict if you stay logical and factual by keeping your feelings out of the discussion of your feelings.
The Bible teaches married people to give up their wants in favor of the other:
Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Philippians 2:4
If you don’t care about your spouse’s things, your spouse will feel you don’t care about him or her. That’s easy to say, but it can be hard to figure out how to do it, particularly when your emotions are aroused. There are three Biblical principles that can defuse just about any conflict:
1) The other person didn’t mean to make you angry. That wasn’t the goal; your anger was an accident.
2) The conflict is all about you; it has nothing to do with the other person.
3) When you talk about your anger or your upset, never say, “you,” always say “I.”
Making You Angry is Usually an Accident
The Bible promises that married people want to make each other happy; they don’t want to create anger:
But I would have you without carefulness. He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord: But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife. There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband. I Corinthians 7:32-34
Men know very little about women, but they all know that an angry woman is a hardship (Proverbs 21:9[182], 19:13[183], 21:19[184], 25:24[185], 27:15[186]). Workers know that angry co-workers make everyone miserable. Adults hardly ever try to make each other angry on purpose, but we’re all creatures of the flesh. We get careless, tired, frustrated, irritated, thoughtless, or selfish. It’s easy for any of us to do something that makes someone else angry without even thinking about it. As discussed on page 20, the Bible says:
And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. Ephesians 4:32
Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. Colossians 3:13
“Forbearing one another” is another word for “assume good faith.” Hurting you was not the plan.
The conflict is about you, not the other person!
The other person probably has no idea that you’re upset or angry. Irritating you wasn’t the plan; it was an unfortunate, unintended result of seeking some other goal. Your emotions can be aroused by your pride:
He that is of a proud heart stirreth up strife: but he that putteth his trust in the LORD shall be made fat. Proverbs 28:25
Whomever irritated you will most likely be astounded when you bring it up. The other person may have forgotten about it. If it’s not forgotten, you’ll have different memories of what happened. This isn’t because the other person is lying. Assuming that the hurt wasn’t intended, they’ll see it differently from you because you were hurt. In any case, it’s rare for two people to have the same memory of any event.
Suppose something made you really angry. You can’t let it go and you have to talk about it. You must keep your emotions and your anger out of the discussion of your anger. You can have a calm discussion of something that made you very angry, but it takes self-control. That’s what the Bible commands:
Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. Matthew 18:15
“Trespass,” means anything that irritates you. Unfortunately, many Bibles have the uninspired heading “Church Discipline” near this passage. That makes people want to talk about offenses only when someone could be thrown out of the church even though the chapter deals with reconciliation, lost sheep, and healing. Research says that the best path when someone offends you is to go and talk about it calmly no matter how minor it seems. The Bible agrees; “trespass” means anything offensive. The sooner you do this the better.
Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Ephesians 4:26
There are several reasons to handle irritations promptly:
1) Whomever offended you may not know you were offended; they’ll forget unless you bring it up soon.
2) The longer you wait, the more you’ll play it over in your mind and the more upset you’ll get.
3) The more you play it over in your mind, the more your memory of the event changes.
Avoiding anger can be especially difficult for a woman when the hormones of pregnancy or monthly cycle make it easy to upset her. Men must be very gentle and loving when hormones affect her brain.
Never say, “you,” always say “I” when angry
Angry spouses often hurl accusations at each other. A wife may say, “You don’t love me,” a man may tell his wife, “You never do anything right.” Words said in anger or in pain make the situation worse:
A wrathful man stirreth up strife: but he that is slow to anger appeaseth strife. Proverbs 15:18
Either party can say, “I felt unloved when that happened.” That’s a true statement. It’s like your salvation testimony, nobody can argue with it. Your spouse may remember it differently, however. There is never only one version of the past; there are at least two memories of what happened, maybe more.
Don’t argue about memory. Let go of “You did that.” – “No, I didn’t.” Assume good faith – your spouse probably isn’t lying when his or her memory differs from yours. Even if you don’t agree on what happened, you can focus on the emotions and try to figure out how to keep what angered you from angering you again.
It’s important not to accuse the other party. If a woman tells her husband he doesn’t love her, he’ll disagree because of all the things he does because he loves her. If he decides he can’t please her, he may stop trying. If a husband criticizes his wife’s efforts to please him, she may become discouraged and give up.
Don’t say, “When you did that...” Keeping it impersonal by saying “when that happened” puts you and your spouse on the same side. As partners, you can work together to figure out how to solve the problem. Accusations put you and your spouse on opposite sides. Hurling emotion back and forth makes it worse:
Surely the churning of milk bringeth forth butter, and the wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood: so the forcing of wrath bringeth forth strife. Proverbs 30:33
It’s best to list good things when mentioning any upset. A man can say, “What we just did didn’t work out as well as yesterday, and I liked what you did this morning.” A wife can say, “In my heart, what happened today made me feel unloved even though I know you love me. You come home, you work to support us, you praise the food, you play with the kids.” The Bible usually puts the negative first and ends with the positive – “the fool … but the wise …” A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. Here’s how to minimize conflict:
1) It’s generally an accident; adults very seldom try to make each other angry on purpose.[187]
2) The hurt and anger are all about you, the other person may have no clue that you’re upset.
3) Never say “you.” Say “I” to focus on your feelings. Talk about how you felt, not who did what.
4) Listen to the other party, particularly if emotion is leaking in. It takes effort for men to understand what a woman is talking about and vice versa, but if you don’t listen respectfully and carefully for as long as it takes to understand, how can you fix the problem?
5) Have
an agreement in place that if someone needs a “time out” to keep from saying
hurtful things, whoever leaves must return within 24 hours. Knowing
that the other party will come back makes the situation far less worrisome for
both parties. This shouldn’t happen, but leaving for a while can be better
than saying hurtful things which you can neither take back nor erase. Omar
Khayyam wrote:
“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor
Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel Half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of
it.”
6) One of you must help the other in time of trouble (Ecc. 4:9-12[188]). You can’t both be swamped at the same time. If a wife’s stressed because company’s coming, her husband must help her, and he can’t rest until she recovers. If he’s overwhelmed, she must help him even if she’d like to let go.
This is easy to say, but it can be hard to do. The rest of this chapter explores applications.
Good Faith is Unbelievably Important
I did something very Japanese on our first date that made my wife angry. She could have gotten in her car and driven home. I would have been badly hurt. If she’d done that, we probably wouldn’t have married.
She thought, “This guy’s smitten with me. He didn’t offer to buy me food to make me mad.” Instead of showing her anger, she gently asked me why I’d done it. When I told her, she liked my reason. She saw that there would be many such issues in the future, but she knew that I would tell her why. When I opened my heart to her as Boaz opened his heart to Ruth the day they met (Ruth 2:11-12[189]), she knew that if I told her why I did strange things, we’d be OK. Her assuming that I didn’t want to anger her got her a husband.
“I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken!” – Oliver Cromwell
What You Believe Determines What You Do
God is good and marriage is good. Psalm 107 says four times, “Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!” The psalmist saw that people don’t really believe that God is good. If they thought God was good, they’d obey Him so He could bless them.
Marriage is one of God’s wonderful works. It’s too wonderful to be put into words:
There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid. Proverbs 30:18-19
Nobody marries to make the other person unhappy. The bride expects that the groom will be happy with her, and the groom expects that his bride will be happy with him (I Corinthians 7:32-34).
God loved all of us enough to send His Son to die so that our sins could be forgiven and we’d have everlasting life (John 3:16). God invented salvation out of love for us. God also invented marriage. If He loved us enough to send His Son to die for us so that we could have joy in the next life if we pursue salvation according to His instructions, don’t you think He loved us enough to create marriage so that we could be joyous in this life if we take up marriage according to His instructions?
I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. John 10:10b
Jesus wants our lives to be abundant! The bride and groom want marriage to overflow with joy. God is party to their marriage vows (Malachi 2:14[190]), He wants it to be so good that it shines a light to the lost.
Marriage hasn’t worked out wonderfully for lots of Christians. Given that all parties wanted it to be good, when a marriage isn’t good, it’s a sign that something went wrong and something must change. Continuing with whatever you’re doing and expecting better results is one of the definitions of insanity.
Many Christians say, “God is great, God is good, let us thank Him,” but few act as if they believe God is good. The Bible teaches husband and wife to belong to each other; most Christians would rather keep emotional and physical independence. The Bible teaches that a husband should lead his wife by serving her; many husbands prefer to command. The Bible teaches that a wife should obey her husband; most wives would rather do what her husband would have told her to do if he had understood the situation as she did. Doing salvation our way takes us to Hell; doing marriage our way can make life Hell on earth.
God commands us to praise Him because praising Him reminds us of what He’s given us and makes us less likely to be unhappy about what we don’t have. Scientists recommend praise between husband and wife:
“Expressing appreciation to your partner, noticing the things you love about them and telling them that you love those things about them,” said Ms. Joel, “just has wondrous effects. They feel appreciated, and then in turn they feel better, and just expressing the gratitude makes you feel better, and then they want to reciprocate the gratitude, so then they appreciate you more which makes you feel better.”[191]
A study in Emotion found that completing an act of compassion for a spouse–like clearing snow off the spouse’s windshield in the morning–improves the giver’s emotional well-being, even when the spouse doesn’t acknowledge it. Under these circumstances, the giver may get up to 45% more emotional benefit than the recipient.[192]
Wives appreciate husbands putting toilet seats down, and there are countless ways to show love and appreciation. My wife’s hairbrush collects hair. It takes 30 seconds to pull the hair out with a comb. That doesn’t save her much effort, but it warms her heart to be reminded that I’m thinking of her.
Relating to God and His Word
Following the Bible helps handle conflict. God is His Word (John 1:1). Your view of God shows in how you handle His word. Suppose a wife tells her husband over and over that she likes vanilla ice cream, but he always brings home chocolate. She won’t believe anything he says about loving her or caring for her because he won’t “dwell according to knowledge (I Pe. 3:7).” Jesus asked, “And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say (Luke 6:46)?” Can someone who ignores what the Bible teaches really love God?
The simplest solution to marriage problems requires that you believe that God is good so you can follow His plan for marriage. God knew what men wanted when He made women. God also knew what men needed. Men who refuse to see how women meet their needs, as opposed to their wants, often feel that God made women incorrectly. Their complaints make their wives unhappy, which makes everyone unhappy.
Marriage is a gift from God; you don’t deserve it. A woman doesn’t deserve her husband dedicating his life to taking care of her and leading her by serving her, that’s a gift from God who made men and from him as he chooses to spend his life nourishing her and cherishing her. A man isn’t worthy of his wife’s submission, that’s a gift from God who made her and from her when she chose to obey God and belong to her husband.
Because thou servedst not the LORD thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things; 48Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the LORD shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee. Deuteronomy 28:47-48
The Bible warns that we’ll lose the blessings God wants to give us if we aren’t grateful to Him. Marriage prospers if you have an “attitude of gratitude” to God for His gift of marriage and serve your spouse in gratitude to your spouse for being yours. If you think of marriage as something God or your spouse owes you, it won’t work no matter how many books you read or how many counselors you see.
The only way two people can be “no more twain but one flesh (Mk. 10:8)” as Jesus expects is for both to die to their former lives and be re-born into a one-flesh married unit. God expects husband and wife to serve each other. When you serve your spouse, you aren’t just serving your spouse, you’re also serving God.
If you’re saved, God sees you as perfect because Jesus’ blood has washed your sins away (Ps. 103:12[193], I Cor. 6:11[194]). We’re commanded to treat each other with kindness (Eph. 4-32[195]) and follow after God (Eph. 5:1-2[196]). God sees you as perfect and sees your spouse as perfect. You must follow after God and choose to see your spouse as perfect for you. See your spouse as perfect, talk about your spouse as perfect, value your spouse as perfect and the marriage will work.
We’ve discussed Bible-based ways to keep disagreements which are inevitable in any marriage from escalating to conflict. The next chapter discusses common sources of conflict in marriages.
Chapter 9 – More Sources of Conflict
The main sources of conflict in marriage are personality, in-laws, children, sex, communication, and money.
Personality
People whose lives are merged closely with someone else can become irritated by personality traits. Some characteristics are related to gender. Men do things that annoy women just by being men. Talking to other women showed my wife that many men annoy their wives by doing the same things I do that annoy her.
Older women must teach younger women about men (Titus 2:3-5). After she’d taught a group that a man plans to have his wife 5 times before breakfast, lunch, dinner, and bed (Gen. 29:21), a woman told her, “If I’d known that, I’d have stayed with my 1st husband. My 2nd did the same thing.” We must all cling to Jesus’ words:
Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven. Matthew 18:21-22
Some say that in saying 490 times, Jesus commanded unlimited forgiveness. I agree. I’ve been married longer than 490 months. If I annoyed my wife only once per month, she wouldn’t have to forgive any more if she’d counted. I suspect I annoy her more often than that, so I’m glad she decided to laugh about it and appreciate the ways men differ from women instead of being angry.
Other habits have nothing to do with man or woman. My wife’s a neatnick; she believes there’s a place for everything and everything must be in its place. God arranged that opposites attract so we’d bring forth after our kind. If tall people married tall and short people married short, there’d be two kinds instead of one.
It should be no surprise that I’m a trashnik, the opposite of a neatnick. My wife cleans off a table; when I come in carrying something, I tend to put it in the first open space. It frustrates her that her efforts to be neat and put everything away are frustrated. To her, I’m a clutterbug. She saves old clothes, so she’s a pack rat.
“Trashnick” is tactless so let’s use “innie” and “outie.” An innie wants everything put away; an outie wants things out in the open where they’re easy to find. I’ve an innie friend who married without seeing her husband’s house. “The living room was full of tires,” she said. He had 8 tires, 4 for each vehicle. An outie keeps tires in the living room so he can find them. “It took me a month to get the tires out on the front porch,” she said, “and another two months to get them around back, but I got them out of the living room.”
She went carefully and slowly instead of just taking over his house. As he came to trust that she could find his socks, underwear, and other unimportant things, he trusted her to find important things like his tires.
Our 16 month old son visited grandma’s house. He pointed to a 2 inch piece of string on her rug and said “Broom, broom.” When grandma asked what he wanted, he crawled to the closet and patted the vacuum cleaner. He wanted her to clean up this intolerable messiness. His personality and his mother’s innie training made him even innier than she. His extreme outie wife has had to work hard to learn his innie ways.
An innie woman married to an outie is frustrated because she can’t keep her house as neat as she’d like. I know my wife’s distress, but it’s hard for me to avoid messing up. I have to work at being better at that. It’s probably harder for an outie wife married to an innie husband. It’s hard for an innie to understand just how difficult it is for an outie to act like an innie. My son’s wife can clean like a white tornado when she has to; she can put everything away very fast. Over the years she’s learned her husband’s ways, but it was a hard slog.
When she visits, she tends to think that my wife is rebellious because my wife’s house is not as neat as her husband expects of her. She doesn’t realize that my wife’s husband isn’t an innie like her husband.
Couples draw closer to each other over time. I Cor. 14:40 commands “Let all things be done decently and in order,” so the outie should probably move further toward the innie than vice versa. We have to consider our testimony; even lost people know that “cleanliness is next to Godliness.” I have a ways to go.
On the other hand, “control freak” describes innies who overdo it.
Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. Philippians 4:5
Some people like to plan everything out way in advance; others prefer to just do whatever comes up. To some, “Yes” is a 100% commitment, to others, “Yes” means “Maybe” or “If possible.”
If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Romans 12:18
Living peaceably with your spouse is worth a great deal of work, time, effort, thought, and prayer.
Conflict with In-Laws
Your in-laws are your spouse's parents. Very few parents want their children to be unhappy. No matter what they think of you, your in-laws know that if they make you unhappy, their child who’s joined to you will be unhappy. When your in-laws make you unhappy, it’s generally an accident because they don’t want their child miserable. Most in-law troubles come from lack of communication and lack of understanding.
In the old days, young people married from the same town. We travel further these days and many people marry without a lot of common cultural background. That can make in-law communication difficult, particularly if your in-laws and your spouse have different cultures which can lead to misunderstandings.
Years ago, I worked with a young engineer named Joe Dziezanowski and an office assistant named Nancy Smith. In the course of time, Joe and Nancy married, so she goes through life spelling her new name, Dzie… and so on. They decided to visit his grandparents in Poland, so she called the embassy to ask them to mail a visa application. She hears the usual, “Spell it, please,” so she starts “Dziez.” “Lady,” the man says, “I’m Polish. Dziezanowski I can spell. What I can’t spell is ‘Nancy’.”
I have a friend whose wife’s parents fled Iran just before the Shah fell. She grew up in America and has a light complexion. You’d think she’s an all-American girl with a tan. Her parents never adapted to America, however, so their cultural conflicts get pretty tangled. My friend and his wife share a common American culture; her Iranian parents confuse her as much as his in-laws confuse him.
Cultural confusion can be long-lasting and hard to resolve. My wife and I painted one of our bathrooms. I was at my in-laws that weekend and told them we’d painted it green.
Next time she visited, my mother-in-law said, “You painted the bathroom again.” My wife said, “No, we painted it once.” Mother-in-law said, “Your husband said you painted it green, but it’s blue.” She looked at me funny. I told her, “I'm not colorblind; I just get the names mixed up.” She looked at me funnier.
When I asked my wife what happened, she said my mother-in-law thought I was mentally defective.
Several years later, my wife took Japanese lessons because we planned to visit the town in Japan where I’d grown up. After an early lesson, she said, “I understand blue and green!” Japanese have a word for the color of grass and they use the same word for the color of the sky. I grew up using one word for both colors. It never occurred to me that getting the English words mixed up was strange – my Japanese friends did it all the time, and Kentucky blue grass looks green to me.
My wife’s mother accepted this, sort of, but didn't really believe it until she visited Japan and asked.
That’s the sort of disconnect you get with cross-culture in-laws. My mother-in-law knew that her daughter had married me for better or worse and she didn’t rag about her mentally-deficient son-in-law. Had she done so, life would have been difficult unless she noticed how badly her daughter was suffering and stopped.
We solved this problem because my wife remembered the issue for years and saw the solution when it came. Here’s another culture-clash. My mother was teaching child development at a Japanese college. She spoke of “The first trimester … the second trimester…” A student asked, “What’s a trimester?” Mom said, “Its 1/3 of a pregnancy. Pregnancy is 9 months; a trimester is 1/3 of the pregnancy, so a trimester is 3 months.”
Ever been teaching and realize that something you said totally, utterly lost the entire class? Mom had no clue what she’d said, but there was total disconnect, all the lights went out at once. Finally, a student said, “But Taylor sensei, pregnancy takes 10 months in Japan. We’ve been having babies a long time and we know.”
From her youth up, my mother had been told about 9 month pregnancies, and she’d had 3. However, all the students lit back up, the lights came back on, so she had to roll with ten-month pregnancies.
She drew 11 vertical lines for 10 months of pregnancy. Class-wide nods. She turned the chalk sideways and drew two fat lines at 3 1/3 months and 6 2/3 months. “Americans divide pregnancy into thirds. This is the first trimester, this is the second, …” as the class learned about another crazy round-eye custom.
Japanese pregnancies do take 10 months. Why? On average, pregnancy takes 280 days. 280 divided by 9 is 31, so pregnancy is 9 31-day western months. The Japanese word for “month” uses the character for “moon.” 280 days divided by a 28-day lunar month is 10. What happens when a Japanese wife who’s English isn’t all that great becomes pregnant in the US and asks a 9-month obstetrician when she’s due?
Suppose an American college student goes to Japan and marries a Japanese girl. His Japanese isn’t wonderful and her English is incomplete. Who’s going to tell his parents when they fly over for the wedding that in Japan, the groom’s family is responsible for organizing and paying for the wedding? And that the custom is for each family to send one person to the reception, but that person must bring home enough food so that everyone in their family gets a taste? Assuming they get through that, what happens when she’s expecting and tells her American mother-in-law, “I’m in my 10th month!” Her 9-month in-law will freak.
My brother knew a well-educated Japanese lady whose niece was marrying an American. “I don’t know if they can have children,” she mourned. “American pregnancies take only 9 months, we take 10. Their body temperature is 98(F), and we’re 37(C). How can they have babies?” Well, they can! For in-law issues:
1) They don’t want to make you unhappy if only for the sake of their own child’s happiness.
2) Subtle cultural issues can take years to figure out. Pay close attention at all times!
3) You don’t just marry your spouse, you marry the whole family. If you think ill of each other, so be it, but shut up about it. Unhappy in-laws will make your spouse unhappy. That will make you unhappy.
4) There may be severe doctrinal differences between you and your in-laws. In those cases, cling to the Lord and remember that they, too, need Christ.
Our society has far too many sub-cultures to list them all. For example, people who work in Internet marketing use the term “blast” to mean sending out email or text messages to prospective customers. One of my friends received an email that referred to “blasting.” Not knowing how techies used the term, she thought she was being criticized. Instead of blasting back, however, she asked and learned what the writer meant.
In-laws should remember, God expects each couple to establish a separate household.
And [Jesus] said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Matthew 19:5
Our society has no “rite of passage,” a ceremony that indicates that a child is now an adult. Parents often have trouble realizing that children have grown up and must make their own way. My wife’s mother was secretary of a 1,000 member church. If we’d married there, we’d have had to invite the whole congregation and my relatives would have been lost in the mob. We had a small wedding in the church where we met.
Her pastor was hurt, but I explained that I had had to prove to one and to all that she was now mine. He understood, and forgave me. We didn’t drive 45 minutes to spend our first Christmas with my in-laws. I had to prove to them and to my wife that she now belonged to me; we came for New Years instead.
However, we had had Thanksgiving dinner with them. My mother-in-law always cooked to exhaustion – if she had any energy left, she’d bake another pie. After dinner, I stripped the meat off the turkey and got the bones ready for soup. She decided I had some value, which made missing us at Christmas less painful.
Mother-in-law jokes refer to the husband’s mother-in-law because men forget the saying, “If you would the maiden win, with her mother first begin.” Women differ greatly, but a wife and her mother differ less than most women. Learn to praise and appreciate a wife’s mother, if only to learn how to praise your wife.
Maintaining solid relationships with in-laws gives your children the blessing of grandparents. Your in-laws raised your spouse. Your children will be like your spouse and may do some of the same things your spouse did during childhood. Grandparents really have seen it all before. You don’t have to rediscover all the lessons of parenthood for yourself if you draw on the wisdom, knowledge, and scars of your in-laws.
The best way to deal with in-laws is to show them and your spouse over and over how much you love, appreciate, cherish, and nourish their child. My mother-in-law could see how much I loved her daughter. That made it easier for her to accept her mentally-defective son-in-law who couldn’t tell blue from green.
It’s stupid to recycle old mistakes your in-laws could have told you about. Communicate! Never assume hostility where none is meant. Your anger is about you, not about the other person.[197]
Children
Malachi 2:15 explains why God brings men and women together into “one flesh.” “And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed.” God gets servants by having the servants He has have children. Children can cause great stress, which is one reason He made the bonds between men and women so strong.
When my wife taught school, a hardware merchant loved helping her buy things for her classroom. When she told him she planned to marry, he said, “May all your problems be children.” What did he mean?
Lots of kids become picky eaters which can bring great frustration. This attitude is forbidden by God:
Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. I Timothy 4:3-5
If you’ve thanked the Lord for the food, it’s sanctified to God, and is not to be refused or criticized. We had a system. The child didn’t have to clean the plate in case we gave too much, but the plate went in the refrigerator and came out at the next meal. And the next meal, and the meal after that in stubborn cases.
At four, my son decided a few days before Christmas that he absolutely, positively would not eat his last spoonful of Spanish rice. He’d eaten the rest, but the last bite was anathema. We put it away, and brought it out, and put it away, and brought it out again for four days.
Finally, my wife took our other son and drove off to grandma’s for Christmas. The holdout realized that I meant what I said, if he didn’t yield, he and I would miss Christmas. He ate the last spoonful.
Why was my son so stubborn? He liked Spanish rice. Where did he get the strength of character to hold out for four days?
Ever hear of DNA? Ever hear of heredity? The Bible says, As is the mother, so is her daughter (Eze. 16:44[198]) and that Adam bore a son in his own likeness (Gen. 5:3[199]).
I knew the passage about mothers and daughters. When I met my future in-laws, I took a good look at her mother. My future wife had her mother’s DNA and most of what she knew about being a wife had been taught by her mother. Her mother was a truly gracious lady and her father was happy. I decided that if my wife acted the same way at that age, I’d be just fine. Her mother appreciated me when I told her that.
My father said children were perfect mirrors, showing all their parents’ faults. Children show us the things we did wrong when we were children, and what’s worse, they show us things we still do wrong. It’s humbling to admit to your child that you blew it and that you’re trying to change. Kids don’t expect their parents to be perfect; I’ve never lost points with my children by confessing error, but humbling yourself before a child is no fun at all, but covering mistakes ends up being worse.
Having children fling your sins in your face is painful. It’s worse when your child marries and your child’s spouse realizes that you have the same problem. Heredity makes problems with children more intense.
We had no complaints about food for years after the Spanish rice episode. One evening, a son said, “I don’t like this.” I swept it off his plate and divided it among the 4 of us. “What’ll I eat?” he asked. “Nothing. You didn’t want it; that’s all there is.” “May I leave?” “No, this is dinner time. Stay here.” That ended that.
When my sons got to college, they were astounded at how few of their classmates would eat college food. Picky kids had grown up to be picky college students. I wonder what they eat now.
To be fair, parents have to set an example of eating with thanks. My mom served carrots at a meal when I was about to go off to college. Dad looked at her and said, “Do I have to keep eating these any longer?”
Mom smiled and said no. We were bewildered. Dad had hated carrots from his youth, but he and mom sincerely believed that all things are to be eaten with thanks. He’d set an example by eating carrots for decades. My brothers and I divided up his carrots; they weren’t wasted.
My wife’s parents didn’t like Brussels sprouts. They had them often and their kids never knew. Both our families found that giving thanks for all foods was powerful testimony to people from other cultures.
Your examples speak so loudly that your kids can’t hear a thing you say. What’s worse, your children are you! You’re re-living your failures. You know they’ll hit the wall, and you can’t stop it. All you can do is pray and, knowing the terror of the lord (II Cor. 5:11a[200]), try to persuade.
Other child-related conflicts feed on lack of communication. Unlike in-laws who seldom deliberately stir up conflict between you, children look for areas where you disagree. The child wants to get out of a chore or wants to do something one or both parents might not approve.
Things change visibly when a child accepts salvation and then change again when he or she decides to belong to the Lord as a teenager, but an unsaved child’s heart doesn’t belong to God. Your self-centered child’s full time job is figuring out how to manipulate you to get what the child wants. When asking permission, a manipulative child goes to the parent the child believes is most likely to say “Yes.”
A simple way to deal with this is to decree that a child must get “Yes” from both parents and that either parent may say “No” without knowing why. It took us several years to figure this out, but it helped a lot.
We found that neither of us ever had all the information. Somehow, either by accident or by design, the child seeking “Yes” often left out important details. The answer usually became obvious if we took the time to pool everything either of us knew, called other parents, and pried more details out of the child.
Years later, we overheard one of our sons say to a friend, “Mom won't let me do that.” His friend asked, “Have you asked your dad.” Our son said, “He’ll ask what mom said. If I haven't asked her, he’ll talk to her about it. If she said ‘No,’ he’ll ask, ‘Then why are you asking me?’ and I’ll be in trouble.”
We tried to let our sons do as many new things as we could, but they had to convince both of us.
We learned the value of vague feelings when a friend’s daughter came back from college with a boyfriend. He was a successful businessman who was good at hiring and at pleasing customers. He couldn’t explain why, but he did not like this young man. He told his daughter, “I’d never hire him; you may not marry him.”
His wife had planned the wedding in her mind and was looking forward to grandchildren. His daughter hadn’t kept her heart. She was convinced that she was in love and her sister sympathized. My friend had not one, not two, but three contentious women dwelling with him.
It's easy to tell when a wife is unhappy with her husband – it shows in her body language, her walk, and in her tone of voice. A couple of weeks later there was a sudden change; the three women were content. They had learned something about the young man that made them agree that they didn’t want him in their family. The father had been right, even though he couldn’t say what bothered him.
Pleasing Her Husband
A wife generally has a strong desire to please her husband. She needs to know that he still loves and values her, and she needs to hear this many times per day. I was in a meeting and my friend’s wife telephoned from the bank to ask a question. They talked for 2 minutes, and we resumed. A half-hour later, she called from the post office for another 2 minutes. “Why does she keep checking with me?” he asked.
“Because she wants you to be pleased with what she does. That is a gift from God to men. You need to tell her how much you appreciate her checking to make sure things happen the way you want them.”
While working from home for years, I developed fierce powers of concentration to do my job. My wife would ask, “Why did you let child A violate rule B?” not realizing that I hadn’t known child A was in the room.
No matter how hard I was thinking, however, I had to let her interrupt when she needed attention, if only to remind her that she was more important than my work. She learned to wait while I hit the “save” key, then I was hers. Sometimes she had a question, sometimes she just wanted a smile, but she needed it badly.
Suppose your wife is in a bad auto accident. The surgeons put her back together, but she needs regular doses of painkillers so her muscles can relax enough to heal. No matter how busy you are, wouldn’t you set an alarm clock to be sure to give her pills on schedule to meet her physical needs and heal her pain?
A wife needs regular doses of attention and appreciation, that’s what “your desire” means. You have to let her set the dose of attention and appreciation to meet her emotional needs and not cause her pain. To be one as Jesus expects, you have to die to yourself in favor of her and the family. It’s no longer “you,” it’s “us.”
Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Philippians 2:4
My wife manages many details of guiding our home and children, I’m glad I don’t have to. I concentrate on the Big Picture, but when something matters to my wife, it had better matter to me. If I don’t care about what matters to her, if I don’t look on her things, she thinks she doesn’t matter to me, and vice versa.
Reporting and Rapport
Men use “report talk” to say what happened. Women use “rapport talk” to build relationships.[201] Women bond to each other by sharing stories. Men bond by sharing experiences. Women have a deep need to talk; “strong, silent type” describes men who don’t talk much. Here’s example of relational woman talk:
When he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him. Matthew 27:19
Pilate’s wife expected him to pay attention to her dream. He should have relied on her feelings. On the other hand, a wife must let her husband punish their children when necessary no matter how she feels:
Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying. Proverbs 19:18
Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell. Proverbs 23:13-14
We never heard what was wrong with the boyfriend, but we’ve seen bad marriages give a taste of the punishments of Hell. Our friend’s daughter probably saved herself from Hell on earth by obeying her dad.
A man can’t protect his family without either cooperation or incarceration. If our friend’s daughter hadn’t cooperated with her father, if she’d run off with this guy, he couldn’t have protected her. Juliet’s father tried to keep her away from Romeo and appointed the family nurse to keep her at home. Juliet fooled the nurse, snuck off, and got together with Romeo. It didn’t turn out well – they both ended up dead.
Peter Pan told Wendy to stay in the clearing. Captain Hook kidnapped her when she disobeyed and went walking in the woods. Peter had to risk his life in a sword fight to get her back. If he’d known he wouldn’t get Wendy’s cooperation, should he have used incarceration by locking her in the house?
Fathers aren’t infallible. Jacob let his daughter Dinah go out to “see the daughters of the land;” Shechem raped her (Gen. 34). David told his daughter Tamar to go see Amnon and didn’t make Amnon marry Tamar after Amnon raped her (II Samuel 13). Did David or Jacob ask their wives for advice before doing these things?
The hardest part about parenting is persuading children that your ways are right. They may obey while living with you, but when they leave, they’ll do what they think is right. Unless you convince them that your ways are best before they leave home, unless they believe strongly that God’s “old paths (Jer. 6:16[202])” are the best way to live, they’ll do something else, to your sorrow.
Chapter 10 - Sources of Conflict – What We Say and Do
We communicate by what we say and by what we do. Actions speak louder than words - what we do speaks so loudly that nobody can hear what we say. Of all the things married people do, sex communicates the most vividly. If a woman deflects her husband’s desires or he deflects hers, they don’t belong to each other as described by the woman in Song 2:16 who says, “My beloved is mine, and I am his:”
If a man won’t stop when his wife says, “Ouch,” he’s telling her that he doesn’t mind hurting her.
Sex is important to a man. Women enjoy sex from time to time, but they're not generally as driven for sex as men are. Most women yearn to build relationships by sharing heartfelt feelings instead. Open-hearted talk is as vital to a woman’s well-being as open-hearted sex is to a man.
Most men know that lying about love helps persuade women to have sex, but few understand how deeply relationships matter to women. God told Adam that he would eat by the sweat of his face (Gen. 3:19[203]). Eve wasn't strong enough to hunt or to farm without machinery and she had burdens while pregnant, nursing, and raising children. Through generations of hunter-gathering and muscle-powered farming, a woman had to persuade a man to feed her. If a woman’s relationship with her provider fell apart, she and her children might starve. Maintaining and strengthening relationships was a matter of life and death.
Having her husband open his heart to her so that she knows that the relationship is in good shape is as important to her as having his wife open her body to him is to a man.
The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. Song of Solomon 2:8
Why is he so eager to come home? Will he rejoice in how neatly she’s stacked their linen closet? Or is he confident that she’ll delight in giving him the “three warms:” a warm bed, a warm heart, and warm meals?
The Bible teaches that both parties should sacrifice their own interests in favor of serving each other:
Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Philippians 2:4
The Bible says it’s fraud for a husband or wife to deny each other:
Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency. I Corinthians 7:3-5
“Benevolence” refers to a gift; “due” means something owed. Husband and wife owe each other the free and undeserved gift of themselves. They must give freely to each other but the verse starts with the husband giving himself to his wife. Couples open themselves to Satan’s temptation if either defrauds the other by failing to meet basic physical or emotional needs.
Owing a voluntary gift isn’t a contradiction. You don’t have to marry. “Due benevolence” means that if you do marry, you have vowed before Almighty God that you will freely give of yourself to your spouse based on your spouse’s individual needs as long as you both shall live. It’s fraud against God if you don’t.
Communication
It’s a sacrifice for a man to open his heart as much as his wife desires. God also expects a man to talk with his wife enough to know her needs and take them into account:
Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered. I Peter 3:7
If a man fails to honor his wife by listening to her enough to know how to nourish and cherish her, his prayers bounce off the ceiling. This can take a lot of talk. Just before our wedding, my fiancé told me she was really looking forward to being married. I was too. I thought we were on the same page, but she went on. “I really like talking to you. Once we’re married, we can talk more in a day than we can talk in a week of dating.”
That’s more talk than a man can imagine, she was expecting hours per day! I’d been talking a lot while dating because we couldn’t do anything else. I thought once we were married, it would be a done deal and we wouldn’t have to talk about it any more. The Holy Spirit led her to tell me that talking to her a lot more than I could imagine was an important part of our marriage covenant from her point of view.
I had no idea how vital this was. A woman can’t follow or obey her husband unless she knows what he wants. She can’t do what he wants unless he opens his heart to her so that she knows him well enough to know what he wants. Then she can be sure he’ll be happy with her, which makes her happy.
God made women so that they think very differently from men (Pr. 19:14b[204]). It takes hours and hours of talk before a man can understand what a woman is saying. If I hadn’t promised to talk to her, I’d probably have been too impatient to open my heart to her enough for her to feel that I valued her mind. A wife can’t make her husband any happier than he makes her, so making my wife feel appreciated benefits me greatly.
Opening my heart to her was scary, but Proverbs 31:11 says “The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her.” God wanted me to know that it was OK to open myself to her. It helped that from time to time, as the spirit moved her, she’d call me “Sir.” The Bible teaches women to call their husbands “Lord.”
Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement. I Peter 3:6
A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband: but she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones. Proverbs 12:4
There is no worse shame for a man than having a woman belittle or defy him. Men are deeply afraid of ridicule from women; her calling me “Sir” meant that she’d respect me even when I made mistakes. That made it easier for me to open my heart to her and show my love for her.
Opening myself to her made me hers as opening herself to me made her mine. The Song of Solomon teaches that husband and wife are supposed to belong to each other (Song 2:16[205], 6:3[206]). God led her to ask me to promise to talk to her and led her to show me I could trust her. Opening my heart to her made me hers.
A wife chooses to honor her husband, it cannot be commanded. Some years ago, I read:
Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well. I Timothy 3:12
“Wife,” I asked, “do I qualify, I don’t rule you, I hardly ever tell you what to do?”
“Husband,” she said, “you rule me totally. Your ways aren’t natural to me, but we’ve talked enough that I know how you want things done. Nearly everything I do, I know how you want it done and do it your way.”
She wanted to please me and chose to serve me out of love as Christ chose to die for sinners out of love. Once I understood that, I was more careful to notice how she did things and express appreciation. It also showed another advantage of all that talking. A woman can’t follow her husband if she doesn’t know what he wants. The only way she can find out is through hours and hours of talk.
It’s important to keep your words healthful at all times so you both feel safe with each other, see page 20. Keeping your talk gentle and kind is one of the fruits of the spirit (Gal. 5:22-23[207]). It avoids conflict.
Sex Communicates
God intended that a wife should welcome her husband’s physical drive and keep it focused on her, see page 12.
Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love. And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger? Proverbs 5:18-20
How can a man be ravished always with his wife’s love unless she always welcomes him? Keeping his desire focused on her makes it harder for other women to get his attention. Letting him leave home loaded, on the other hand, leaves him more vulnerable to temptation:
Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned? Proverbs 6:28
Seeing the power of his desire for her helps convince a woman that he wants her enough to stay with her. This is one way for a woman to be reassured about the stability of the relationship, but it matters greatly how a man approaches sex. God commands men to set their wives apart:
For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor; not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God: I Timothy 4:3-5
Some say that this refers to a man possessing his own body, but the “vessel” as in “as unto the weaker vessel” describes something that receives. Jesus said that a man and wife were “no more twain, but one flesh.” It doesn’t matter which body the passage refers to; in a Christian marriage, there’s only one body.
“Sanctify” means “set apart.” The only way to set a wife apart is to marry her first and listen to her to get to know her well enough that she’s “but one” as in the Song of Solomon. He must know what makes her different from all other women or he hasn’t sanctified her. Without sanctification, he possesses her in the lust of those who don’t know God. She won’t like being treated that way and she won’t want to do it.
What separates man from animals? Human beings know right from wrong and they care about each other. Men, if you possess a woman without worrying whether you’re doing right by her, if you don’t set her apart from all other women, you’re no better than a beast.
Women know this. An unsanctified wife may feel that any woman would satisfy her husband. This makes her feel like a whore or a sex toy. Being taken is humbling (De. 21:14, 22:25, 22:29, Ez. 22:10-11); being taken by a man who won’t sanctify her is humiliating.
Listen to what men should say about their wives:
My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her. The daughters saw her, and blessed her; yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her. Song of Solomon 6:9
Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all. Proverbs 31:29
These men know that their wives are the best in the world. The only way a man can praise in a way she believes is to talk to her enough to know her well enough to praise her gifts in detail. Talking that much is scary for men, but opening herself to her husband often enough to satisfy him is scary for a wife because it takes away her independence.
As my wife’s desire to talk was stronger than I could imagine, a man’s sex drive is stronger than a woman can imagine. As a woman wants her husband to open his heart to her for hours of talk per day, a man wants his wife to open herself to him many times per day. The male sex drive is so strong that it can lead to sodomy when men feel rejected:
Thou art thy mother’s daughter, that loatheth her husband and her children; and thou art the sister of thy sisters, which loathed their husbands and their children: your mother was an Hittite, and your father an Amorite. Ezekiel 16:45
The prophet says that in loathing their husbands, the women of Israel were sisters in conduct to the women of Sodom. Modern feminist writings say that men are “too macho,” they are “too possessive,” their desires are “disgusting.” Women are being taught to loathe their future husbands, which leads to sodomy.
Thwarted drive also opens men to pornography. Once a man learns to find satisfaction in porn, he doesn’t have to beg and never suffers the humiliation of being told, “No.” A man runs the same risk if he fails to satisfy his wife’s need to open-hearted talk - she’ll be tempted to share her emotional thoughts with someone else. Emotional fornication often leads to physical fornication.
Some men say their wives don’t want to talk. This may be because she’s been so criticized by her husband or other men that she’s afraid to open herself. Women are unbelievably sensitive; many wives interpret their husbands’ words more negatively than their husbands intend. Men must be careful what they say.
Conflicts over Money
After listing many activities that wouldn’t bring happiness, Solomon told men how to find joy:
Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun. Ecclesiastes 9:9
A man’s only source of joy is his work and his wife, but for him to rejoice with her, he must nourish her and cherish her so that she rejoices in belonging to him. Solomon’s labors were vanity and chasing after wind because he worked to please himself, but when a man works to provide for his wife, her depending on him makes his labor worthwhile (I Tim. 5:8[208]). Nothing straightens up a man like having a woman lean on him, and if she teaches her children to follow him by her example of submission, he can get joy from them.
Many women have difficulty choosing suitable gifts for husbands or brothers. This is because God designed men with one really major drive and designed women to fulfill it. If a man’s wife likes belonging to him, that’s pretty much all he wants and they can spend whatever he earns guiding the house. If a man opens his heart to his wife and makes her feel loved, she can more easily be content to live on what he earns.
Without talk, however, a wife feels unloved and unappreciated, and she’ll want to go shopping to make herself feel better. Similarly, a man feels unloved unless his wife encourages him to have her whenever he can. Without that, he’s tempted to buy toys to try to make himself feel better. The book of Ecclesiastes Chapter 2 shows that this approach won’t bring happiness to either party.
God planned that husband and wife should be each other’s main source of contentment so they don’t need to spend money on toys. If they meet each other’s needs, they’ll have fewer financial problems.
We’ve talked about keeping emotion out of disagreements and sticking to the facts. Money is the very best place for fact-based discussion. I grew up in Japan where heating oil cost $1 per quart; I kept my apartment at 50. For three years before we married, my wife lived in a YWCA in a room over the main boiler. Her room was between 70 and 80 all winter. When we bought our first house, we encountered the usual whiplash of the wallet, but we were able to install storm windows.
I showed her a cash flow projection when we got the November heat bill. This was before spread sheets; it’s easier now. I showed what we got after taxes. I showed expenses including mortgage, cars, phone, etc. I then explained that the heating bills for December through February would be at least double the November bill. We’d barely make it.
I reminded her that she wanted to buy a freezer. She didn’t want to pay interest, so we had to save the price. “If you set the thermostat at 50,” I told her, “we can afford to buy your freezer this spring. If, however, we set it at 70, we won’t be able to save the money until fall.”
She knew that a dollar on heat was a dollar we couldn’t spend on her freezer. She bought very heavy quilted underwear, drank hot tea, and we set our thermostat at “way cool.” We bought the freezer; it served us 30 years. I found a way to give her a choice as God gives us free will.
3 years later, we scraped together airfare so I could take her with me on a business trip. She found a crystal vase she really wanted. We’d been eating in cheaper restaurants than my colleagues so I could pay for her food and mine from my daily meal allowance. This was before computers. It wasn’t worth the effort to add up all the receipts for each meal, so the company gave us a fixed sum for each day.
Her air fare had left us in a bad position, but she wanted the vase. “If you buy groceries and eat in our room,” I told her, “we can save enough out of my meal allowance for your vase.” We ate a lot of tuna and the bread sometimes went stale, but we bought the vase. She still has it.
We’ve been talking about keeping emotion out of discussion and sticking to facts. There is no topic better suited to fact-based discussion than money. You know what you’ve spent, you know what came in. What’s more, you know most of the upcoming bills and most of what you expect to come in. Facts take a lot of the sting out of talking about money. Everybody has spreadsheets; there’s no excuse not to have totally factual discussions. Once all the facts are on the table, the answer is usually obvious – “No, you can’t have it yet.”
Belong to Each Other
God expects each husband and wife to belong to each other, see page 12. Everyone knows this. There’s a song:
Button up your
overcoat, when the wind blows free
Take good care of yourself, you belong to me!
God created each woman to be her husband’s help meet. A woman can’t help a man unless he heeds what she says. A man would far rather give to his wife than have her take from him, and a woman would far rather give herself to her husband than have him take her. If a man belongs to his wife, it’s much easier for her to give herself to him. If she belongs to him, it’s easier for him to give to her.
A woman at work tried to attract me. “I was angry when you didn’t even notice,” she told me. “Then I realized, ‘Oh, he belongs to his wife’ so I went after someone else.” I’m careful to have women in my office meet my wife so they’ll know I belong thoroughly to her.
If a woman belongs to a man, her happiness also belongs to him. He’ll find that making her happy will make him far happier than anything he does to make himself happy. If a man belongs to a woman, she will find great joy in making him happy because his happiness becomes hers.
Jesus said that spouses should not only belong to each other, they should become one:
For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. Mark 10:7-8
The only way that two people can be “no more twain, but one,” is for each of them to die to their individual lives and be re-born into a one-flesh married unit. This is like salvation. The Bible teaches that sinners have to die to their former lives in order to be born again into Christ:
Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. Romans 7:4-6
A man shows his wife that he belongs to her by opening his heart to her. This frightens a man as much as opening herself to a man frightens a woman, but the Bible teaches that it’s safe for him to do so:
Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. Proverbs 31:10-12
This applies to a virtuous, Godly woman. An unsaved wife may do her husband harm instead of good. There’s a saying, “If a man loves a woman’s soul, one woman is all he needs, but if he sees only her face or figure, all the women in the world won’t satisfy him.” That was Solomon’s mistake:
Behold, this have I found, saith the preacher, counting one by one, to find out the account: which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found. Ecclesiastes 7:27-28
Solomon found joy with the wife of his youth. In his old age, he was disappointed in women, even though he had a thousand (I Kings 11:3[209]). Why? What went wrong? Solomon knew that marriage should have been good. He knew that marriage should have brought him great joy:
Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun. Ecclesiastes 9:9
Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love. Proverbs 5:18-19
Solomon knew he should have been able to rejoice in marriage, but he mourned, “a woman among all those have I not found.” Why? Why was his soul vexed and empty when he had so many women?
Men usually say, “Women are unmanageable,” few admit it was Solomon’s fault. What didn’t he know?
My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies. Song of Solomon 2:16
I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the lilies. Song of Solomon 6:3
I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me. Song 7:10
The Song, particularly 8:2-3[210], shows that she liked belonging to her husband because he was hers. If a wife doesn’t like belonging to her husband, his soul is as empty as Solomon’s soul was empty.
Solomon didn’t realize he should belong to one wife and be hers. Deu. 17:17[211] said not to “multiply wives” because too many wives would turn him away from God. That happened to Solomon, and also made his life empty. He said, “my soul seeketh, but I find not.”
Solomon should have known that a woman must have a man like belong to her for her to enjoy belonging to him. Solomon had life and death power over his wives but they didn’t like belonging to him. A man may own a woman, he may be able to command her, but he can’t make her like it. If she doesn’t like belonging to him, he’ll miss the joy and glory God intended that she bring into his life.
The book of Proverbs warns five times that living with an unhappy woman is a hardship (Pr. 19:13b[212], 21:9[213], 19[214], 25:24[215], 27:15[216]). Opening his heart to a woman takes so much time that a man can’t possibly belong to more than one. Solomon didn’t belong to any of his wives; he had 1,000 frustrated, unhappy women under his roof. No wonder his soul was empty!
The principles of marriage can be summed up in just two verses:
Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Philippians 2:4
Let no man seek his own, but every man another's wealth. I Corinthians 10:24
A man should dedicate his life to caring for his wife and a wife should dedicate her life to serving and taking care of her husband and children. Seeing her husband work hard to care for her and working hard to share the concerns of her heart makes a woman happy to belong to him.
In this life, there is no joy for a man which compares to having a woman like belonging to him so much that she delights in blessing his fountain. God is just – He offers men and women the same amounts of joy in marriage, but it takes different forms. A woman delights in having a man delight in taking care of her, opening his heart to her, using her skills and knowledge, and making her a permanent resident of his world.
Marriage is really as simple as a child’s song:
If you’re saved
and you know it, then your life will surely show it.
If you’re saved and you know it, pass it on – especially to your spouse!
God’s rules are very simple. Salvation is two words, “only believe.” Staying married is as simple as salvation, its two words, “only praise.” We must praise our spouses as much and as often as God expects us to praise Him, that keeps us focused on what God has given so that we don’t worry about what he hasn’t given.
Chapter 11 - Comparing Marriage and Salvation
God knew that we would have trouble with His plan of salvation. He knew we couldn’t possibly handle two plans, one for salvation and one for marriage, so He made one plan work for both. This section has many comparisons between marriage and salvation, but we should start with the basics. Gen. 1 tells us:
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. Genesis 1:3
The Bible teaches that God created everything including you, your spouse, and me. There’s more:
And God said, Let there be a firmament[217]
… and it was so. Genesis 1:6
And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered … and it was so. Genesis 1:9
And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass … and it was so. Genesis 1:11
And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven … and it
was so. Genesis 1:14
And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature … and it was so. Genesis 1:24
And God said, Let the waters bring forth … and God saw that
it was good. Genesis 1:20
We find “and God said, … and it was so,” over and over. The Bible teaches that if God said it’s so, it’s so. That is the foundation of Christianity – it’s built believing that if the Word of God says it, it’s so.
Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. John 17:17
God’s word is truth. God gave us His Word so that we’d know what He expects us to believe and what we’re supposed to do. Some say, “the Bible is authoritative for faith and practice.” God tells us what to believe and He tells us what to do. Consider what God says about His works:
The works of the LORD are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein. 10The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever. Psalm 111:2, 10
We should take pleasure in God’s works including the way He made men and women so that we can build God-fearing marriages and raise God-fearing children. God expects us to keep our marriage vows:
And this have ye done again, covering the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping, and with crying out, insomuch that he regardeth not the offering any more, or receiveth it with good will at your hand. 14Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. 15And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. Malachi 2:13-15
We should enjoy marriage. We should enjoy watching what He does for us and we should enjoy learning how He does His works. Having a proper awe and respect for God is the beginning of wisdom:
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever. Psalm 111:10
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction. Proverbs 1:7
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. Proverbs 9:10
If we understand His Holy Word, we’ll do what He commands, but it works the other way, too. If we do what God commands, we’ll get a good understanding when we look back and see how obeying His commands blessed us. Let’s look at how we’re told to approach God’s Word:
Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the lovingkindness of the LORD. Psalm 107:43
God says that if you’re wise, if you’ll observe “these things,” then you’ll understand just how kind God is and how well He takes care of us. Psalm 107 says three times
Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men! Psalm 107:8, 15, 21
If you are wise, if you praise the Lord for His goodness, then you will understand His kindness to you.
God’s most wonderful work to the children of men, of course, is salvation. Salvation requires that we confess our sins, repent of our sins, ask Jesus to forgive our sins, and be born again. Being saved requires that we die to our former lives so that we can be married to Christ:
Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. Romans 7:4
In order to be born again into Christ, we must die to ourselves and be married to Christ. That is the first of God’s wonderful works. Marriage is another of God’s wonderful works. Jesus explained it:
Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. Matthew 19:6
Dying to our former lives of sin makes us one with Christ. As with salvation; we must die to ourselves in order to be “one flesh” in marriage. When we find people whose lives are being destroyed by sin, we give the gospel so that they can be saved and show the grace of God in their new walk with Christ. When we find marriages being destroyed by sin, we “give an answer” so these marriages can show the grace of God to the lost. There are many short ways to explain marriage so that you can help your friends build their marriages.
· Salvation and marriage are both undeserved gifts of God’s grace. Nobody deserves salvation; nobody deserves the blessings of marriage. A man is not worthy of his wife’s submission, obedience, or her calling him “Lord,” that’s an undeserved gift of God’s grace to him. A woman is not worthy of her husband’s giving his life to nourish and cherish her, that’s God’s undeserved gift to her.
· Salvation and marriage both show the grace of God to the lost. We’re required to “give an answer” (I Pe. 3:15[218]) when people ask why we live as we do. Our marriages are our greatest opportunity to show we’re different from the lost. When the lost see a wife giving her husband undeserved grace or a husband giving his wife undeserved grace, they’ll want God’s grace for themselves, and we get to tell them how to find it.
· When we give the gospel, we may hear, “God can’t save me, my sins are too great.” When we give the plan of marriage, we may hear, “God can’t save my marriage, it’s too far gone.” That’s pride – how can anyone think their sin or their marriage problems are greater than the God who created the universe?
· People who reject God’s Simple Plan of Salvation spend eternity in Hell. People who reject God’s Simple Plan of Marriage can create their very own Hell right here on earth. Marriage can either give a foretaste of the joys of Heaven or it can give a foretaste of the punishment of the damned in Hell.
· Once we’re saved, our love for Christ constrains us to serve Him (II Cor. 5:14[219], Eph. 2:10[220], Phi. 2:4[221]). Once we’re married, our love for each other should constrain us to serve each other (1 Pe. 5:5[222]). God wants us to serve our spouses, families, and churches; we serve God by choosing to serve each other.
· Salvation is based on a personal relationship with Christ Jesus. Marriage is based on a personal relationship between husband and wife. If your relationship with Christ is messed up, you can’t have a proper relationship with your spouse. If your relationship with Christ is based on true, saving faith, you can choose to base your relationship with your spouse on God’s formula.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10
· John 3:16-17[223] gives all you must know to be saved. Genesis 24:67[224] gives all you must know for a successful marriage, but teaching helps. We labor to prepare children for good jobs but don’t teach Godly marriage. Not teaching marriage is like giving them a car without any training and expecting them to drive in traffic without getting hurt. As with salvation, “discipleship” is essential for successful marriage.
· We must keep our hearts perfect with the Lord our God as David did. David sinned, but he never worshipped any other god. Married people must keep their hearts perfect not only with God but also with each other. Couples must never worship any other god and never get involved with any other person.
· Salvation prepares us for the joys of living forever with Jesus and serving Him in Heaven. God planned marriage to give both husband and wife a foretaste of the joys of Heaven, right here on earth.
· Once saved, we become one with Christ. Once married, husband and wife should become one flesh (Mt. 19:5-6[225], Mk. 10:8[226]). We can’t be one in Christ without dying to our former life. Husband and wife can’t become one in each other without dying to their former individual selves in favor of serving the family.
· Saved people should glorify God in all that they do; glorifying God helps us become his ambassadors (II Cor. 5:20[227]). Married people should glorify God and glorify each other together in all that they do.
· Some people give money to the church to pay God for favors. A “cheerful giver” gives to God out of love and not to get from Him. The Song of Solomon shows a husband and wife giving to each other out of love and not in hope of getting from the other. Works-based salvation is idolatry; works-based marriage is whoredom. Works-based “salvation” takes you to Hell; works-based marriage makes life Hell on earth.
· Salvation supports marriage; knowing we belong to Christ (I Co. 6:19[228]) makes it easier to belong to a spouse. If a woman belongs to Christ, it’s easier to accept God giving her to her husband (Lk. 17:27[229]). If a man knows that Christ gave His life for him, it’s easier for him to give his life for his wife (Eph. 5:25[230]).
· Marriage supports salvation. As husband and wife appreciate and praise one another and share God’s grace by forgiving each other, their marriage reminds them both to praise and appreciate God (Ps. 100).
· Rejoicing in the Lord reminds us to rejoice in marriage and vice versa (Phi 4:4[231]). Ecc. 9:9 says, “Rejoice with the wife whom thou lovest…” Joy in marriage must be shared.
· Salvation is two words, “only believe.” Satan confuses people into thinking it’s belief plus works or church so people miss salvation and go to Hell. Marriage is two words, “only praise,” but many people think they should change their spouses instead of letting the Holy Spirit bring change. When people usurp the Holy Spirit’s role in their marriage, they usually miss the joys of marriage and may create Hell on earth.
· Marriage doesn’t just give us companionship; we have duties to our spouses which God expects us to fulfill. Husbands must love their wives (Eph. 5:25230), wives must reverence husbands (Eph. 5:33[232]). Love and reverence are acts of will which we decide to do.
· Jesus begins a good work in us at the point of salvation (2 Pe. 3:18[233]). He helps us grow in grace until the day He returns (Phi. 1:6[234]). Husband and wife begin a good work of growing in grace together at marriage and continue encouraging each other until death.
· Salvation doesn’t just take us to Heaven; we have work to do for Christ (2 Cor. 5:14[235]). “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them (Eph. 2:10).” Serving your family and church serves Christ in this life.
· When Jesus’ blood washes away our sins, God sees us as perfect (I Cor. 6:11[236]). Christians must follow after God (Eph. 5:1-2[237]) and see each other as perfect. Marriage prospers when a man appreciates and honors his wife as God’s good and perfect gift to him and she acts as God’s good and perfect gift to him.
· The only way a man can see his sinful wife as perfect is for him to see her through the grace God gave in saving him. The only way a wife can see her sinful husband as perfect is for her to see him through the grace God gave her. When lost people see couples sharing God’s grace, they want God’s grace for themselves, and we tell them how to get it. That’s how our light shines before men (Mt. 5:16[238]).
· Jesus said, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me;” (Mt 11:29). A bride takes upon herself the yoke of pleasing her husband (Gen. 3:16[239]). The only way to rest (Ruth. 1:9a[240]) in being sure she’ll please him is to spend time talking to him and learning of him so she knows he’ll be pleased with what she does.
· Jesus said, “for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” (Mt. 11:29) A man must be meek towards his wife and must lead her by serving her (Mk. 10:42-45[241], see also Mk. 9:35[242]). He must talk to her a great deal in order to understand her needs well enough to lead her for her benefit.
· Jesus said, He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it (Mt. 10:39). When we accept salvation, we lose our former lives and gain a new life in Christ. When we marry, we lose our former individual selves and gain a new life as a one-flesh married couple.
· God’s salvation covenant is forever; once saved, always saved (John 10:28[243]). God’s marriage covenant ends only at death (Rom. 7:1-3[244], the book of Ruth).
If you’re saved and relate to God as He desires, your marriage works because you’ll serve God by serving each other. The relationship between husband and wife is based on their relationships to God.
And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; II Corinthians 5:18
Having been reconciled to God, we should be able to minister reconciliation to each other. If husband and wife each reconcile themselves to God and relate to God by honoring, praising, loving, and obeying Him, they’ll relate properly to each other by honoring, praising, loving and appreciating each other. Their marriage prospers, and they show the grace of salvation to the lost.
And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. II Corinthians 5:15
Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. II Corinthians 4:10
As lost people see Christians giving God’s grace to each other, they’ll want God’s grace for themselves. If either party messes up their relationship with God, on the other hand, their testimony is damaged and the marriage seldom works well even if they both have been taught how marriage should work.
Knowing what God says about marriage helps you heal the broken marriages you’ll encounter. God ordains joyful marriage; a damaged marriage means that someone isn’t following God.
Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: Psalm 127:1
No matter how hopeless the situation seems, God promises a way out, but we have to ask:
There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. I Corinthians 10:13
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. James 1:5
A Glorious Wife, Without Spot or Wrinkle
This passage outlines a goal and a reward for a husband’s spiritual leadership of his wife:
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; 26That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 27That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. 28So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. Ephesians 5:25-28
Although a man should be ready at any time to give his life to protect his wife from danger, God generally expects a man to give his life day by day to nourish her and cherish her. I earn so much per hour. When we spend that much on home, children, or church, I have freely given one hour of my life to walking God’s path of service (Mk. 9:35[245], 10:44[246]) as He wants me to walk (Ro. 12:1[247]).
Watching their father honor them and their mother teaches daughters that God requires that all men treat “The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity (1 Tim. 5:2).” Girls must be taught to insist that men deal with them in purity as God commands or they will be tempted to fall into sexual sin.
Eph. 5:27 shows Christ using His Word to bring His church to Himself “a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle or any such thing.” As spiritual leader, a husband should use the Word of God to gently present his wife to himself as a “glorious wife not having spot or wrinkle.”
Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee. Song of Solomon 4:7
My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her. Song 6:9a
The husband tells his wife she’s a glorious wife, without spot or wrinkle. His wife needs her friends to know he’s pleased with her; he recharges her batteries by telling everyone she’s uniquely perfect for him.
And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death. Genesis 24:67
Being convinced of his love gave her the emotional energy she needed to be able to comfort him even for the death of his mother.
My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. I John 3:18
Saying you love her is good, but talk is cheap. What you do speaks so loudly that nobody can hear what you say. Wives appreciate husbands putting toilet seats down, and there are many small ways to show love and appreciation. My wife’s hairbrush collects hair. It takes 30 seconds to pull the hair out with a comb. That doesn’t save her much effort, but it warms her heart when I remind her that I’m thinking of her.
Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. John 15:15
Explaining promotes a wife to friend. It takes time and practice for a man to learn to talk to his wife in a way that connects to her emotions. I was homeschooled and welcomed my mother’s knowledge, but it took a year to begin to understand when my wife spoke of her feelings. Building an emotional connection to her helped her become my glorious wife as she enjoyed belonging to me. Her conscious choice to belong to me after our wedding made opening my heart to her a lot less scary. We each had to connect in the other’s way!
This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Ephesians 5:32
“Christ and the church” was the mystery, not the relationship between man and wife. People understood marriage in apostolic times.
Many Christians have forgotten the part of Holy Matrimony where the husband renews his wife’s emotional energy through praise, appreciation, and showing many small acts of kindness so that she has the strength to give comfort in time of sorrow and hold the family together during trials.
Chapter 12 - How God Made Men and Women Think So Differently
This chapter helps couples think about the different ways they think. God always speaks of male and female as two kinds:
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 28And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, Genesis 1:27-28a
God made males and females think differently to help us be fruitful and multiply. Instead of trusting that a good God knew what He was doing when He created us, many men and women complain that God made their spouses wrong. Women complain that men are too possessive, too controlling, and can’t find anything in a refrigerator. Men complain that women are too emotional and talk too much.
A wife needs constant reminding that she’s valued, that he likes taking care of her, and that the connection is strong. God’s punishment of Eve when she ate the forbidden fruit helps explain this, see page 67.
Until the Industrial Revolution made some nations so wealthy that a woman could get a job and support herself, a woman had to persuade a man to feed her. Women who starved couldn’t raise many children. Natural selection favored women who were very concerned about strengthening connections to a man who was willing to feed them.
Consider your family tree. Every one of your female ancestresses was able to persuade a man to feed her, and every one of your male ancestors was willing to do it. If any had failed, you wouldn’t be here.
Opening his heart to his wife reassures her that he belongs to her but opening up is scary and frustrating because women think so differently from men. Men share their bodies but value emotional privacy.
The mixture of logic, emotion, and intuition that God gives a wife helps her guide her house and makes women think very differently from men. It’s amazing how different they can be. A wife told her husband, “Buy me a carton of milk, and if they have avocados, get 6.” He bought 6 cartons of milk. When she asked why, he said, “They had avocados.” A husband told his wife he would get her a diamond for their anniversary. She said, “Nothing would please me more.” He got her nothing.
A man found a note on the refrigerator, “This isn’t working. I’m at my mother’s.” He opens the fridge and finds it’s working. He doesn’t know why she thought it was broken, and sits down to wait for her to get back from her mother’s. She, of course, is waiting for him to call her.
It’s likely that she’d been hinting of trouble and he’d missed it. A friend sent me this illustration of the total disconnects that can happen between men and women:
Her diary: Tonight, I thought my husband was acting weird. We had made plans to meet at a nice restaurant for dinner. I was shopping with my friends all day long, so I thought he was upset at the fact that I was a bit late, but he made no comment on it. Conversation wasn't flowing, so I suggested that we go somewhere quiet so we could talk. He agreed, but he didn't say much. I asked him what was wrong - he said nothing. I asked him if it was my fault that he was upset. He said he wasn't upset, that it had nothing to do with me, and not to worry about it. On the way home, I told him I loved him. He smiled slyly, and kept driving. I can't explain his behavior; I don't know why he didn't say, “I love you too.” When we got home I felt as if I had lost him completely, as if he wanted nothing to do with me anymore. He just sat there quietly and watched TV. He continued to seem distant and absent. Finally, with silence all around us, I decided to go to bed. About 15 minutes later, he came to bed. But I still felt that he was distracted, and his thoughts were somewhere else. He fell asleep; I cried. I don't know what to do. I'm sure that his thoughts are with someone else. My life is a disaster.
His diary: My motorcycle won't start, and I don't know why.
Men tend to focus more intently than women do, but no man should lock his wife out of his thoughts, not ever. When a wife tells her husband she loves him out of the blue, she may need reassurance that he loves her. He should be aware of her distress, work to find out why, and reassure her even if she can’t explain:
Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Philippians 2:4
On our first date, my wife said something profound and I started thinking about it. About 20 seconds later, she put her hand on my arm and asked, “Where are you?” I said I was in the restaurant[248], and she said, “No, your mind is a million miles away; I can see it in your eyes.” My lights were on, but nobody was home.
I told her that what she’d said was important and explained how I was trying to fit her knowledge into what I already knew. She liked the fact that I would think so hard about what she said and she found the world where her thoughts had taken me to be interesting, but most of all, she liked the way I opened my heart to her when she asked. A man must draw his wife into his world when he disappears into his thoughts.
Knowing versus Understanding
Most wives think their husbands should understand them. Not even God expects a man to understand his wife, He expects him to put in the hours and hours of open-hearted talk to know her:
Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered. I Peter 3:7
There’s a big difference between knowing and understanding. My wife believes our quilt isn’t square and the flowers have to be right side up instead of sideways or upside-down. She can’t sleep if the quilt’s on the bed wrong because, she says, it doesn’t cover her when I’m in the bed. I say it’s king-size and she’s a small woman, it’s wide enough to warm her either way, but she doesn’t agree.
There are 7 wrong ways to lay a quilt but only one right way. She was frustrated because I put the quilt on wrong when I tried to help her. She could’ve thought, “If he loved me, he’d know how I want the quilt,” but she knew I loved her. She decided I really couldn’t tell which way was up. Then she said to put the tag in my corner. That solved the problem.
Do I understand this? I do not. But I know it; I know where she wants the tag, so I put the tag where she wants it. This makes her feel loved because she knows it makes no sense to me, she knows I don’t care; she knows I do it just for her. When you do something just to make your wife happy, she likes it, it makes her feel loved, which, done many times per day, makes her glad to belong to you even if you don’t understand her.
She likes hearing me say I love, value, and appreciate her, but what I do matters a lot more:
My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. I John 3:18
The quilt took patience. The top and bottom look the same, but I can find the tag. She had to figure out how to tell me how to meet her needs. I figured out putting toilet seats down, combing hair out of her brush, and rinsing sinks after I brush my teeth, but I didn’t get the quilt.
Some say I belittle my wife by saying she cares so much about a quilt but that’s silly. God wants children. It does no good for a child to be born if it dies when someone overlooks a tiny detail. Women handle a huge number of details that aren’t on a man’s radar. A woman’s “baby bag” carries different things which change with the seasons and with who’s sick. A man thinks the quilt’s just as warm no matter how it’s on the bed; women agree that there’s one right way to spread a quilt, the other 7 ways are wrong.
This doesn’t mean that all women will agree on how to spread a quilt. One may choose one side for the top; another might prefer the other side. One may want the flowers facing the head of the bed so she can see them from the foot, another might want them the other way so she can see them from her pillow.
Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Philippians 2:4
My wife manages many details of guiding our home and children, I’m glad I don’t have to. I concentrate on the Big Picture, but when something matters to my wife, it had better matter to me. If I don’t care about what matters to her, if I don’t look on her things, she thinks she doesn’t matter to me.
It’s a lot of trouble for me to think about her enough to understand what she wants to know about me. That’s the only way to convince her that I belong to her. That gives her the emotional energy to belong to me and comfort me (Gen. 24:67[249]) as God planned. There is no joy for a man that compares with having his wife like belonging to him, but he must convince her first to make it possible.
Reporting and Rapport
Men use “report talk” to say what happened. Women use “rapport talk” to build relationships.[250] Women bond to each other by sharing stories. Men bond by sharing experiences. Women have a deep need to talk; “strong, silent type” describes men who don’t talk much. Here’s example of relational woman talk:
When he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him. Matthew 27:19
Pilate’s wife expected him to pay attention to her dream. He should have relied on her feelings.
God doesn’t expect a man to understand his wife, He expects him to know her (1 Pe. 3:7). Very few women or men can explain how they think. For my wife, the top refrigerator shelf is the first, the one below that the second, while I number them from the bottom up like floors in a building. What a disconnect!
Isaac supplied the tent where his wife would live. A husband provides food, clothing and shelter for his wife who guides their house. God created women to help their husbands (Gen. 2:18, 20[251]):
Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety. Proverbs 11:14
A wife often knows things her husband doesn’t, particularly about children. It’s childish for a man to ignore his wife’s knowledge and ideas when making decisions. Even if her thoughts aren’t always practical, her ideas may stimulate his thoughts and help make better decisions. In our decades of deciding, it’s been rare that the first idea from either of us stands the test of the other’s knowledge. It can take hours of discussion, but the decision is usually obvious once everyone’s concerns are shared.
Knowledge sharing is one way God wants us to edify one another (1 Thess. 5:11[252]) and provoke one another to good works (Heb. 10:24[253]).
I saw my mother’s mind work when a baby cried in the next apartment. The hormones of pregnancy make a mother sensitive to a baby's cry[254]. My mother couldn’t stand the crying. She knocked, said, “Can I help you,” and picked up the baby.
Hormones on a woman's skin affect a baby's brain[255]. The mother's hormones of fear made her baby afraid. My mother’s calmer hormones made the baby stop crying from fear and start crying about what was wrong. Mom showed the mother how to fix it. God designed women’s hearing to be sensitive to baby noises but it takes teaching and experience for a mother to learn how to deal with her baby’s sounds.
How Women Think
When men complain that women think emotionally, women feel that men believe women don’t think at all. This makes them unhappy and unwilling to try to explain how they think. This lowers decision quality.
Dismissing women’s thoughts goes back to the Greek philosophers who gave us forward and backward chaining which doctors use. The doctor collects low-cost facts – blood pressure, temperature, weight, height, and your history. You describe your symptoms. The doctor “forward chains” from the facts and guesses what’s wrong.
Suppose the doctor thinks you have pellagra. If that’s true, you’ll have other symptoms. The doctor “backward chains” from the guess and orders tests to see if you have other symptoms of pellagra. “We need more tests” means that the guess was wrong, backward chaining failed, but he now has more facts. He’ll forward chain to another guess for which backward chaining needs more facts. It is easy to explain conclusions found through forward and backward chaining.
Greeks also gave us Aristotelian logic - if A is true, not A is false. When Rome conquered Greece, they learned geometry and logic. They couldn’t have built roads or bridges without these intellectual tools.
These ways of thinking are so useful that many men believe that their way is the only way to think. When the Greek philosophers came down from their lofty discussions of logic, they found that the women whom they’d left guiding the house didn’t think that way. Instead of seeing that there was another way to think, they assumed that women didn’t think at all. Modern men are no better at valuing women’s thoughts.
Women think holistically, which means “involving or emphasizing the whole.” Everything in the house and everyone she knows is connected to everything else like a multidimensional picture in her mind. This helps a woman find things anywhere in the house and makes it easier for her to fit each new baby into the family.
Each woman has her own way of seeing her kitchen so it is hard for a woman to work in another woman’s territory. Gen. 31:33-34 tells how Laban searched separate tents for each of Jacob’s four wives. The women shared a husband, but couldn’t share a kitchen or sleeping space.
My mother’s mother came to help her for a week when I was born, and my dad’s mother for a week. My mother was so upset at my dad’s mother rearranging her kitchen that she told me 15 years later. She told my wife about it after we married and said that she’d never do it to her.
My wife once saw a group of kids running. “That child’s hurt!” she exclaimed even though we were too far away to identify them. One child had a sprained ankle and been given crutches but didn’t want to use them. The way that child ran disturbed my wife. Being able to see or hear one wrong note in a complex situation helps raise children – a choking baby needs help now no matter what else the mother is doing.
A Smithsonian article describes motherhood “as an unseen and poorly understood cellular-level revolution that rebuilds the female brain.”[256] A high-level executive was amazed to find herself watching her newborn wave and kick for hours on end. Her brain was learning her baby’s normal movements so that if her child was hurt, she would immediately see that something was wrong and take care of it.
A holistic situational sense protects women from stronger men. Gavin de Becker’s “The Gift of Fear,” page 45, describes women who were robbed or raped. They felt uneasy, but told themselves not to be silly and kept walking. He says to pay attention when feeling something’s wrong and discusses ways to tell which fears are real and which are not. Judges 16:18 says a woman can see into a man’s heart if she looks. Many won’t look because they’re afraid they might see something negative.
It can be Hard to Explain
My wife’s father respected her thoughts as given of God to fulfill God’s instructions to marry and have children, but he insisted that she try as hard as she could to explain her feelings. That helped me as I learned how to care for her. She told me many things about her thoughts which were so helpful that we wrote them down, see page 47.
Even with 5 decades of practice, it can be hard to explain. A friend was having heart surgery. His washing machine failed. My wife did his wife’s laundry and bought 2 laundry carriers. When I asked why she hadn’t put the clothes in a trash bag, she said she hadn’t thought of it.
I knew that wasn’t why but she couldn’t explain. The next day she told me her friend folded dirty laundry in the pile waiting to be washed and would be unhappy if clean clothes came back jumbled in a bag. With her husband in the hospital, my wife didn’t want to add to her stress. She knew this without knowing how she knew until she figured it out the next day. As Prof. Chomsky said, “Experts don’t think – they know!”
When researchers started using computers for Artificial Intelligence (AI), they began with forward and backward chaining. This gave us “expert systems” whose conclusions could be explained. As AI advanced to “deep learning,” computers reach conclusions we can’t understand. The article “Can we let algorithm take decisions we cannot explain?[257]” points out that unexplained decisions make people nervous, just as men get nervous when a woman reaches a strongly-held conclusion she can’t explain and which makes no sense to them.
How God Did This
Research shows that men and women have different verbal[258] and spatial reasoning[259] skills. God gave male and female brains the same basic structure and the same brain cells but the connections are different.
The article “Men's and Women's Brains Are Wired Differently, but What Does It Mean?[260]” explains some of the differences.
The brain is split into two halves, called hemispheres. Verma’s study found that men have more connections within each hemisphere of the cerebrum, linking the regions for planning and decision-making with the regions for sight and speech.
Women, on the other hand, have more connections between each hemisphere, allowing the two halves of the brain to share information more easily. In the cerebellum, the brain’s physics and motion calculator, the opposite was true—men had more connections between the two hemispheres, and women had more connections within each hemisphere.
The study found minimal gender differences in children under the age of 13, but the differences were much more distinct by age 17. Many brain wiring changes occur during puberty, and men and women seem to develop differently. [emphasis added]
“Brain Facts To Know And Share: Men Have A Lower Percentage Of Gray Matter Than Women[261]”
Did you know women have a higher percentage of gray matter than men? And, not only do men have more white matter, percentage-wise, they also have more cerebrospinal fluid.
According to the researchers, the “results suggest that male brains are structured to facilitate connectivity between perception and coordinated action, whereas female brains are designed to facilitate communication between analytical and intuitive processing modes.” [emphasis added]
“Intuitive processing modes” may be what helps women find things in the refrigerator better than men can. A woman married without seeing her husband’s house. “The living room was full of tires,” she said. A man keeps tires in the living room so he can find them. “It took a month to get the tires out on the front porch,” she said, “and two months to get them around back, but I got them out of the living room.”
She went slowly and carefully instead of just taking over his house. As he learned to trust her to find socks, underwear, and other unimportant things, he trusted her to find important things like his tires.
Brain cells form “neural clusters” which store memories, hear sounds, process images the eyes see, and do other things to keep us alive. The way brain cells connect determines how the brain operates. Hormones carried in the blood to the brain also affect thinking. The adrenalin rush to the brain in times of fear can bring tunnel vision to focus on the threat and help you see more clearly[262]. A woman’s hormones change during pregnancy and during her monthly cycle and affect her brain.
“Hormonal Influences on Cognitive Function[263]” discusses this:
Hormones are the chemical regulators of the human body and function critically to maintain various processes, such as growth, emotions and even cognition. Numerous studies have examined the relationship between hormonal effects and cognitive function; these studies have investigated different factors, such as aging, pregnancy, post-natal states, emotions and stress. Different types of hormones produce different outcomes for the human body and mind.
… sexual hormones … are commonly associated with cognitive function … [and addict couples to each other, see page 73]
“Menstruation And The Female Brain: How Fluctuating Hormone Levels Impact Cognitive Function”[264] goes into more detail:
Days before your period you may feel as if you’re walking around in a mental fog. During premenstrual syndrome (PMS), hormones begin to fluctuate and alter the levels of brain chemicals that keep you balanced and alert, but what exactly happens to the brain during your period?
Usually, after the first few days, there will be a surge of estrogen levels that will stimulate the release of endorphins that eliminate the mental change or hormonal cloud present during PMS.
“Estrogen levels are closely linked with women’s emotional well-being as estrogen affects parts of the brain that control emotions,” Dr. Ben Michaelis, a clinical psychologist in New York City and author of “Your Next Big Thing,” told Medical Daily.
The rise in estrogen levels during the menstrual cycle deters women from impulsive decision-making. A 2014 study published in the Journal of Neuroscience found greater increases in estrogen levels across the menstrual cycle compared to impulsive behavior during the beginning of menstruation when estrogen levels are low.
When God made us male and female, He structured our brains as differently as our muscles.[265] These differences help husbands and wives fulfill the different roles God gave us in forming families. A woman’s holistic thinking treats the family, house, and children as one complicated picture where she can quickly see anything that’s going wrong and helps her find items in the refrigerator. This helps her keep her babies alive, but makes her easy to interrupt. A man is harder to interrupt. He focuses strongly as he must get his seeds planted at the right time, he must complete the harvest at the right time, or he must focus on a game trail to make sure he can shoot any edible animal that comes along.
God gets servants when His servants raise children to serve Him. Their different brains and different ways of thinking make women better mothers than men are. The difference improves decision quality if a husband values his wife’s thoughts but makes it hard for a man to open his heart to his wife as she needs.
Being homeschooled taught me to discuss facts with my mother which was a good start for talking with my wife. I never thought about feelings; it took a year or so to figure out how I felt and explain my feelings to my wife. Working mothers don’t have time to give their sons practice in sharing information with women. A wife must be patient as her husband learns to open his heart to her from zero.
Psalm 68:6 explains that God loved us enough to put solitary people in families. If you don’t see how something about your spouse’s basic nature blesses you and your family, that’s your problem, not God’s. Pray to ask Him for wisdom to see why your spouse blesses you – that’s a promise He will fulfill (Jas. 1:5[266]).
Chapter 13 - Ruth’s Rules for Finding Rest in Marriage
God gave us the Book of Ruth as a romance story: a poverty-stricken widow goes to a strange land to find God, works hard, demonstrates virtue, marries a rich man, and is mentioned in the line of Christ. Women read novels and think about getting married. God’s example shows how a woman should behave so that a good man will want her. A man who wants to marry a good woman should think about how Boaz honored Ruth so that she wanted to marry him.
Titus 2:4-5[267] teaches older women to teach younger women about husbands and children. The Book of Ruth shows how Naomi helped Ruth get married; the wife’s mother in the Song taught her daughter how to stay married. A woman should learn from a Godly grandmother.
Song 2:16 says, “My beloved is mine, and I am his,” Song 6:3 says “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.” God expects men and women to die to themselves, give up their independence, belong to each other, and be no more twain, but one flesh (Mt. 19:6[268]) just as they were one flesh before God separated Eve out of Adam’s body (Gen. 2:21-22[269]). It’s hard to give up your wants in favor of someone else and belong to your spouse, but that’s what God expects of us (Song 2:16[270], 6:3[271], 7:10[272]).
A man expects that marriage means he can have his wife whenever he’s able to have her, a woman expects that marriage means that he’ll open his heart to her whenever she’s able to talk. God created women because it’s not good for men to be alone (Gen. 2:18[273]). God had many reasons for giving women a drive to talk, but one reason was that a wife keeps her husband from being alone by talking to him.
It’s hard for a woman to please her husband unless he opens his heart to her enough for her to know what he wants. A woman feels defrauded if her husband won’t open his heart to her when she needs to talk – it slices her heart like a knife. She feels as defrauded as her husband feels if she won’t open herself to him whenever he wants her (I Cor. 7:3-5[274]). A woman can’t decide when her husband needs her and he can’t decide when she needs him. Both parties must sacrifice to serve the other. Did you marry to get, or did you marry to give?
It’s simple to walk from Maine to California – put one foot in front of the other, repeat until you get there. It’s equally simple to have a good marriage – die to yourself one day at a time, repeat until you die.
A man may talk during courtship, but once he’s married, he thinks it’s a done deal and he doesn’t have to talk any more. The Bible says 4 times that giving herself to a man humbles a woman (Deu. 21:14, 22:29, Eze. 22:10-11). The emotional cost of opening herself is so high that she finds it hard to give herself as often as he wants unless she’s convinced that he belongs to her and that he likes belonging to her and caring for her.
The Sacrificial Cost of a Husband
Ladies, having a man in your life is a lot of work and sacrifice. Many marriages break down when the woman finds out how much a husband costs after they’re married, decides he isn’t worth that, and walks out.
You won’t find rest in marriage to a man who won’t let himself belong to you. That makes your burden harder to bear. A good husband belongs to you. If he belongs to you, if he nourishes and values you as God’s precious gift to him, you’ll find rest in belonging to him and you won’t mind the cost of belonging to him.
I Cor. 7:28 says, “if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh:” Having a man in your life cumbers you with much serving (Lk. 10:40[275]) and brings trouble. Marriage is so much trouble that the Bible says not to unless you must:
I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn. I Corinthians 7:8-9
The Bible says it’s good for women not to marry and that it’s not good for men to be alone. Is marriage harder on women than on men? God meant marriage to bless men and women, but we must do it His way.
God Teaches Women How To Marry
As a widow, Ruth knew what a husband costs; she knew she wanted to marry. A woman should marry only if she wants to belong to one specific man badly enough to bear his costs. If he isn’t worth it, don’t marry. Ruth’s story shows salvation, but it’s also a handbook how to get married.
There’s no book telling men how to get married, in fact, I Cor. 7:27 tells men not to look for wives. Pr. 14:1 warns, “a wise woman buildeth her house.” The Bible says nothing about men building houses; men can’t build houses. It’s the woman’s job to build her house and she lays the foundation before marriage.
There are many different marriages, but successful marriages follow the same rules given in the book of Ruth. It shows how Ruth set a firm foundation for her house before Boaz took her to wife. Maybe 80% of success or failure in marriage is determined by what goes before, and 90% of that is how the woman conducts herself. Proverbs 31 teaches that a virtuous woman is beyond price. A woman sets her price by what she does. If a man can have her for the price of a few dinners, she isn’t worth much. If he can have her without marriage, what would marrying give him that he doesn’t already have?
Before dating, ask him to agree that the purpose of being together is to determine whether he and she will marry, his life for her life. “A wise woman buildeth her house,” starting before marriage. Today’s women won’t do exactly as Ruth did because cultures are different, but God’s principles don’t change. Few young people are taught how to get married; you can save people a lot of grief by helping them avoid divorce.
The Reality of Marriage
Building successful marriages starts with knowing what marriage is. The Bible explains in one verse, page 7:
And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death. Genesis 24:67
The man pays the bills, they vow, he takes her to wife, he loves her, and she comforts him. A husband houses and supports his wife and their children. Comforting a husband burns a lot of emotional energy; a husband must convince his wife daily that he loves her to give her enough emotional energy to comfort him.
Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. I Corinthians 10:31
Doing all to the Glory of God builds a successful marriage. You were created for the glory of God and your spouse was created for the glory of God. You’ll have to ask yourself, “Will doing this help us glorify God, or will it hurt?” Can you always ask yourself that? Can you do all things to help your spouse glorify God?
That’s the main cost of marriage—becoming one with your spouse as God expects means that you give up your desires, wants, and needs in favor of your new family. It’s humbling to belong to your husband. You have to humble yourself to accept salvation; you must humble yourself in marriage. Can you die to your wants and do all things to help your husband glorify God? Do you want a specific man that badly?
Background of the Book of Ruth
Many call Boaz the “kinsman redeemer,” a type of Christ who redeemed Ruth the Moabitess into the body of believers. Boaz had nothing to do with Ruth joining God’s people. Ruth chose to follow God when Naomi told her to return to her family to find a husband:
And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Ruth 1:16
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Romans 10:10
This wasn’t “easy believism.” Ruth didn’t just talk the talk of belonging to God; she walked the walk from Moab to Israel. Boaz wasn’t involved in her salvation or redemption; she chose to follow God.
Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land. Proverbs 31:23
Boaz’s line led to Christ (Mt. 1:5[276]). We know little of most of them. God told of Boaz’s life because he married a woman virtuous enough to choose to belong to God even though she’d been told there would be no husband for her. “Behind every successful man, there’s a woman.”
Casting Boaz as Ruth’s redeemer makes him the main character, but it’s the Book of Ruth, not the Book of Boaz. With Ruth as main character, it reads as a romance novel: poverty stricken widow goes to a strange land to draw nigh to God (Jam. 4:8a[277]), works hard, doesn’t date around, marries a rich guy, becomes the great-grandmother of King David, and is in the genealogy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Boaz’s mother Rahab (Mt. 1:5) was another foreign woman who believed in God (Jos. 2:8-13) and married into the line of Christ. God accepts all who call on Him, but they must choose for themselves:
But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. Hebrews 11:6
Naomi’s advice to Ruth how to get married takes up a major part of an entire book whereas the mother’s advice to her daughter how to stay married takes only one verse (Song 8:3[278]). Naomi gave the woman’s view of marriage as she told her daughters to go back to their families:
The LORD grant you that ye may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband. Ruth 1:9a
Women aren’t strong enough to hunt or farm without machinery. Wives depend on husbands for food in a muscle-powered society with no “safety net.” Naomi wanted her daughters to have food, clothing, and shelter, but she also wanted them to find comfort, rest, contentment, and security in knowing that their husbands valued and appreciated them as taught in the Song. Many women experience this instead:
For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee. Proverbs 23:7
A man can pay a woman’s expenses without giving his heart to her. God isn’t the only one who appreciates a cheerful giver (2 Cor. 9:7[279]) - Naomi wanted her daughters to find appreciative husbands who liked nourishing and cherishing them and paid their expenses cheerfully.
A man who thinks he might want to marry a good woman should learn how Boaz honored Ruth so that she wanted to marry him. A woman who wants to marry should consider Ruth’s Rules for marriage:
Rule # 1 – Prepare to Glorify God with Your Husband
Ladies, the main question in deciding whether to let a man have you as his wife is: does he help you glorify God? Prepare to glorify God with your husband by glorifying God by yourself before you meet him.
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Matthew 6:33
Did Ruth seek first the kingdom of God? Naomi moved to Moab with her husband and sons, the sons married, the men died leaving three widows. As Naomi started back to Palestine, she tried to send her daughters back to their families where they’d find husbands, but Ruth wanted to belong to Naomi’s God:
And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me. Ruth 1:16-17
Ruth’s parents would find her a husband, but nobody in her family believed in God. Ruth had been told she wouldn’t find a husband if she stayed with Naomi, but Ruth knew it was better to have God without a husband than to have a husband without God. Young ladies, do you believe that? Ruth could have said, “I prayed the prayer, I’m saved, I’ll let my parents find me a husband.” She said, “thy God my God” instead.
Ruth swore allegiance to Naomi’s country, to Naomi’s people, and to Naomi’s God. Ruth summed up what marriage vows mean to your husband as she sought the kingdom of God. In this day of women’s liberation and political correctness, you may not realize what your man believes you’re promising him. It doesn’t matter what marriage vows you write. You need to know what he thinks you’re promising him.
Let’s look at one promise at a time. Ruth said, “whither thou goest, I will go,” your husband expects you’ll go wherever he goes. How many women wanted to spend six dusty months in a bumpy covered wagon getting to Oregon? Very few, read their diaries. They didn’t want to go, but they went with their men. Ruth said, “where thou lodgest, I will lodge,” your husband expects that you’ll live wherever he puts you.
Call Him Lord
In addition to going where he goes and living where he puts you, your husband expects you to call him “sir” as Sarah called Abraham “lord” (I Pe. 3:6[280]). You’ll know his faults. The only way you can call him “lord” from your heart and reverence him the way the Bible commands (Eph. 5:33[281]) is to treat him as if he were perfect, as God treats you as perfect once you accept His offer of salvation (Heb. 10:17[282]).
If a man belongs to you lovingly and cheerfully, his love and grace bless you. If you submit to your husband lovingly and belong to him cheerfully, your love and grace bless him. This helps you bless others.
As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. I Peter 4:10
God gave us His grace. If we’re good stewards of His grace, we’ll share His grace and pass it on! This is a powerful testimony. As lost people see you offer your husband the same grace God gave you, as they see him nourish and cherish you by offering you the grace God gave him, they’ll want God’s grace for themselves. We can tell them how to get it!
Reverencing your husband means you’re the tail on his kite, you hold steady as he soars. Look at couples in cars. Who’s driving? It’s almost always the man. He goes where he wants, the woman’s along for the ride, even if it’s her car. If he wants to stop and do something, he stops and does it. If she wants to stop, she has to ask permission and doesn’t always get it. You can also read stories that men read such as anything by Louis L’Amour. Have you read “Flint,” or “Warrior’s Path?”
Ever see a John Wayne movie? He’s the hero. A crisis comes, his woman views with alarm, the hero says, “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.” He runs off and does it while she worries.
There’s another part to “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do” which is so obvious that men don’t tell you. The complete phrase is, “I gotta do what a man’s gotta do, and you’re gonna clean up the mess.” It’s worse than that. When he’s done doin’ what a man’s gotta do, he’s tired, so he takes a nap. You gotta clean up the mess quietly so you don’t wake him. Does this sound familiar?
Make Your Home His Home
You must make your home his home. I’ve a friend who’d never seen her husband’s house. “He carried me over the threshold,” she said, “and the living room was full of tires,” 4 for each vehicle. A man keeps tires in the living room so he can find them when he needs them. “It took me a month to get the tires out on the porch,” she said, “and another two months to get them around back, but I got them out of the living room.”
She went carefully and slowly instead of just taking over his house. As he trusted that she could find his socks, his underwear, and other unimportant things, he trusted her to find important things like his tires.
Suppose you’ve been married a month and your apartment looks perfect. Your husband says he’s going to drive his motorcycle into your living room to fix the transmission. You do either the right thing or the wrong thing. You can say, “Over my dead body,” but if you say that, what do you say when he drives his motorcycle into your living room and starts fixing the transmission? It’s hard to get men to talk at all, its bad tactics to shut off discussion. At least he warned you, he’s better than average.
There’s one right answer. “Lets put down a tarp so your parts won’t get lost.” That makes it easier for you to clean up the mess. At the store, you ask, “Are you going to clean your parts? Let’s get some disposable roasting pans.” That way you’re helping, you’re on his side, you’re part of the solution, and over time, he’ll learn to trust you.
This is important. Women relate through talk, men relate through shared experiences. Men tell stories to teach, that’s not how they relate. Men who were shot at years ago still talk about it to renew their connections. They tell the stories, but no matter how often a young man listens, he can’t join because he wasn’t there, it didn’t happen to him. If you want to relate to your man, you must share experiences with him. This gives you something to talk about. Fixing his motorcycle together in your living room is a shared experience that ties you to him.
The Bible says of a virtuous woman, “She will do him good and not evil” (Pro 31:12). Ladies, there are two ways to get a man to do what you want. You can be “a continual dropping (Pr. 27:15[283]),” rain on his parade enough, and you’ll get what you want. Samson told Delilah the secret of his strength because, “She pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death.” (Judges 16:16). That’s a way to deal with a man, or you can be like the virtuous woman,
She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. Proverbs 31:26
Why shouldn’t he have motorcycles? You want diapers and baby toys. A man thinks of his home as a place to keep his wife. If you don’t convince him it’s his home, if it isn’t where he wants to be, he’ll find reasons to go other places. A man can always work harder or go out with the boys instead of staying with you. You don’t want to be alone.
The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. Song of Solomon 2:8
This man is so eager to be home that he’s skipping! Is he rushing home to admire the curtains or to see neat stacks of towels in the linen closet? That’s not it. Ask an older woman why he comes home eagerly!
Belong to Him
Think! If he must work on his cycle, wouldn’t you rather he did it where you could help him and bond with him? It’s easier for you to wash grease off his parts for him than for you to clean the bathtub or sink after he does it. If you wash his parts, your husband will be known in the gates (Pr. 31:23[284]). His friends say, “Your bike’s on the road.” He says, “My wife cleaned the chain!” That’s so unusual he’ll have to talk about it.
There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword: but the tongue of the wise is health. Proverbs 12:18
Using a sword on a man drives him away. If you’re health to him, it won’t take him long to see that you’re lots better than a motorcycle and he’ll choose to stay with you. Win him with words of health.
Be realistic. If a young wife helps her husband fix his motorbike in a small living room, washes his parts, hands him tools, looks over his shoulder, and really cares what he’s doing, how long will he work on the bike? How long before he gets distracted and finds something much better to do? Fifteen minutes? Five?
Ladies, cleaning up after a man does what a man’s gotta do and being the tail on his kite are 1/5 of the burden of having a husband. Older women must teach younger women how to love their husbands, love their children, and guide houses, that’s the rest of the yoke of marriage. You must know what a man costs to decide if belonging to a man will be worth what he costs. It’s hard to glorify God with your husband and about your husband if he costs more than he’s worth to you.
If you really want to marry, rule #1 is “seek ye first the kingdom of God” to get yourself ready to glorify God with your husband all your days. Rule #2 is what Ruth told Naomi:
Rule # 2 – Go Wherever He Goes
whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me. Ruth 1:16-17
Look in a mirror and watch yourself say that verse while thinking of him. If you can’t promise Ruth’s vow with all your heart, if you aren’t eager to be the tail on his kite, if his kite has no string, or if you aren’t eager to follow him wherever he goes all your days, don’t marry him.
Women wonder if it has to be this way, “Why am I the tail,” they ask. The Bible tells you. Many men say that this passage means that a husband can lord it over his wife, but other verses say the opposite:
For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. I Corinthians 11:8-9
You’re the tail on his kite because God made you as God’s gift to your husband; he’s not made for you. He takes you to wife, you don’t take him to husband. The bride is given away; she’s the gift, not the groom.
And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from the man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Genesis 2:22-24
The first words Eve heard from her husband-to-be were a bit possessive. Adam said that Eve was part of him, she belonged to him, he could have her whenever he wanted her, that’s what “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” means to a man. Men haven’t changed one bit since God brought Eve to Adam - men are still possessive of their wives. God made women for men so very well that they’re worth wanting.
Adam called Eve “woman.” Did he ask her what she wanted to be called? He later named her Eve without asking her. Do men put labels on women? Who takes whose name? Have men changed?
Adam said, “Want that! Gimmie!” Eve knew Adam appreciated her and that events would take their course as defined in Ruth 3:18. If you’re thinking of marriage, you’d better understand Ruth 3:18:
Then said she, Sit still, my daughter, until thou know how the matter will fall: for the man will not be in rest, until he have finished the thing this day. Ruth 3:18
What’s this, “will not be in rest”? Married women know why Boas wouldn’t be in rest until he’d finished the thing that very day. Have men changed? Have men changed at all? Here’s what Ruth said to Boaz:
I am Ruth thine handmaid: spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid; for thou art a near kinsman. Ruth 3:9
The basics of marriage are clear. Isaac brought Rebecca into his mother’s tent: He gave her a home, he took her, she became his wife, he loved her, and she comforted him. Ruth wanted Boaz to spread his coat over her, what do women want today? She wants a man to put his arm around her, put his coat over her, and keep her warm and safe.
You see a young man with a young woman, she’s often wearing his jacket or shirt, she’s testing to see if he’ll keep her warm. What could be more basic? Adam said “Mine! Gimmie!” Just like Adam, Boaz couldn’t be in rest. He took Ruth to wife that day, what’s simpler than that?
The idea of a woman wanting a man to keep her warm and a man not being in rest are the foundation of marriage, but that’s not enough. In 90% of the failed marriages today, it’s the woman who walks out; she’s not starving and she’s not cold. Why does she leave? It’s usually because she doesn’t find rest in her husband.
Rule # 3 – Be Sure He Gives You Rest
Naomi told Ruth what’s more important than food or shelter. As Naomi started back to Palestine, she told her daughters not to come because they couldn’t find husbands. What did Naomi wish for them? She said,
The LORD grant you that ye may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband. Ruth 1:9
Naomi wanted each daughter to find rest in her husband. She didn’t wish food, or shelter, or warmth, she didn’t wish romance, she wished rest. A woman needs food, shelter, warmth, love, praise, and conversation, but she also needs rest. Rule #2 is go where he goes, rule # 3 is be sure he gives you rest.
Women, given that you’re the tail on his kite, you better make sure this man will give you rest. If you rest in him, you won’t mind motorcycles in the living room; a woman can handle anything a man does if he convinces her that he loves her and treats her as Christ loves the church. A good husband and a bad husband cost you the same. The difference is that a good husband gives you rest so you don’t mind his cost. A bad husband doesn’t give you rest so he isn’t worth his cost. This is not physical love. This is a supportive, serving, caring, sacrificial love that a man decides to give you, it’s not emotional or physical.
Before marrying, you must know: does he give you rest, that is, does he love you and serve you as Christ loves and serves the church? Do you want him hanging around you? Can you rest with him in your house?
You still have to work, Ruth worked hard. This isn’t physical rest, its emotional rest, and a man owes it to his wife. Jesus said,
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Matthew 11:28-30
How does a wife find rest? A man can’t give his wife spiritual rest which comes from her belonging to Christ, but Ephesians 5:25 says, “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church…” The rest Christ gives His people is like the rest men should give their wives. As men find rest in Christ, wives should find rest in husbands. Accepting salvation means taking Christ’s yoke upon you and trying to please Him.
Men, when a woman marries, she takes your yoke upon her. The married woman cares how she may please her husband (1 Cor. 7:34). Men, your wife put on the yoke of pleasing you, a woman can’t rest unless her man shows her over and over that he’s happy with her and resting in her. Women, be careful about rest. Some men don’t find rest in Christ, they think God has a checklist and waits to whack them if they step out of line or miss a box. Men who believe God’s a bully usually bully their wives and children, you don’t need that.
Husband, is your yoke easy, is your burden light? Are you meek and lowly in heart toward your wife? Do you make it easy for your wife to learn of you? She can’t know she’s pleasing you unless she knows you well. Do you spend hours and hours explaining the cares of your heart as you spend hours and hours in Bible reading to learn of Christ? Does your wife find rest unto her soul in your house? We’re to love our wives as Christ loves us, a husband’s obligations are plain, if difficult.
A wife can’t please her husband unless she knows his plans in detail. If he says, “Let’s go on a picnic,” her mind fills with questions. Where are they going? Are there bathrooms? Is there a playground? Is there a sandbox? How long will we be gone? How many diapers? How many meals? Should we bring swimsuits?
If she runs out of diapers, toys, or food, buying in a picnic spot is expensive and she’ll be criticized for poor planning. She can’t rest unless she knows the plan in detail.
Rest from Criticism
About a year before I found her, my wife thought she’d marry a man she’d known for several years. He looked good. He was a youth group leader and served in the church, but there was a problem – he could be very negative. Some weekends were wonderful because she liked spending time at church with the man she loved. Other weekends were awful because he tore her down. She never knew how their “dates” would go. She became timid and introverted, not wanting to say anything for fear of being criticized or corrected harshly.
Her parents always loved and encouraged her and she had been an outgoing person before she met him. They were quite worried at seeing her become so withdrawn and so uncertain from being around him.
Finally, she asked God if she ought to marry him. To her shock and dismay, God plainly said, “No.”
Knowing her distress, the Holy Spirit brought a missionary who knew his family. He confirmed that her friend had a critical spirit and there was no way that she would ever be able to make him happy. The missionary pointed out that it would be a bad idea to marry him. When she asked her boyfriend about the matter, he huffed, “That’s the way I am. If you don’t like it, good bye!” so she stopped seeing him.
What was her mistake? She hadn’t guarded her heart:
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. Proverbs 4:23
She let herself fall in love with a man without asking God! Our heartfelt emotions drive what we do:
For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Proverbs 32:7a
But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. Matthew 15:18
Your heart defines your life, but you’re supposed to rule your feelings:
He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls. Proverbs 25:28
Keep your heart by giving it to God. Her boyfriend’s heart was not right toward her; criticism and ingratitude flowed from his mouth to her hurt. She didn’t want to go through that again. From the first, she tested me to see if I’d criticize her and I didn’t. When we visited her parents after our 3rd date, they knew that she’d changed. Her mother thought, “She feels safe with him. They’ll be married pretty soon.”
She did her very best not to love me while we were dating. I didn’t know she wasn’t in love when she agreed to marry me. I was interesting, I had a job, I was smitten, I gave her rest, I ruled her gently, I protected her, and she was convinced that I was the man God wanted her to marry. That was enough for her to marry.
The idea of marrying for love is maybe a century old. Before that, people married for duty. A farmer couldn’t eat unless a woman turned his crops into something edible, and a woman couldn’t farm. They needed each other. Love might or might not come. Love has strong days and weak days, but duty goes on.
God expects you to marry for duty and keep your heart until your man commits himself to you.
Loving her boyfriend showed that she’d come to love me. She asked that I never criticize her. “I want to love you very much,” she said. “The more I love you, the more disapproval hurts me. I won’t be able to love you as much as I want to love you if you hurt me,” see page 20.
Women are unbelievably sensitive. Many of my wife’s friends say they get no praise at all from their husbands. “He’ll say he liked the dinner and he appreciated my taking care of his friends, but….” There’s always a “but.” Her friend is in such fear of the coming “but” that she can’t hear the praise. The world’s way of ending with the negative destroys. The Bible says “the fool … but the wise…” or “the wages of sin is death, but…” The negative comes first, then the positive. Nowhere in the Bible does a man criticize his wife! As salvation is “Only believe,” marriage is “only praise” see page 27.
If you’ve given your wife rest, you can say, “That last plan didn’t work out as well as we expected…” Note the “we.” You are the leader and she probably did it to please you. If you take responsibility for what happened, the fact that it didn’t work well won’t hurt her as much.
Rest from Worry
A wife’s rest isn’t only physical, it’s emotional and spiritual, and the Book of Ruth shows how. Ruth and Naomi got to Palestine at the beginning of barley harvest (Ruth 1:22). They had no money, no job, and no food. Ruth went out to glean, that is, pick up what’s left by the harvesters. Boaz gave Ruth a taste of rest that day.
Have you watched farmers harvest crops by hand? I grew up in Japan in the 50’s. Japan was bombed flat during WW II, there was no farm machinery, men and women harvested grain by hand. It’s grinding, killing work. You cut the stalks at ground level because you need the straw. You bend over, cut a bunch, tie it into a sheaf, and put it in your bag. Then you do another and another, all day every day until it’s done.
Gleaning is worse. Harvesters get grain in bunches, gleaners find one stalk at a time. Scatter spaghetti all over the yard. You see a stick, you bend over, pick it up, straighten up, you walk a bit and see another and grab it – how long before you get enough for dinner, one stick at a time? Next time you buy groceries, thank God Almighty you don’t have to do as Ruth did by faith that God would give her enough to eat.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1
Faith is based on what we can’t see, it’s not fact until we look back and see what God did in caring for us.
They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. Psalm 126:5 That happened when Ruth’s husband died.
It took great faith for Ruth to leave Moab for Israel when she’d been told she wouldn’t find a husband. When Ruth went to glean, Ruth 2:3 tells us “her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz.”
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28 Something that seems bad can be a real test of faith.
“Hap,” means there was no reason Ruth could see to choose Boaz’s field to glean. We know she did it well.
And the servant that was set over the reapers answered and said, It is the Moabitish damsel that came back with Naomi out of the country of Moab: and she said, I pray you, let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves: so she came, and hath continued even from the morning until now, that she tarried a little in the house. Ruth 2:6-7
Ruth “continued even from the morning until now,” she worked hard.
Then said Boaz unto Ruth, Hearest thou not, my daughter? Go not to glean in another field, neither go from hence, but abide here fast by my maidens: let thine eyes be on the field that they do reap, and go thou after them: have I not charged the young men that they shall not touch thee? and when thou art athirst, go unto the vessels, and drink of that which the young men have drawn. Then she fell on her face, and bowed herself to the ground, and said unto him, Why have I found grace in thine eyes, that thou shouldest take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger? Ruth 2:8-10
Boaz was kind to Ruth, he gave her water, he told his men to leave her alone, and she asked why. When a man’s nice, it’s a good idea for a woman to ask why, particularly when he tells other men to leave her alone. Instead of ignoring her as men often do when women ask “Why?” he opened his heart to her, he told her why:
And Boaz answered and said unto her, It hath fully been shewed me, all that thou hast done unto thy mother in law since the death of thine husband: and how thou hast left thy father and thy mother, and the land of thy nativity, and art come unto a people which thou knewest not heretofore. Ruth 2:11
Boaz cared for Ruth because she trusted God enough to travel to a strange land with no hope of marrying. He respected her character; he valued her trust in God. What a testimony in the town! He said:
The LORD recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the LORD God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust. Ruth 2:12
Boaz saw that Ruth’s faith was strong enough to overcome fear of starvation. When Naomi told Ruth who Boaz was, Ruth saw that God had guided her. That made her faith fact. We follow God in faith that obeying will work, then we look back and see how He made it work. Each step of faith makes the next step easier.
Boaz valuing Ruth’s faith is Biblical:
Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised. Proverbs 31:30
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Matthew 6:33
Why did Ruth go with Naomi? Naomi told her she wouldn’t find a husband and might starve without one. Ruth sought the kingdom of God first; it’s no surprise that all these things were added unto her.
So if you must marry, we have three rules of getting married: 1) seek ye first the kingdom of God in faith that God will guide you, 2) understand that you’re made for him so you’re the tail on his kite, and 3) make sure he values, respects, honors and appreciates you so that you can find rest in his house.
Marriage happens because women want a man’s appreciation and men can’t be in rest, but women need rest in marriage. When Boaz told the reapers to drop a few bundles of grain for her so she wouldn’t have to work as hard, Ruth knew that Boaz appreciated her and valued her enough to help her rest a bit.
The book of Genesis tells us a lot about how men and women get along. Consider Adam’s punishment:
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. Genesis 3:19
How would Eve eat? By the sweat of Adam’s face. Until recently, a woman had to persuade a man to feed her and her children or she’d starve. Relationships are important to a woman: her tie to a man was life or death. That’s why it meant so much to Ruth when Boaz praised her walk with God. When Boaz fed her and had the reapers drop bundles for her, she rested in knowing he was inclined to feed her. That’s why she was glad to obey Naomi when Naomi told her to ask Boaz to marry her.
Starvation is rare now, but there’s another fear. A few months after we married, a colleague and I left work and realized we’d forgotten to discuss a problem. Instead of going back in, we talked in my car for several hours. When I got home, my wife was in tears. I didn't arrive when she expected, she called the office and was told I’d left. She thought something had happened to me. I was stunned, awed, and humbled to see how important I had become to her. I try to let her know where I am so she knows I'm okay.
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. I John 4:18
A woman wants her love for her husband to be perfect. A man should never let her be tormented by fear.
Rest from Praise and Appreciation
Which Bible passage says the most about how to have a happy marriage?
Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her. [saying] 29Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all. Proverbs 31:28-29
Praise is important to women, read Solomon’s Song to learn how. Pr. 31 describes a virtuous woman so a man will know. Preachers say that there are few “Pr. 31 women,” but forget how Pr. 31 commands men.
Praise from husband and children is part of being a virtuous wife, it’s her due. Her works praise her in the gates (Pr. 31:31). A woman can’t be a “Pr. 31 wife” without praise from a “Pr. 31 husband.” A man may work from sun to sun; a woman’s work is never done. How can she keep on keeping on? Praise is the gasoline that helps a woman go. Any man can praise and think about her needs.
If, for example, a husband puts the toilet seat down or takes a quick swipe to clean a sink before the goo hardens, his wife appreciates his thinking of her as much as she appreciates not having to do it herself.
Ruth 1:9 says a wife should find rest in the home of her husband, Ruth 2:11-12 and 3:10 show Boaz giving Ruth rest, Pr. 31:28-29 tells husbands to teach children to praise their mothers and to add praise of their own. The Song teaches a man to give his wife rest by praising her in mind-numbing detail many times per day.
Naomi’s command to “sit still” in Ruth 3:18 comes after Ruth came back from the harvest celebration, she’s all fired up, she’s going to get married even if she doesn’t know who. I don’t have daughters so I’m not sure what a young lady does when she thinks a man’s interested in her, but the Bible tells what Ruth did,
And she told her all that the man had done to her. Ruth 3:16
When the Bible says “all” it means “all.” I’ve been a husband since 1971; I know that when a woman tells “all,” she really tells all, women love details. Ruth told Naomi what Boaz was wearing, the tone of his voice, every word he said, and what she said, and where they were, and who was at the party, and what they all wore, and what they all said, and when she got done, Naomi could’ve been there.
Many men occasionally, well, not often, but occasionally, get a wee bit frustrated at their wives’ desire for detail. Me, too, I must confess, but over the years, I’ve learned that a woman’s concern for detail is of God for very good reasons. Here’s proof that a woman’s mind is of God:
A prudent wife is from the Lord Proverbs 19:14
“Prudence” means thinking, women think ahead in detail for good reason, a woman’s mind is from the Lord, the way your wife’s mind works is of God, don’t mess with her mind, guys, the way she thinks is of God!
All this detail, Naomi’s got the picture, what does she say?
Then said she, Sit still, my daughter, until thou know how the matter will fall: for the man will not be in rest, until he have finished the thing this day. Ruth 3:18
Ladies, that’s the best advice on getting married there is. “Sit still.” I say it again, “Sit still, do nothing, say nothing, just sit still.” That’s really all Naomi had to say. Ruth promised “wither thou goest I will go,” so Ruth had to obey Naomi as her own parent. Naomi was in charge just as your husband’s in charge after you marry, all Naomi had to say was “Sit still,” but Naomi went on. She added “my daughter,” to say, “I love you and I’m doing what’s best for you.” She explained, “For the man will not be in rest, until he have finished the thing this day.” Learn from this, men. Paul told Philemon, “I have authority, I could command you but I’d rather persuade you.” As Naomi persuaded Ruth rather than commanding, as Paul persuaded Philemon rather than commanding, the Bible teaches that we should persuade our wives, our children, and everyone else rather than commanding (2 Cor. 5:11[285]), no matter how long it takes for them to understand.
That long? As long as it takes? Yeah, that long, and believe me, I know how long it can be. It’s not because women are difficult, the Bible says that women are made for men and that a wife wants to please her husband, but women think very differently from men, page 135. It takes time to understand what she’s saying, it takes time to explain what you want, and it takes time to persuade her that it’s best or for her to persuade you. God said that a woman’s mind is from Him. Men, be patient and longsuffering, her mind is of God.
You must persuade your children your ways are best or they’ll do something else when they leave home. If little kids don’t want to go to bed, you can pick them up, but what happens when they get bigger? You must punish rebellion, but you’ll have to persuade older kids that they need sleep, that they must dress warmly in winter, and, most important, that the Word of God is the key to a contented life. Knowing when to punish and when to persuade is a very difficult issue in parenting. You can’t force conviction through the world’s methods of command. All you can do is serve by example, persuade, and pray for conviction.
Naomi didn’t command Ruth to believe in God, she told Ruth to go home. Naomi had convinced Ruth about God so strongly that Ruth wanted God badly enough to go back to Palestine with her. You can’t just quote the Bible because it’s foolishness to unbelievers and to the religious who just prayed the prayer.
How can Jesus be both God and man? That’s illogical, you have to persuade people by testifying about what God has done for you and for other people, showing them His grace, pointing out the results of what friends do, walking by faith no matter what God brings into your life, and showing that you care for their souls.
God gives us soul liberty, even the liberty to choose to go to Hell. Provoking your followers to wrath as condemned in Ephesians 6:4 shows that you may have denied soul liberty. Extra prayer, humility, servant leadership, and searching the scripture are needed in those cases. Try to get a competition going to see who can humble themselves the most and serve the most as opposed to struggling to be top dog.
Rest from Physical Rest
We’ve shown the emotional rest Naomi described. God also commands that women be given physical rest.
Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child: then she shall be unclean seven days; according to the days of the separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean. And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. And she shall then continue in the blood of her purifying three and thirty days; she shall touch no hallowed thing, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying be fulfilled. But if she bear a maid child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her separation: and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying threescore and six days. Leviticus 12:2-5
Some complain that this is another of those ridiculous patriarchic passages that disrespect women. Why should giving birth, a natural, vital, and honorable process, make a woman unclean?
An unclean woman couldn’t wash dishes – they’d be unclean and nobody could eat off them. She couldn’t do laundry – the clothes would be unclean and nobody could wear them. She couldn’t do housework; she got time to rest and learn to know her new baby. She stayed home. This protects mothers and babies from infection.
“Man may work from sun to sun; women’s work is never done.” Women can be so driven to care for their homes and to try to please their men that they don’t get enough rest. Men should watch out for that. God could have told men to make sure that their wives were able to rest, but He made it a matter of ritual impurity instead. Maybe men wouldn’t have listened otherwise? Did He have to make it a matter of law?
Without infant formula, nursing was the only way to keep a baby alive. It’s a major milestone for a mother when her baby holds enough milk to sleep through the night. I’ve been told that girl babies often have a harder time settling down to nursing than boy babies and that girls are smaller at birth than boys. If girls have a harder time nursing and they’re smaller, it would take longer for a girl to sleep through the night.
If that’s true, God knows about it. He gave a mother more time off when she had a girl than when she had a boy, 70 days versus 40 days. The extra month made it more likely that the newborn girl would sleep through the night before the mother resumed her routine.
God honors women. Anna was the first to proclaim salvation (Luke 2:36-38[286]). A woman anointed Jesus’ body for burial (Mt. 26:12[287]). Pilate’s wife tried to persuade him not to crucify Jesus (Mt. 27:19[288]). Women were last at the cross (Mk. 15:47[289]) and first at the tomb (Jn. 20:1[290]). Women proclaimed the resurrection (Mt. 28:5-10). Women attended prayer meetings (Ac. 1:14[291]). Lydia was the first European to hear the missionaries, the first convert, offered lodging, and may have started a house church (Ac. 16:13-14).
Galatians 3:28 says, “there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” In modern culture, it’s hard for men and women to treat each other as people; gender attraction creeps into conversations. This leads to temptations and gives Satan an advantage.
Rebuke not an elder, but intreat him as a father; and the younger men as brethren; The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity. I Timothy 5:1-2
It’s good for men and women to share fellowship so long as they do it “with all purity” because they think so differently. Talking to other men showed my wife that I wasn’t nearly as strange as she’d thought.
These conversations must stay logical. Letting emotion into these talks opens impure doors. We can express emotions to the church body as a whole, but emoting to the opposite sex is dangerous.
Rule # 4 – Don’t Play Hard to Get, Be Hard to Get
Having looked at the necessity of persuasion and getting rest, let’s explore Naomi’s advice to women.
Then said she, Sit still, my daughter, until thou know how the matter will fall: for the man will not be in rest, until he have finished the thing this day. Ruth 3:18
Naomi’s advice to wait doesn’t mean that women have to be passive about wanting to marry, not at all. Ruth crashed the party (Ruth 3:1-5) and asked Boaz to marry her, but she had to choose the right time to ask.
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; … a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. Ecclesiastes 3:1
Ruth had to wait because men are more focused than women. Mothers are easy to interrupt. When a baby chokes, mother had better hear no matter what or the baby dies. Men focus strongly and can get upset when interrupted if it’s important. If they didn’t harvest enough, some would starve before the next harvest.
Moreover the profit of the earth is for all: the king himself is served by the field. Ecclesiastes 5:9
If there’s no food, nobody eats, not even the king. Ruth waited until “his heart was merry,” then she “came softly.” Why was Boaz merry? He’d finished harvesting, there was enough food, he wouldn’t starve that year, and he could rest. He might even be able to think about marriage.
Men haven’t changed since Adam. What Naomi told Ruth was rule # 4, “Don’t play hard to get, be hard to get.” There’s a saying, “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that zing!” What’s the zing that makes marriage happen? The man can’t rest. If he has rest, why marry?
Toy or Treasure
There are only two possible modes when a girl interacts with a guy: 1) she can be his toy or 2) she can be his treasure. You've seen a boy play with a truck. He pushes it this way and that, then, when he gets tired of it, he throws it away and grabs another. It’s hard on girls when boys get tired of them and throw them away.
Women want attention from men. If older women haven’t fulfilled God’s command to teach about men, they tend to end up in fornication. Even secular writers know that this can be damaging. “Unprotected” by Miriam Grossman which is discussed on page 10 explain that a woman usually becomes emotionally involved when she gives herself to a man. It hurts her deeply when she finds that she meant nothing to him, and that in his mind, she was just an interchangeable sex toy.
Any boy can play with her; only a man can take the responsibility to stay with her. Toy or treasure, play or stay are the only possibilities. If a girl doesn’t want to be treated like a toy, she must insist that he treat her as a treasure and potential wife from before the first date.
Whose are the Children?
There’s a difference between head knowledge and heart knowledge. When we were in the kid biz, a child might violate a rule, be called on it, and say, “Yes, I know.” If the child knew the rule, why break it? Because the rule was only head knowledge, it hadn’t gotten down into his heart.
One reason God made men so possessive was to give children fathers. If a man has a strong emotional, financial, logical, and psychological connection to a woman and she encourages and establishes his possessiveness of her as taught in the Song of Solomon before she gets pregnant, her children will also be his.
“Vasopressin [the neurochemical that affects a man’s brain as oxytocin affects a woman’s brain] seems to have two primary functions related to relationships: initiation of bonding of the man to his mate and attachment to his offspring. . . . it plays an important role in initiating sexual bonding and bonding between fathers and children.”[292] [emphasis added]
Having my wife decide to belong to me changed everything. A woman told me, “You have cat tracks on your car.” She was clearly asking a question, so I said, “They’re my wife’s cats.” Her questioning look got deeper, so I said, “Long ago, she made a conscious decision to belong to me. She’s mine, so her cats are mine.” Her face cleared, she nodded, and walked away. I had answered her question.
A wife must be content to live on what her husband earns, encourage him in his career, and mother her children. Proverbs 31 was written to men. 31:1 shows that King Lemuel’s mother taught him how to nourish, cherish, and bless his future wife. This teaching takes more time and energy than career women can supply.
By the grace of God, a very few single mothers are able to raise children successfully, but this is rare.
Rule # 5 – Get Advice from a Godly Grandmother
Rule # 4, don’t play hard to get, be hard to get, gets to rule # 5, get advice from an older woman. Ruth had been married, she knew what men wanted, but she took Naomi’s advice. Naomi told Ruth when to plant by gleaning with Boaz; Naomi told Ruth when to pluck up that which was planted by asking for marriage.
Women need advice about men; they usually mess up on their own. Ruth could’ve asked Boaz the day she got back, but Naomi had Ruth wait. Boaz was focused on the harvest; the last thing he wanted was wedding talk when he was worried about starving. Ruth waited until Boaz got to know her and until his “heart was merry;” when she asked him to marry her, he wanted to do it. Being wanted and appreciated gave Ruth rest.
When Naomi told Ruth to go to Boaz’ party even though she hadn’t been invited, Naomi told Ruth to get all dressed up:
Wash thyself therefore, and anoint thee, and put thy raiment upon thee, Ruth 3:3a
Boaz had gotten to know Ruth as she worked the harvest and he’d shown that he respected Ruth the day they met. Once Boaz respected her, then it was OK for Ruth to look her best. Girls, it’s a bad idea for you to do anything special to attract a man’s attention at the beginning. Suppose it works, then what? What’ll you do when you’re too busy, or too tired, or too pregnant to do whatever it was that attracted him? Girls, unless a man comes after you on his own just the way God made you, God won’t want to give you to him.
If you worry too much about your looks, it’s easy for a man to flatter you and win your heart by saying you look good. Don’t we talk about a man “feeding her a line?” Seek to put on a meek and quiet spirit, page 42. A meek and quiet spirit is of great price in the eyes of God (I Peter 3:4[293]), and the right man treasures it too.
Does He Praise You and Value You?
You may not understand what a man means by what he says, particularly if you’re falling in love with him. You need your husband to appreciate you and that’s where you need advice. Tell an older woman what he says and she’ll help you figure out if he truly values you. Someone your age can’t help you with that.
Men, a woman can give a man physical rest under any circumstances but she can’t give her man rest unto his soul unless he first gives her rest. Your wife can’t make you any happier than you make her.
A woman can’t give her husband rest as often as he needs it unless she’s happy about belonging to him and giving him rest. She can’t be happy about belonging unless he values her, and it’s hard for him to value her if she gives him rest outside marriage. The Bible explains how a man should give his wife rest so that she can give him complete rest, but a woman can’t create rest or love by herself. A woman’s like a mirror, she magnifies her husband’s love and rest back to him, she’s not a light.
If her man makes her feel appreciated, if he makes her feel respected and valued, if he gives her peace and rest as Christ gives His people perfect peace and rest, she amplifies his rest and reflects enough love back to him to nourish the whole family. A wife can’t make rest from nothing; she can’t give rest if she isn’t given rest to begin with. How does a man give his wife rest? God explains:
Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her. [saying] 29Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all. Proverbs 31:28-29
The Bible commands a husband to tell his wife that she’s far better than any other wife he knows. It also commands a man to sanctify his wife, that is, to set her apart from all other women:
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, Ephesians 5:25-26
Does He Sanctify You
Men should sanctify wives as Christ sanctifies the church. Sanctification means “set apart,” a husband must know his wife well enough to separate her from other women, especially when taking her. Men get so intense that a woman may think, “Anybody would do.” Some men say, “All cats are gray in the dark.” This suggests that men don’t sanctify women even though Song 6:9 teaches a man to think of his wife as “but one.” Would God command men to sanctify wives if it were natural? It isn’t, a man must purpose in his heart to do it.
A man must possess his wife in sanctification. He must let her know he desires her as a person, a mind, a set of skills, a help meet, a companion, not just a body. If a wife doesn’t feel sanctified, she feels she’s fornicating because she could be any woman. A man sanctifies his wife by praising her in detail, read the Song. If he notices and praises small details, she feels he’s paying attention and that he values her.
In any case, Boaz couldn’t be in rest, he wanted Ruth, so he married her, took her, and she was his wife.
We have 4 of Ruth’s Rules for marriage: 1) Seek ye first the kingdom of God, it’s better to have God and no husband than a husband without God. 2) Know that you’re made for him, he’s not made for you, when he does what a man’s gotta do, you gotta clean up the mess. 3) Wait for a man who respects and honors you as Boaz respected and honored Ruth so you won’t mind cleaning up after him. 4) Don’t play hard to get, be hard to get. When he can’t be in rest, just let it happen, don’t give him rest outside marriage. 5) Get advice!
Rule # 6 – Make Sure He Opens His Heart to You
Hear it again, make sure he opens his heart to you. Women live and die by relationships. A wife relates to other women to share knowledge about how to raise children and how to keep husbands happy. A wife wants to know that the bonds are strong. It hurts her deeply if her husband won’t open his heart to her. For generations, a woman could live only by the sweat of her husband’s face. A woman whose relationship ended through death or desertion could starve. That’s why God gave special provision for widows and the fatherless.
God knows that opening his heart is as frightening for a man as opening her body can be for a woman so He wrote that it’s safe.
The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. Proverbs 31:11-12
Every man knows that a woman can give him the joys of Heaven right here on earth, but few realize that she can make him no happier than he makes her (Ecc. 9:9[294]). Few know how badly women need open hearts.
When Boaz opened his heart to Ruth and praised her Godliness, Ruth knew he respected and valued her. He told the young men not to mess with her, he protected her, he gave her water and lunch, he provided for her; she rested near him and worked with his people through the harvest. When she asked for his coat:
And he said, Blessed be thou of the LORD, my daughter: for thou hast shewed more kindness in the latter end than at the beginning, inasmuch as thou followedst not young men, whether poor or rich. And now, my daughter, fear not; I will do to thee all that thou requirest: for all the city of my people doth know that thou art a virtuous woman. Ruth 3:10
Boaz liked Ruth asking him to marry her. He wanted her for her virtue, her character; everybody knew she was a virtuous woman. Don’t you think other women were interested in him? Boaz knew Ruth “followedst not young men” she wasn’t dating around. Boaz knew Ruth sought God. God made women for men. Boaz knew that a woman who works hard, acts modestly, and seeks God makes a good wife.
Society suggests beauty is the only thing that matters in women. Would you rather your husband praise your looks or that he value your walk with God? Boaz praised her character, he knew she sought God and valued her for it. You don’t want a man who doesn’t care whether you seek God no matter how attractive you are. If he only loves your looks, what will he do as you get older or pregnant and your looks fade?
A man won’t open his heart and won’t belong to you unless he respects you. “But,” you ask, “how will a man know to respect and honor me?” There are two ways, the right way and the wrong way. The wrong way is to date and hope he’ll respect you, maybe he’ll marry you. That doesn’t work. Look around and see if your friends’ relationships are working. They generally aren’t. How do you do it differently?
My wife required that I respect her before the first date, see page 47.
Ask God About Him
You must know whether a man respects you before marrying. Boaz showed Ruth respect by opening his heart and taking care of her, but how do you know? There are two steps: ask God, then ask the man.
Ye have not, because ye ask not. James 4:2b
Women ask for very little and that’s often what they get; my wife asked for respect and became my treasure. It’s hard to be a Biblical wife without your husband’s cooperation. God promises wisdom if you ask Him (II Chron. 1:11[295], James 1:5[296]). Pray fervently that God will show your friend’s heart before you fall in love. Pray that God will reveal any reason you and he shouldn’t marry, and obey what God shows you.
If you let God choose your husband, He’ll give you to a man who delights in you. It hurts a woman to marry a man who isn’t pleased with her. She’ll try something, he’ll like it, she’ll do something similar, and he won’t like it. She’ll second-guess, “Last week, he liked this, he didn’t like that…” If you find yourself constantly changing and hoping to please him, he probably isn’t the right man - the right man appreciates you as God made you. You’ll have to change your ways as you and your husband grow into your new life together, but it’s not a good idea to marry a man if you find yourself changing your basic nature to try to please him.
Ask the Man to Show Himself
After you ask God whether he’ll give you rest, ask the man. You should have asked for respect from the beginning. If things look good, you’d better find out whether he respects your mind and your thought process before you’re too much in love to back out without being hurt.
God made you to be your husband’s help meet and you can’t help unless he explains what he wants. I Cor. 11:9 says that you were made for a man and Gen. 3:16 says that your desire is toward your husband. How did God do this? How did God overcome your desire for independence and make you want to please a man? God gave you and almost all women an intense desire for a man’s praise.
You want to please your husband (I Cor. 7:34[297]), but you can’t please him without knowing him. The Bible commands honoring your husband; it forbids fornication, theft, and adultery. In areas such as the car you drive or the school you attend, however, God gives His people liberty to use our intelligence and free will.
As you and your husband make decisions, you’ll feel left out unless he asks your views and draws on your knowledge. It’s childish for a man to ignores his wife’s gifts and knowledge in making decisions (Mt. 27:19[298]). God gave you a different way of thinking so that you could help him more effectively. Your womanly point of view helps make it less likely that you’ll overlook possibilities. What doesn’t occur to him may suggest itself to you, and vice versa, but you can’t help him if he won’t listen to you.
Ask his views on coffee, dancing, movies, rock music, Bible versions, spanking, TV, or women wearing trousers to see if he discusses issues with you or just tells you. A woman has a hard time telling flattery from praise, it’s hard to tell whether he wants to toy with you or is planning for you to be his treasured wife. If you tell an older woman what he says, she can tell a man who treasures you from a man who’s toying with you. A friend your age can’t do it; Naomi was a generation older than Ruth.
Ask him what Jacob should have done when he awoke and “Behold, it was Leah,” (Gen. 29:25). Most men say Jacob was right to demand Rachel because she was beautiful, but God looks on the heart instead of appearance. God let Laban trick Jacob into taking Leah to wife. All things work together for good to them who are called according to His purpose (Rom. 8:28). Should Jacob have let God order his steps (Ps. 37:23[299])?
God doesn’t force people to follow His will. Jacob got what Jacob wanted (Ps. 106:15[300]), but he had four jealous women fighting for his attention. All but two of his children knew their father didn’t love their mother, how did that turn out? Contentment comes from yielding to the Master. Godliness with contentment is great gain (1 Tim. 6:6), and Jacob found little contentment. Should he have been content with Leah?
Discuss Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5:1-11. Ananias wanted to keep back money, they discussed it, she agreed, they were struck dead. Some say they were co-conspirators, but the use of singular and plural in the passage shows that it was his idea and his wife agreed; that’s what submission is. A husband should get his wife’s agreement when making decisions. Sapphira was submitting to her husband’s idea when she was struck dead, does this teach that there are limits to your submission? Romans 14:23 says, “whatsoever is not of faith is sin,” commanding you to do things you don’t agree with forces you to sin because you can’t have faith in what you do. You need to know whether he believes there are limits to your submission. Should you marry a man who believes that God wants you to obey him without question no matter what?
Ask him why God put this verse in the Bible:
When he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him. Matthew 27:19
Most men ridicule the idea of acting on a wife’s dreams, but Pilate should have listened to his wife. Does God ever try to tell a husband something by telling his wife (Judges 13:2-13)?
You need to know his beliefs of what women are. Men have two views of women, “last in creation, first in the fall” or “last at the cross, first at the tomb.” The first blames women for the fall as Adam blamed God for giving him Eve; everything that ever goes wrong is her fault:
And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. Genesis 3:12
A man who believes this thinks he’d be OK if his wife didn’t lure him to sin. The nicer she tries to be, the subtler he thinks Satan is and the harder he resists her. A woman who marries such a man dies inside.
A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones. Proverbs 17:22
She yearns to please her husband and can’t, her bones dry and you see death in her eyes. But it’s a lie!
This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. Genesis 5:1-2
For Adam was first formed, then Eve… I Timothy 2:13
Eve wasn’t last in creation; they were created the same day as one flesh in the image of God. They were one flesh while Adam named the animals. God then separated Eve out of Adam’s body into her own form. A wife finishes her husband’s image of God when they become one flesh.
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: … For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Romans 5:12, 19
Eve didn’t cause the fall, “one man” did after they were separated into a man and a woman; Adam caused the fall. The 1st view of women is false. The 2nd view is Biblical; women were last at the cross and first at the tomb. Which way do you want your husband to think about you?
Ask who misquoted God, see page 65. If a prospective husband insists that Eve misquoted God even knowing what Moses did and that the Bible doesn’t say, can you follow him? Scripture says that a wife is a gift from God (Pro. 18:22[301], Mt. 7:11[302], Jas. 1:17[303]). Can he say from his heart, “For God so loved man that He gave him woman, for God so loved me that He gave me you?”
You need to understand his thought process. Does he listen to your views, combining your knowledge, experience, and beliefs with his, or does he shut off discussion, saying, “That’s the way it is”?
If he’ll discuss the Bible with you, not lecture you, but discuss it back and forth, if he honors what you find in the Bible, to gently point out areas where you and he disagree, to work hard to bring harmony, to respect your views when making decisions and to honor your walk with God, you’ll be able to accept his leadership. You’ll have trouble resting in him if he won’t explain himself or if you can’t respect him.
Conclusion
Here are Ruth’s Rules for marriage: 1) Seek ye first the kingdom of God, it’s better to have God and no husband than to have a husband without God. 2) Realize that you’re made for him and he’s not made for you. You’re the tail on his kite, so you’d better be sure his kite has a string. If he has a string, the two of you can soar together, but if he has no string, you’ll bump along the ground and get all muddy. 3) Wait for a man who respects and honors you so you find rest in cleaning up after him and in belonging to him. 4) Be hard to get, don’t give a man rest outside marriage. 5) Get advice from an older woman no matter how old you are. 6) Make sure he listens to you by opening his heart to you and that he accepts your need to talk all your days.
Ruth also knew that Boaz was a mature, hard worker from watching him during the harvest. You need a man who’s mature enough to see what has to be done and does it without nagging.
Pr. 31:1 shows that King Lemuel’s mother taught him how to nourish and cherish his future wife. Working mothers don’t have the time or the emotional energy to do that, so you’ll have to explain your needs.
You probably won’t meet a man who knows your reputation, so you’ll have to declare that you’re a treasure up front and prove it by acting like a treasure. Treasures dress modestly instead of dressing in marketing mode and they don’t “date around” or flirt.
Make sure he respects your thoughts enough to give you rest, we’ve given ways to see if he respects what the Holy Spirit gives you. Marriage prospers when a man treats his wife as God’s precious gift to him and she acts like God’s precious gift to him, but it’s hard for a wife to be a treasure for a man who won’t give her rest.
This can help fix broken marriages. Very few women declare that they’re treasures. A woman should declare herself before even dating, but it’s never too late to declare that God meant you to be your husband’s treasure and start acting like it without nagging (1 Pe. 3:1-2[304]). A man can start treasuring his wife and appreciating her as taught in the Song of Solomon and Proverbs 31:28-30. Remember, nowhere in the Bible does a man criticize his wife, not even once.
Can he say with all his heart, “For God so loved man that He gave him woman; for God so loved me that He gave me you?” If a man lives by that from the moment you meet until the day he dies, you will rest in belonging to him, and you can give him comfort the same way Rebekah comforted Isaac (Gen. 24:67[305]). Solomon explained how to find joy:
Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun. Ecclesiastes 9:9
He can’t rejoice with you unless he’s mature enough to give you something to rejoice about. You can't make your husband any happier than he makes you. How happy does he want to be?
[1] Fisher, Anatomy of Love, p 21-23
[2] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 60
[3] All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. John 1:3
[4] And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Revelation 13:8
[5] Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, I Peter 1:20
[6] O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever! Deuteronomy 5:29
[7] Unwin, J. D. (1927). "Monogamy as a Condition of Social Energy,” The Hibbert Journal, Vol. XXV, p. 662
[8] And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in unto her. Genesis 29:21
[9] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 60
[10] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 40 quoting Young, Gobrogge, Liu, and Wang, The Neurobiology of Pair Bonding, pp 53-69
[11] Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do. I Thessalonians 5:11
[12] And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Hebrews 10:24
[13] Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine. Song 1:2
[14] Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. Proverbs 31:10
[15] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 37
[16] For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: Ephesians 5:29
[17] If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all. Mark 9:35b
[18] But Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them. 43But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: 44And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. Mark 10:42-44
[19] And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. Genesis 2:18
[20] Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband. Ephesians 5:33
[21] Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered. I Peter 3:7
[22] And he gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul. Psalm 106:15
[23] That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, Titus 2:4
[24] His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me. Song of Solomon 8:3
[25] Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver. II Corinthians 9:7
[26] I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully. I Timothy 5:14
[27] And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. II Corinthians 1:6
[28] Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Philippians 2:4
[29] Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. I Peter 5:5
[30] Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. I Peter 5:5
[31] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 40 quoting Young, Gobrogge, Liu, and Wang, The Neurobiology of Pair Bonding, pp 53-69
[32]And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? 6Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. Matthew 19:5-6
[33] Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. I Cor. 11:9
[34] Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned? Proverbs 6:28
[35] Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered. I Peter 3:7
[36] Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. Proverbs 31:10
[37] let her own works praise her in the gates. Proverbs 31:31b
[38] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 60
[39] Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. II Corinthians 1:4
[40] That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, 5To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. Titus 2:4-5
[41] Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded. Titus 2:6
[42] Fisher, Anatomy of Love, p 21-23
[43] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 60
[44] For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. 9Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. I Corinthians 11:8-9
[45] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 58
[46] And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. I Corinthians 6:11
[47] Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. 22And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: John 20:21-22
[48] This means behavior, not talk.
[49] There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28
[50] For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: Ephesians 5:29
[51] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 139
[52] For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. 9Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. I Corinthians 11:8-9
[53] And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in unto her. Genesis 29:21
[54] So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife: Ruth 4:13a
[55] And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death. Genesis 24:67
[56] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 132
[57] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 67
[58] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 41
[59] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 60
[60] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 92
[61] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 113
[62] Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine. Song 1:2
[63] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 40 quoting Young, Gobrogge, Liu, and Wang, The Neurobiology of Pair Bonding, pp 53-69
[64] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 60
[65] Seminal Fluid Absorbed into a Woman’s Bloodstream Improves Her Mood. https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/all-about-sex/201101/attention-ladies-semen-is-antidepressant
[66] Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. I Peter 5:5
[67] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked The Brain Science on how Casual Sex Affects Human Development, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 35, citing W. B. Wilcox, J. R. Anderson, W. Doherty et al., “Why Marriage Matters, Third Edition: Thirty Conclusions from the Social Sciences” (New York, Institute for American values National Marriage Project, 2011).
[68] But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: I Peter 3:15
[69] But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23
[70] I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. 7So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase. 8Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour. 9For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building. I Corinthians 3:6-9
[71] Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our LORD: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the LORD is your strength. Nehemiah 8:10
[72] Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. Romans 7:4
[73] That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, 5To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. Titus 2:4-5
[74] Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded. Titus 2:6
[75] Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. 24Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Ephesians 5:22-24
[76] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 41
[77] So it came to pass, when the king's commandment and his decree was heard, and when many maidens were gathered together unto Shushan the palace, to the custody of Hegai, that Esther was brought also unto the king's house, to the custody of Hegai, keeper of the women. Esther 2:8
[78] And David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in unto him, and he lay with her; for she was purified from her uncleanness: and she returned unto her house. II Samuel 11:4
[79] https://www.narratively.com/p/when-metoo-came-to-ancient-rome
[80] Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. 6In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Proverbs 3:5-6
[81] And when Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart Judges 16:18a
[82] For she had said unto the servant, What man is this that walketh in the field to meet us? And the servant had said, It is my master: therefore she took a vail, and covered herself. Genesis 24:65
[83] And the men of the place asked him of his wife; and he said, She is my sister: for he feared to say, She is my wife; lest, said he, the men of the place should kill me for Rebekah; because she was fair to look upon. Genesis 26:7
[84] And the servant brought forth jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment, and gave them to Rebekah: he gave also to her brother and to her mother precious things. Genesis 24:53
[85] And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. Genesis 2:18
[86] For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. 9Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. I Corinthians 11:8-9
[87] There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband. I Corinthians 7:34
[88] And Boaz answered and said unto her, It hath fully been shewed me, all that thou hast done unto thy mother in law since the death of thine husband: and how thou hast left thy father and thy mother, and the land of thy nativity, and art come unto a people which thou knewest not heretofore. 12The LORD recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the LORD God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust. Ruth 2:11-12
[89] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 37
[90] And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. Genesis 2:15
[91] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 92
[92] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 67
[93] If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I John 1:9
[94] Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, 17th series, pages not numbered. Ripley also reported a Scottish town where a would-be groom proved his desire by risking his life balancing on one foot on the edge of a windswept cliff for 30 seconds as her father looked on.
[95] https://www.history.com/news/chivalry-knights-middle-ages
[96] Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. Genesis 3:16
[97] For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. 9Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. I Corinthians 11:8-9
[98] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 36
[99] Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. Romans 7:4
[100] As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. I Peter 4:10
[101] For the love of Christ constraineth us; II Corinthians 5:14a
[102] For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building. I Corinthians 3:9
[103] Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband. Ephesians 5:33
[104] This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. Matthew 15:8
[105] He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Mark 7:6
[106] A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband: but she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones. Proverbs 12:4
[107] the contentions of a wife are a continual dropping. Proverbs 19:13b
[108] It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman in a wide house. Proverbs 21:9
[109] It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and an angry woman. Proverbs 21:19
[110] It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman and in a wide house. Proverbs 25:24
[111] A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike. Proverbs 27:15
[112] Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered. I Peter 3:7
[113] Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD. Proverbs 18:22
[114] If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? Matthew 7:11
[115] Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. James 1:17
[116] That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour; I Thessalonians 4:4
[117] My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies. Song of Solomon 2:16
[118] I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the lilies. Song 6:3
[119] I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother's house, who would instruct me: I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate. 3His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me. Song 8:2-3
[120] If he take him another wife; her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish. Exodus 21:10
[121] And he sat down, and called the twelve, and saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all. Mark 9:35
[122] And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. Mark 10:44
[123] I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Romans 12:1
[124] https://successful-marriage.blogspot.com/2013/10/why-johnny-lingo-paid-eight-cows-for.html
[125] I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. Isaiah 43:25
[126] And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Hebrews 10:17
[127] But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23
[128] And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. 16And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. 18And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help[128] meet for him. Genesis 2:15-18
[129] But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. Genesis 3:3
[130] And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. I Timothy 2:14
[131] For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Romans 5:19
[132] And the LORD said unto Moses, Go unto the people, and sanctify them to day and to morrow, and let them wash their clothes, 11And be ready against the third day: for the third day the LORD will come down in the sight of all the people upon mount Sinai. 15And he said unto the people, Be ready against the third day: come not at your wives. Exodus 19:10-11, 15
[133] And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she
gave me of the tree, and I did eat. 13And the LORD God said unto the
woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent
beguiled me, and I did eat.
Genesis 3:12-13
[134] https://successful-marriage.blogspot.com/2021/06/wedding-wisdom-simplicity-of-marriage.html#fallFault
[135] There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband. I Corinthians 7:34
[136] And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. Malachi 2:15
[137] But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. Genesis 2:6
[138] And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. Genesis 2:25
[139] And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: Genesis 3:2
[140] There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband. I Corinthians 7:34
[141] Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine. Song of Solomon 1:2
[142] I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother's house, who would instruct me: I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate. 3His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me. Song 8:2-3
[143] I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me. Song of Solomon 7:10
[144] And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Genesis 2:23
[145] And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. Genesis 3:20
[146] I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother's house, who would instruct me: I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate. 3His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me. Song 8:2-3
[147] Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun. Ecclesiastes 9:9
[148] Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered. I Peter 3:7
[149] Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates. Proverbs 31:31
[150] But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. Genesis 3:3
[151] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked The Brain Science on how Casual Sex Affects Human Development, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 35, citing W. B. Wilcox, J. R. Anderson, W. Doherty et al., “Why Marriage Matters, Third Edition: Thirty Conclusions from the Social Sciences” (New York, Institute for American values National Marriage Project, 2011).
[152] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 132
[153] Fisher, Anatomy of Love, p 21-23
[154] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 60
[155] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 139
[156] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked The Brain Science on how Casual Sex Affects Human Development, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 33
[157] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 37
[158] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 92
[159] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 67
[160] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 36
[161] For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. 9Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. I Corinthians 11:8-9
[162] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 108
[163] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 113
[164] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 58
[165] Fisher, Anatomy of Love, p 21-23
[166] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 60
[167] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 41
[168] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 40 quoting Fisher, Anatomy of Love, PP 151-152
[169] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 65 quoting L. M. Diamond and J. A. Nickerson, “The Neuroimaging of Love and Desire: Review and Future Directions,” Clinical Neuropsychiatry 9, no. 1 (2012): pp 36-46
[170] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 62 quoting Regnerus and Uecker, premarital Sex in America, p 106
[171] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked The Brain Science on how Casual Sex Affects Human Development, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 pp 34-35
[172] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked The Brain Science on how Casual Sex Affects Human Development, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 37
[173] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 37 quoting I. Schneiderman, O. Zagoory-Sharon, J. F. Leckman, and R. Feldman, “Oxytocin during the initial stages of romantic attachment: Relations to couples’ interactive reciprocity,” Psychoneuroendocrinology 37 no 8 (Aug 2012): 1277-85
[174] The part of a woman’s cycle when she is most likely to become pregnant.
[175] Urszula M. Marcinkowska, Talia Shirazi, Magdalena Mijas & James R. Roney (2023) Hormonal Underpinnings of the Variation in Sexual Desire, Arousal and Activity Throughout the Menstrual Cycle – A Multifaceted Approach, The Journal of Sex Research, 60:9, 1297-1303, DOI: 10.1080/00224499.2022.2110558 page 1299
[176] Jordan, Brent. “Ovulatory Cycle Effects on Tip Earnings by Lap Dancers: Economic Evidence for Human Estrus?.” Evolution and Human Behavior, 2007.
[177] And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. Deuteronomy 6:5
[178] And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live. Deuteronomy 30:6
[179] Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. Matthew 22:37
[180] And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. Mark 12:30
[181] And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. Luke 10:27
[182] It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman in a wide house. Proverbs 21:9
[183] A foolish son is the calamity of his father: and the contentions of a wife are a continual dropping. Proverbs 19:13
[184] It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and an angry woman. Proverbs 21:19
[185] It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman and in a wide house. Proverbs 25:24
[186] A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike. Proverbs 27:15
[187] A person who was deliberately abused as a child or in an earlier relationship may have a hard time believing in good faith. In such cases, we can’t forgive in our own strength, we must ask God for strength to forgive, page 88, and urge the offender to seek God’s forgiveness. Jesus Forgives More Than We Can Understand on page 6 shows how He forgave His disciples when they went fishing instead of starting His church. He will forgive anyone who chooses to believe in Him and asks for His help.
[188] Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. 10For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. 11Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? 12And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
[189] And Boaz answered and said unto her, It hath fully been shewed me, all that thou hast done unto thy mother in law since the death of thine husband: and how thou hast left thy father and thy mother, and the land of thy nativity, and art come unto a people which thou knewest not heretofore. 12The LORD recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the LORD God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust. Ruth 2:11-12
[190] Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. Malachi 2:14
[191] “Can Scientific Relationship Advice Save Your Marriage?” New York Times, Feb. 9, 2015, http://op-talk.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/09/can-scientific-relationship-advice-save-your-marriage/?_r=0
[192] Time Magazine, March 13, 2017, p 23
[193] As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Psalm 103:12
[194] And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. I Corinthians 6:11
[195] And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. Ephesians 4:32
[196] Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; 2And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour. Ephesians 5:1-2
[197] Since Adam’s sin brought sin into the world, some people abuse their spouses and children, causing emotional or physical hurt deliberately. Abuse situations are very difficult to cure unless the abuser accepts the forgiveness of Christ and repents. The Apostle Peter advised that abusers may be won “without the word” by seeing forgiveness and love (1 Peter 3:1-2).
[198] Behold, every one that useth proverbs shall use this proverb against thee, saying, As is the mother, so is her daughter. Ezekiel 16:44
[199] And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image; and called his name Seth: Genesis 5:3
[200] Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; II Corinthians 5:11a
[201] This research is explained in “You Just Don’t Understand” by Deborah Tannen who found that men want to solve problems whereas women seek affirmation that they’ve been understood. She also wrote “That’s Not What I Meant”
[202] Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein. Jeremiah 6:16
[203] In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. Genesis 3:19
[204] a prudent wife is from the LORD. Proverbs 19:14b
[205] My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies. Song of Solomon 2:16
[206] I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the lilies. Song 6:3
[207] But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23
[208] But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel. I Timothy 5:8
[209] And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart. I Kings 11:3
[210] I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother's house, who would instruct me: I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate. 3His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me. Song 8:2-3
[211] Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold. Deuteronomy 17:17
[212] the contentions of a wife are a continual dropping. Proverbs 19:13b
[213] It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman in a wide house. Proverbs 21:9
[214] It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and an angry woman. Proverbs 21:19
[215] It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman and in a wide house. Proverbs 25:24
[216] A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike. Proverbs 27:15
[217] The region of the air; the sky or heavens; the great arch or expanse over our heads, in which are placed the atmosphere and the clouds
[218] But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: I Peter 3:15
[219] For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: II Corinthians 5:14
[220] For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10
[221] Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Philippians 2:4
[222] Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. I Peter 5:
[223] For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. John 3:16-17
[224] And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death. Genesis 24:67
[225]And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? 6Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. Matthew 19:5-6
[226] And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. Mark 10:8
[227] Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. II Corinthians 5:20
[228] What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? I Corinthians 6:19
[229] They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Luke 17:27
[230] Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; Ephesians 5:25
[231] Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice. Philippians 4:4
[232] Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband. Ephesians 5:33
[233] But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen. II Peter 3:18
[234] Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: Philippians 1:6
[235] For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: II Corinthians 5:14
[236] And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. I Corinthians 6:11
[237] Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; 2And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour. Ephesians 5:1-2
[238] Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Matthew 5:16
[239] Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. Genesis 3:16
[240] The LORD grant you that ye may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband. Ruth 1:9a
[241] But Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them. 43But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: 44And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. 45For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. Mark 10:42-45
[242] And he sat down, and called the twelve, and saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all. Mark 9:35
[243] And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. John 10:28
[244] Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? 2For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. 3So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. Romans 7:1-3
[245] And he sat down, and called the twelve, and saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all. Mark 9:35
[246] And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. Mark 10:44
[247] I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Romans 12:1
[248] A woman posted a note, “After years of marriage, I realized that when my husband talks, he means exactly what the words mean, nothing less and nothing more. That makes it very hard for him to understand what I’m saying.”
[249] And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death. Genesis 24:67
[250] This is explained in “You Just Don’t Understand” by Deborah Tannen (https://a.co/d/0SiJvt1) who found that men want to solve problems; women want to know that they’ve been understood. She also wrote “That’s Not What I Meant” (https://a.co/d/fPtIrOQ)
[251] And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. 20And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. Genesis 2:18, 20
[252] Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do. I Thessalonians 5:11
[253] And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Hebrews 10:24
[254] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/new-science-motherhood-180977456/
[255] https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-politicization-of-motherhood-1509144044
[256] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/new-science-motherhood-180977456/
[257] https://towardsdatascience.com/can-we-let-algorithm-take-decisions-we-cannot-explain-a4e8e51e2060
[258] This research is explained in “You Just Don’t Understand” by Deborah Tannen (https://a.co/d/iIBjYYs), she also wrote “That’s Not What I Meant”
[259] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190411154728.htm
[260] https://www.healthline.com/health-news/mental-mens-and-womens-brains-wired-differently-120713
[261] https://www.medicaldaily.com/brain-facts-know-and-share-men-have-lower-percentage-gray-matter-women-292530
[262] https://goflightmedicine.com/on-combat/
[263] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6422548/
[264] https://www.medicaldaily.com/menstruation-and-female-brain-how-fluctuating-hormone-levels-impact-cognitive-341788
[265] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4285578/
[266] If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. James 1:5
[267] That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, 5To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. Titus 2:4-5
[268] Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. Matthew 19:6
[269] And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; 22And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. Genesis 2:21-22
[270] My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies. Song 2:16
[271] I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the lilies. Song 6:3
[272] I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me. Song of Solomon 7:10
[273] And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. Genesis 2:18
[274] Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. 4The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. 5Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency. I Corinthians 7:3-5
[275] But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me. Luke 10:40
[276] And Salmon begat Booz of Rachab; and Booz begat Obed of Ruth; and Obed begat Jesse; Matthew 1:5
[277] Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. James 4:8a
[278] His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me. Song of Solomon 8:3
[279] Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver. II Corinthians 9:7
[280] Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement. I Peter 3:6
[281] Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband. Ephesians 5:33
[282] And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Hebrews 10:17
[283] A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike. Proverbs 27:15
[284] Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land. Proverbs 31:23
[285] Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are made manifest unto God; and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences. II Corinthians 5:11
[286] And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser: she was of a great age, and had lived with an husband seven years from her virginity; 37And she was a widow of about fourscore and four years, which departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. 38And she coming in that instant gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem. Luke 2:36-38
[287] For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial. Matthew 26:12
[288] When he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him. Matthew 27:19
[289] And Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses beheld where he was laid. Mark 15:47
[290] The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. John 20:1
[291] These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren. Acts 1:14
[292] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 40 quoting Young, Gobrogge, Liu, and Wang, The Neurobiology of Pair Bonding, pp 53-69
[293] But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. I Peter 3:4
[294] Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun. Ecclesiastes 9:9
[295] And God said to Solomon, Because this was in thine heart, and thou hast not asked riches, wealth, or honour, nor the life of thine enemies, neither yet hast asked long life; but hast asked wisdom and knowledge for thyself, that thou mayest judge my people, over whom I have made thee king: II Chronicles 1:11
[296] If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. James 1:5
[297] There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband. I Corinthians 7:34
[298] When he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him. Matthew 27:19
[299] The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way. Psalm 37:23
[300] And he gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul. Psalm 106:15
[301] Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD. Proverbs 18:22
[302] If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? Matthew 7:11
[303] Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. James 1:17
[304] Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; 2While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. I Peter 3:1-2
[305] And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death. Genesis 24:67
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