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God Created Women and Men to be Drawn
Together
Men want women; women want to be wanted, but God expects them 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 can die if the other person holding the hose makes a mistake.
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. Men
don’t believe that talking builds trust, “You had to be there.”
Men talk about experiences, of course, but their purpose
isn’t to build relationships as with women. 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; 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 6. Sex hormones also
bind his wife to him, make her feel that she belongs to him, and humble her, page 1.
My wife teaches that a man wants to have his wife 5 times
before breakfast, lunch, dinner, and bed. That horrifies most women; I
was horrified 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!
Being taken to wife was the most frightening experience of
her life. 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[1])”
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’s able to have her. If she drains off all his energy,
it will be very hard for other women to get his attention. If she sends him
out of the house loaded, on the other hand, 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 needs, she’ll be tempted to talk emotionally to other men.
This can lead to adultery.
It’s a great sacrifice to meet your spouse’s needs :
it won’t be what you want to do. The Bible says that its fraud
against your marriage vows if you don’t make the ties between you strong enough
to protect each other from temptation. These are God’s commands, not
suggestions. A couple shouldn’t marry unless they want each other badly
enough to meet these needs gladly until one of them dies. 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’ll speak kindly
enough to create a “safe space” where they can rejoice in each other, page 9.
Contents
About the Authors – Bill and Roberta
Taylor. iv
Ch. 1 - Friday Night - Secular
Support for God’s Commands for Holy Matrimony. 1
Give Your Spouse Enough Rest to Feel
Safe in Marriage to You. 1
Handling Conflict 2
Servant Leadership. 2
Two Books: Hooked and Unprotected. 3
Older Women. 3
After Marriage. 5
His Open Heart and Her Open Body. 6
Rewards of Obedience. 6
The Bible Gives Balance. 7
To Sum Up. 8
Ch. 2 - Sat. 9AM-10AM – Having
Answers Before and During Marriage. 9
Give Your Spouse Enough Rest to Feel
Safe in Marriage to You. 9
Answers for the Lost 11
Our Answers. 12
Parents and Churches Must Teach Holy
Matrimony. 12
Advantages of a Meek and Quiet Spirit 13
Men Don’t Always Respect or Honor
Women. 14
Women Need Answers when a Man
Approaches. 15
Ch. 3 – Sat. 10AM-11AM Her Terms and
Conditions. 17
The Course Of True Love Never Did Run
Smooth - William Shakespeare. 18
Answers While Dating. 18
How Would I Rule Her?. 18
Protecting Her Purity. 19
Being Confident She’s Wanted. 20
Talking is More Important to Wives
than Men Can Imagine. 20
Talking the Way a Wife Needs is
Difficult for a Man. 22
Why Our Purity Was Important 23
I Serve God by Serving You. 23
Ch. 4 – Sat. 11AM-12AM - Men and
Women See Marriage Differently. 25
And We Lived Happily Ever After. 25
What Made Her Mine. 26
What Made Me Hers. 27
A Wife is a Mirror, She’s Not a Light 29
A Wife is What Her Husband Makes Her. 29
The Simplicity of God’s Marriage
Rules. 29
What Holy Matrimony Is. 30
Ch. 5 – Sat. 1PM-2PM – Handling
Conflict in Marriage. 31
Disagreement in Marriage. 31
Logic and Emotion. 31
Emotion drives Conflict 32
Making You Angry is Usually an
Accident 32
The conflict is about you, it has
nothing to do with the other person! 33
When you talk about anger or hurt, never
say, “you,” always say “I”. 33
Good Faith is Unbelievably Important 34
What You Believe Determines What You
Do. 35
Relating to God and His Word. 36
Ch. 6 – Sat. 2PM-3PM – Sources of
Conflict – Sex and Communication Styles. 37
Personality. 37
Conflict with In-Laws. 38
Children. 40
Communication Styles. 42
Remember how God punished Eve: 42
Reporting and Rapport 44
Ch. 7 – Sat. 3PM-4PM – Sources of
Conflict – What We Say and What We Do. 45
Conflicts over Money. 48
Belong to Each Other. 49
Ch. 8 – Sat. 4PM-4:30PM - How God
Made Men and Women Think So Differently. 53
How Women Think. 53
It can be Hard to Explain. 54
How God Did This. 55
Ch. 9 – Sat 4:30PM-5PM – How A Man
Can Open His Heart 57
Reporting and Rapport 57
How Women Think. 57
It Takes Time and Practice. 58
Explaining Her Thoughts. 58
Knowing versus Understanding. 60
Sunday School – Split Sessions, Men
and Women Separately. 61
Ch. 10 - How a Man Protects His Wife. 61
The Protection She Needs Most 61
Men and Women are More Different than
We Imagine. 61
Keeping Her Calm.. 62
What If You Defraud Her By Taking Her
Without Marriage?. 63
Women Need Protection. 63
How Stupid can Husbands Be?. 63
Can You Love Her as Christ Loves You?. 64
Ch. 11 - What Should Older Women Teach?. 65
God Gave Men Strong Desires On
Purpose. 65
Men and Women are More Different than
We Imagine. 65
What a Mother-in-Law Taught 66
What A Mother Taught 66
What Should She Teach Her Husband About
Her?. 66
Sound Bite Marriage. 67
Let Us Reason Together, Saith the
Lord – Isaiah 1:18. 68
Ch. 12 Sunday AM - Comparing Marriage
and Salvation. 69
A Glorious Wife, Without Spot or
Wrinkle. 73
God Explained What Happened to Women
After the Fall 74
Everybody Sees how God Punished Adam.. 75
Think About Eve’s Life in the Garden. 76
Greatly Multiply thy Sorrow Through
Sensitive Emotions. 76
Thy Desire Shall Be to thy Husband. 76
He Shall Rule Over Thee. 77
Love the Lord Thy God. 79
Ch. 13 Sunday Evening – Having Sex
Changes Your Brain. 81
Don’t Touch until after Marriage. 82
David and Bathsheba. 83
Men Must Possess Their Wives in
Honor, Not in Lust 84
Few Americans Treat Others As People
As Opposed To Treating Them As Men And Women. 84
Other Science Reports Which Show How
God Did What He Did. 85
Seminal Fluid Absorbed into a Woman’s
Bloodstream Improves Her Mood. 85
9 Surprising Things To Know About
Semen. 85
The Britannica Confirms That Semen
Contains Hormones. 85
Ch. 14 - Ruth’s Rules for Finding
Rest in Marriage. 87
The Sacrificial Cost of a Husband. 88
God Teaches Women How To Marry. 88
The Reality of Marriage. 88
Background of the Book of Ruth. 89
Rule # 1 – Prepare to Glorify God
with Your Husband. 90
Call Him Lord. 90
Make Your Home His Home. 91
Belong to Him.. 92
Rule # 2 – Go Wherever He Goes. 92
Rule # 3 – Be Sure He Gives You Rest 93
Rest from Criticism.. 94
Rest from Worry. 95
Rest from Praise and Appreciation. 97
Rest from Physical Rest 98
Rule # 4 – Don’t Play Hard to Get, Be
Hard to Get 99
Toy or Treasure. 100
A Misconception About Conception. 100
Whose are the Children?. 101
What God Expects of Women. 101
Rule # 5 – Get Advice from a Godly
Grandmother. 101
Does He Praise You. 102
Does He Sanctify You. 102
Rule # 6 – Make Sure He Opens His
Heart to You. 103
Ask God About Him.. 104
Ask the Man to Show Himself 105
Conclusion. 107
30-Mar-25
Bill’s parents were missionaries to Japan. For thousands of
years, Japanese lived by growing rice in flooded paddies. Women aren’t strong
enough for muscle-powered farming. This made women dependent on men for food.
Japanese men exploited their position of power so much that modern Japanese
women want nothing to do with men or with having children. “Relationships are
simply too much trouble.” Japanese culture is doomed because the women have
decided not to raise 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 in
Massachusetts 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 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 Gods plan so others
could enjoy the blessing God intended for all couples, they got marriage down
to just 2 words, “only praise” page 5. 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.
Older women aren't teaching younger women how to behave so
that a man will want to marry her, connect to her, nourish her, and cherish her
as she needs. Working mothers don’t have time to teach their sons how to
nourish and cherish their future wives as Mrs. Lemuel taught her son.
Bill understood enough to write Roberta the week before
their engagement, “For God so loved man that He gave him woman; for God so
loved me that he gave me you.” Marriages work better if a man believes that
and acts on it. That fact helped their marriage work, but it took many years
of prayer, Bible study, and passing books around for comment to generalize his
insight enough to make it useful to others.
Society prospers only if women insist on marriage before
giving themselves to men. If she gives herself without insisting on marriage,
he can’t trust her not to give herself to others. If he takes her without
marriage, how can she trust him not to take other women? Society prospers only
as men work to provide for their wives and children. If a man can have a woman
without taking any responsibility for her, why work hard?
Roberta had seen men play with many of her friends and throw
them away when they found another toy. That’s why she insisted that Bill treat
her as a treasure and as his only potential wife from before
the first date.
God ordained both salvation and marriage. If you try to go to
Heaven your own way, you go to Hell when you die. If you try to do marriage
your own way, you can make life Hell on earth. If you do it God’s way, you can
give each other a taste of the joys of Heaven on earth, but Churches have
forgotten how Holy Matrimony works. Our divorce rate is the same as among the
lost. When lost people see that we can’t handle this life any better than
they, why should they care what we say about the life to come?
Society once supported marriage – it was illegal for a
couple to live together without being married, and divorce was difficult. With
no-fault divorce, it‘s easier to end a marriage than to stop paying for a
refrigerator. Parents and churches must teach marriage much more strongly than
in the past.
God’s Simple Plan of Marriage isn’t being taught. Older
women must teach young women about men (Ti. 2:4-5[2]). Older men must teach
young men to honor, praise, respect, and protect women (Ti. 2:6[3]).
We’ll explore two secular books which uphold and amplify
Biblical teaching about marriage. 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
strongly to each other.
“Drugs such as cocaine and amphetamine target dopamine
neurons.[4]
. . . love, on a biochemical level, is a lot like addiction. The healthy addiction
of a lifelong monogamous sexual relationship even has measurable physical
benefits.”[5]
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 use dopamine.
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 and everyone you meet kindly before
letting yourself become emotionally connected. Recovering from any addiction
can be very hard.
God made women for men (I Cor. 11:8-9[6]).
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 . . .”[7]
[Because women are made for men; men aren’t made for women.]
Before the books, we’ll review the most important part
of any marriage!
Naomi gave the foundation of marriage when she hoped her daughters
would find rest with new husbands:
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 your wife
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[8]).
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.
That makes it safe for me to rest in loving her. Men
aren’t used to thinking about their 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 admit his love to himself.
God says it’s safe to love a virtuous wife:
The heart of her husband doth safely trust in
her, Proverbs 31:11a
Wives, how can you expect him to open his heart to you as
you need 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
addition.
What do you do when your spouse hurts you? This will
happen: people get careless, or thoughtless, or selfish. Your hurt is all
about you, your spouse may have no idea why you’re upset. Handle it by
honestly discussing your hurt, 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 discussion makes the two of you allies working
together to solve a problem as opposed to two people fighting about what the
problem is. This is discussed in detail on page
31.
God values women and men equally (Gal. 3:28[9])
but He gave different roles. A wife is to submit to her husband and follow
him. A man maintains her addiction by fulfilling his God-given duty to nourish
and cherish his wife (Eph. 5:29[10])
by serving her as long as they both shall live. God tells how husbands
should lead:
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. Sometimes the man doesn’t think his wife follows and
tries to dominate her or get physical with her. This is often because he
hasn’t taken the time to explain his emotional wants. She can’t follow unless she
understands in detail.
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
if he won’t explain. Men, don’t marry if she won’t follow. Page 16 explains how my wife knew I’d lead her and page 18 explains how she made sure I’d lead gently.
Page 73 explains God’s reward to husbands who
choose to be gentle servant leaders.
Hooked: The Brain Science on How Casual Sex Affects Human
Development https://a.co/d/23NZaPL explains
how hormones produced during sex change our brains to bind sexual partners together.
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 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.[11] [emphasis added]
God made women for men (I Cor. 11:8-9[12]).
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 . . .”[13]
[Because women are made for men; men aren’t made for women.]
The book “Unprotected” by
Psychiatrist Miriam Grossman https://a.co/d/fIG4k9d
confirms that casual sex is very damaging. Having treated more than 2,000
university students for depression and other emotional problems, she wrote that
a woman can become very depressed when she finds that her boyfriend had no
interest in her beyond sex. Most women associate sex with commitment; men not
as much.
The story of the sports hero and the cheerleader happens
over and over again in colleges and high schools. As they approach the
championship, cheerleaders compete to see which can encourage him the most.
One of them catches his eye, he says he loves her, and they end up in bed.
That seldom works out well for her.
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. Jacob worked for Rachel’s father for seven years. He saw her
regularly; they ate together, talked, and did things together. Why wasn’t this
enough? Why did he want to marry her?
And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife, for my days
are fulfilled, that I may go in unto her. Genesis 29:21
Jacob wanted to marry so he could have sex with Rachel; God and
custom required marriage before sex.
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. How about Leah?
God gave us the Book of Ruth as a romance novel: a poverty
stricken widow goes to a strange land to find God, works hard, shows virtue, marries
a rich guy, and becomes an ancestor of Jesus. As a widow, Ruth knew what men
were all about, but she followed when Naomi told her to ask Boaz to marry her.
When Ruth got back from the party and told Naomi, she got the best older
woman advice on getting married 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 The best advice on getting
married there is.
Boaz wasn’t thinking of marriage, but when Ruth suggested
it, it was such a good idea he ran out the next morning and married
her. Why? Because he wanted her. If a woman gives a man rest outside
marriage, her value falls (Pr. 31:10[14]).
What would marriage give him that he doesn’t have? Why take on responsibility?
If he takes her without marrying her, how can she trust him not to take some
other women? If she gives herself to him without marriage, how can he trust
her? A man will marry if he wants her badly enough and marriage is the only
way she will let him have 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.” That’s taught in Gen. 24:67[15]. If a man’s offer to a
woman doesn’t include food, clothing, and shelter, it’s not Biblical.
If he can’t pay for her, all he can do is play with her and discard her. God
hates that!
Women must also be taught that God created them to be His
treasured gift for one man, not sex toys who wander from man to man
seeking love. More support from Hooked:
“Those who abstain from sex until marriage significantly
add to their chance for avoiding problems and finding happiness.”[16]
“. . . 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.”[17]
“. . . 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.”[18]
“. . . love, on a biochemical level, is a lot like
addiction. The healthy addiction of a lifelong monogamous sexual relationship
even has measurable physical benefits.”[19]
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.[20] [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.”[21]
“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.”[22]
The Song of Solomon explains the principles
of maintaining a happy marriage.
1) There is no criticism at all in the Song, only
praise in mind-numbing detail. Husband and wife are constantly looking for little
things about each other to praise and appreciate. The way they praise sounds
odd, but you can re-word it to make sense to your spouse. Married people need
constant praise, support, appreciation, and affirmation 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[23]).
Feeling appreciated by his wife makes a man more willing to take care of her
and teaches him how to praise her. What will happen when a wife praises her husband for kissing her? 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 He feels like Superman,
he’s ready to leap tall buildings at a single bound!
3) The husband is totally involved with his wife. He tells
everyone that she's uniquely perfect:
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. The
daughters saw her, and blessed her; yea, the queens and the concubines, and
they praised her. Song 6:9
He's so addicted to her that he doesn't see other women as
women, only as people.
4) The wife has the security of knowing that her husband
belongs to her:
My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the
lilies. Song 2:16
I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth
among the lilies. Song 6:3
What must a man do to convince his wife that he belongs to
her?
5) The wife recognizes and encourages her husband's desire
for her to strengthen his addiction to her:
I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me. Song
7:10
She asks her mother for advice:
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 to welcome her husband into her body whenever
he wants her. Giving herself when she’d rather do something else is what
submission is. She has more capacity than he; she can drain off all of
his sexual energy. She can say they could do it more often if he was in better
shape; exercise helps him live longer. Her gladly encouraging his
possessiveness makes it very hard for other women to get his attention,
but if she sends him off to work loaded, he'll be tempted to get a fix from another
women (Pr. 6:28[24]).
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto
the Lord. 33Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love
his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.
Ephesians 5:22, 33
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands,
as it is fit in the Lord. Colossians 3:18
God led my wife to teach that a husband’s goal is 5 times before
breakfast, lunch, dinner and bed. God seldom gives him that much
strength, but that’s his plan. 5 times before breakfast, lunch,
dinner, and bed.
Deu. 21:14, 22:9 and Eze. 22:10-11 say that a man “has
humbled” a woman by having her. A girl understands that 5 times will wipe out
her independence and make her belong to him. She’ll be upset until my wife
reminds her that she wants her husband to open his emotions to her in intimate
talk that often. Girls know that having a man open his heart makes him
belong to her and makes her like belonging to him.
Opening her body makes a wife addicted to her husband.
Opening his heart addicts him to his wife. Opening his heart is as frightening
for a man as opening her body can be for a woman so God says 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
The Bible tells us how a woman feels if a man doesn’t open
his heart before or after taking her:
And she [Delilah] 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 open his heart 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 by selling him to the
Philistines? She knew that what’s in a man’s heart defines him. It’s the sports
hero and the cheerleader all over again.
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 give a woman food, clothing, and shelter but not
give her his heart. It’s far easier to love God or another person with your
mind than with your heart, but love as a mental exercise doesn’t do much good.
That’s why God always puts “heart” first. If we first love Him and our spouses
with our hearts, our minds, strength, might, and everything else follow.
We must guard our hearts so that we don’t become emotionally involved
with anything that can become more important to us than God or more important
than our spouse:
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out
of it are the issues of life. Proverbs 4:23
God expects our minds to be diligent, that is, very
careful, to rule our emotions:
He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city
that is broken down, and without walls. Pro. 25:28
Women are so different from men that it takes a long time
for a man to learn to talk in a way that connects to
her heart. Working mothers don’t have time to teach their sons the basics, so
a woman must be kind and patient while he learns how to connect to her from
zero. God rewards a man for talking to his wife enough to “dwell with her
according to knowledge (1 Pe. 3:7)” by not hindering his prayers. The better
she knows him, the better she can please him. Page
73 describes another reward for open-hearted talk.
Remember the saying – “The time my father got me, his mind was not
on me.” What was he thinking? Was he thinking at all? The only way a mother
can give her child a father is by belonging to him thoroughly before
getting pregnant. If she requires that he commit himself by marrying her before
giving herself and convinces him that she belongs to him by encouraging him to
have her whenever he can, her children belong to him.
“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.”[25]
[emphasis added, they say “bond” instead of “become addicted.”]
Women communicate heart to heart; men communicate belly to
belly. It’s a sacrifice for a man to talk as much as his wife needs.
It’s a sacrifice for a wife to meet her husband’s needs. She thinks he
wants to do the same old thing over and over. He thinks that she wants
to talk about the same old thing over and over. God expects a man to open his
heart to his wife often enough and thoroughly enough to learn each
other’s needs:
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 won’t honor his wife by listening to her enough to
know how best to nourish and cherish her, his prayers are blocked. This takes
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 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! We’d talked a lot while dating because we
couldn’t yet do what I wanted to do. I thought once we were married, 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. Men and women have very different
views of what marriage is!
Unprotected shows that a woman can become depressed
if she finds out that her boyfriend saw her only in terms of sex. A man must
talk to a woman enough to learn about her skills, gifts, interests, talents,
opinions, and knowledge so that he can appreciate her as an entire person before
the wedding. Wanting a woman doesn’t make a man belong to her. Learning
to value her does addict him to her.
The more a man takes his wife, the more she wants to talk. The
more a man talks, the more he wants to have her, that’s how addiction works.
They must “be subject one to another (1 Pe. 5:5[26]).” 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
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 open herself to her
husband as often as he is able to have her to protect him from physical temptation
to be unfaithful. A man can be visually triggered to touch other women unless
his wife accepts all his sexual energy. The man not having power of his body
means he must open his heart to protect her from emotional temptation. If he
doesn’t meet her emotional needs, she’ll be tempted to talk emotionally to
other men. This can lead to physical infidelity. God warns that its fraud
against your marriage vows to fail to protect your spouse.
God rewards a woman for giving herself to her husband by
arranging that his hormones bind him to her and to her children if she
gives herself as often as he can do it. God also rewards a man who
opens his heart:
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. A
man’s proposal to a woman must include food, clothing, and shelter. If a
man 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, not
his girlfriend – they had both made public marriage vows before he
took her.
- Isaac loved Rebekah and then
he was comforted. God gave every wife the ability to comfort her husband,
but comforting him is emotionally exhausting. Being reminded that
he loves her renews her emotional energy so she can keep comforting
him. This requires a lot of daily detailed praise and appreciation
by both husband and wife as taught in the Song of Solomon (Song 1:223 ).
There is no joy for a man this side of Heaven that compares
with having a woman like belonging to him and enjoy comforting
him. Marriage is worth the burden and responsibilities of marriage:
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. Pro. 5:18
Blessing her husband’s fountain whenever he’s ravished with
her love is part of her marriage burden. Opening his heart to her whenever she
needs to talk is part of his. They protect each other from temptation.
Some wedding vows say “to have and to hold.” The man
marries to have her; she marries so he’ll hold her. A man must fulfill his
God-given duty to nourish her and cherish his wife (Eph. 5:29[27]) by serving her (Mk. 9:35[28], 10:42-44[29]) as long as
they both shall live. God expects her to serve him by being his helpmeet (Gen.
2:18[30])
reverencing him (Ep. 5:33[31]),
belonging to him, and guiding his house.
God made sex powerful to hold marriages together. Safe
within the fireplace of marriage, sex warms you all your days. Outside
the fireplace, it can burn your life to the ground. Doing it often binds a
couple together.
“. . . love, on a biochemical level, is a lot like
addiction. The healthy addiction of a lifelong monogamous sexual
relationship even has measurable physical benefits.”[32] [emphasis added]
A man must convince his wife he loves her for her to
be able to comfort him. Sex hormones calm her[33],
take away her independence, and make her more sensitive to how he feels about
her. If he’s unhappy with her, she won’t want to feel that and will try to evade
him. If he works as hard as the husband in the Song to convince her that he
rejoices in her, she’ll rejoice in his joy in having her as she gives herself
to him.
This affects the way she walks, the way she talks, and her
facial expressions. 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 everyone 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 keep
the church from dying out.
Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find
faith on the earth? Luke 18:8b
We must convince young people that science and the Word
of God show that God’s old paths are best.
God ordained both salvation and marriage. If you try to get to
Heaven your own way, you go to Hell when you die. You’ve seen people do
marriage their own way and make life Hell on earth, but Holy Matrimony
done God’s way gives husband and wife a taste of the joys of Heaven, right here
on earth. Let’s explain how!
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 for them, 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
Women drive marriage and
civilization. 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. 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. His need to keep
his wife happy and comfortable drives civilization.
He’ll marry a woman and care for her if he wants her badly
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.[34]
[emphasis added]
Scripture tells how to do this. “The words of King Lemuel,
the wisdom his mother taught him (Pr. 31:1).” A working mother has
neither time nor emotional energy to teach sons to nourish and cherish wives.
Men don’t know, so a woman must be ready to explain why she insists that a man
follow God’s plan of marriage.
Give Your Spouse Enough Rest to Feel Safe in
Marriage to You
Naomi gave the foundation of marriage when she hoped her daughters
would find rest with new husbands:
The LORD grant you that ye may find rest, each of
you in the house of her husband. Ruth 1:9a
On our very next date after my wife agreed to marry me, she
asked that I never criticize her. “Your opinion of me will be very important
to me. I want to love you very much,” she said. “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.”
She had a point – nowhere in the Bible does a husband
criticize his wife. I don’t want to keep her from loving me. I watch what I
say so she can feel safe and find rest in loving me. Scripture
tells how:
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. She speaks so
that the 10-foot circle near her is the best place in the world for me to be,
so I hang around.
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[35]).
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.
This makes it safe for me to rest in loving her. Men don’t
want to admit their feelings for fear of being hurt. Jesus sent His disciples
out as God had sent Him and gave them the Holy Spirit (Jn. 20:21-22[36]). Peter led
them to go fishing instead. Jesus 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. Having created Peter, Jesus knew that Peter loved Jesus.
Jesus’ questions didn’t make Peter love Jesus, but forced him to admit to
himself that he loved Jesus. Admitting his love for Jesus 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:
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
He never appreciated the work she did to support his
ministry. The hardest thing about being a missionary wife is that 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 woman-talk. She spoke of leaving my 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. Being convinced
of being loved and appreciated is life to a wife. Don’t dry your wife’s
bones.
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 find a way to
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[37]
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.
She was frustrated when I put the quilt on our bed wrong –
both sides looked the same to me. She decided I really didn’t know which way
was up and told me where to put the tag – that solved the problem.
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.
Let me give you an example. We were having lunch at church
and my wife was cooking green beans. It’s a lot of work to prepare beans. You
break off one end, pull off the strings, and break them just so.
Then she had to help a friend in distress. That takes
attention and focus. She helped her friend but the beans burned. I ate them and
appreciated them. Regardless of how the beans turned out, I appreciated
her work. What’s more important to God, helping heal her friend’s
distress or a few beans? She must exercise her gifts of helping as we glorify
God together. Some of her fruit rebound to my account so I praise her.
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
Before marriage, a couple should agree that anyone who must
leave to avoid saying something harmful will be back within 24 hours. We know
a couple who didn’t have this agreement. When she had to leave soon
after marriage and didn’t say she’d return, he thought it was over. She came
back after a few hours of cooling down, but he never got over his fear that
she’d abandon him. Men are more sensitive than they’ll admit.
Helping each other feel safe during all the frustrations of
life is a challenge. Office conflict costs so much that conflict avoidance has
been studied a lot. There’s more guidance for avoiding conflict on page 31.
God expects us to be ready to explain our joy in this life
(1 Pe. 3:15[38]).
People seeing the fruit of the spirit (Gal. 5:22-23[39]) 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[40])
by telling people how to find the joy of the Lord (Neh. 8:10[41]).
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. You’ll find the keys to a joyful life in
His word, so read it!
Society once supported marriage. It was illegal for
a man and woman to live together without being married and divorce was very
difficult. All states have passed no-fault laws so that either party can walk
away for any reason or for no reason. It’s easier to get out of a marriage
than to get out of paying for a refrigerator.
Romans 7:4[42]
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.
A bad marriage shows the misery of Hell, but God wants every
marriage to show the joys of Heaven. John 3:16 sums up salvation in one verse,
can you give 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[43]). Older men
must teach young men to honor, praise, respect, and protect women (Ti. 2:6[44]).
Our Answers
My mother taught me John 3:16 so long ago that I can’t remember
not knowing it:
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. John 3:16
Jesus died on the cross to take the punishment for my sins,
and His blood washed all of my sins and shame away. I accepted Christ as my Savior
when I was in 2nd grade, but I had no understanding of the Christian
walk. I realized in the spring of 1961 that my 10th grade classmates
were going where God didn’t want me to go. I vividly remember choosing not to
go their way and I’ve tried to follow God’s path ever since.
My wife accepted Christ about the same age I did. Her
father started her helping teach Sunday School when she was 12. She remembers sanctifying
herself to go God’s way in 12th grade. We both knew that God
was good, that God loved both of us, and that God gave us the Bible to bless us
if we chose to follow it.
My wife always wanted to be a wife and mother. She knew
that Titus 2:4-543, Eph. 5:22-24[45],
and Eph. 5:3389 told her to obey her husband. She had faith that obeying
God would bless her even though she couldn’t understand how. She saw that 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 along with him.
Men, it’s hard for a woman to respect you if you aren’t
respectable. How can your wife honor you if you aren’t honorable? She can’t
obey you if she doesn’t understand what you want; she can’t follow you 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’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.”
Society has abandoned marriage, so we must teach how it’s done. Society
claims that men and women are have the same needs. In addition to teaching
young women how to love husbands, older women must also teach what women are!
Knowing God’s plan for them helps girls remember the right answers to give men.
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; daddy 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
Daughters must be taught that getting attention from men
without setting boundaries leads to trouble:
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
God multiplied sorrow to women by making them sensitive to
how men treat them, and He strengthened a woman’s desire to be with a man as
a punishment. Girls must be careful about getting 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 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. That’s OK, but a wife is also a gift from whom? 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 This is worth repeating:
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 is a good and perfect gift from God to her husband.
Honor her for being a woman with 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 involves herself with a man takes on 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.
Ladies, you must insist on a man knowing what you
are: God’s good and perfect gifts to your husbands.
Women must also 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 giving signals that
tell 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 men play with women when women let them or
advertise their availability.
“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.”[46]
When Magic Johnson talked about 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? A reporter interviewed some of the women. Their general feeling
was, “We are nothing and will always be nothing. But when we’re in bed with a
hero, some of his greatness rubs off on us.” How sad that these women
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.”[47]
“. . . love, on a biochemical level, is a lot like
addiction. The healthy addiction of a lifelong monogamous sexual relationship
even has measurable physical benefits.”[48]
God made women for men (I Cor. 11:8-960). Giving herself to a man binds her to him. Sex binds a man to her but not as
strongly. Breaking up can make it very 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 . . .”[49]
[Because women are made for men; men aren’t made for women.]
The book “Unprotected” by Psychiatrist Miriam Grossman https://a.co/d/fIG4k9d confirms that casual
sex is very damaging. Having treated more than 2,000 students for depression
and other emotional problems at a university, she wrote that a woman can become
very depressed when she finds that her boyfriend had no interest in her beyond
sex. Most women associate sex with permanent commitment; men not as much.
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.[50]
Sinful men pervert God’s gift of attraction between men and women and
may rape or murder just for 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
when he traveled to Egypt during a famine (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 come into his
house. Adam didn’t ask Eve whether she wanted to be called “woman (Gen. 2:23)”
or “Eve (Gen. 3:20).” Nobody asked Esther whether she wanted to belong
to King Ahasuerus (Est. 2:8[51]).
Did David ask Bathsheba if she wanted to date him (2 Sam. 11:4[52])?
Isaac traveled to Gerar to flee a famine. He was afraid
that men would murder him to have Rebekah and told her to say she was his sister.
The local ruler wasn’t happy about being deceived:
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 natural attitude
of taking rape lightly. “The Sexual
Assault Case That Shook Ancient Rome”[53]
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 must be taught to be careful. 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 treated as a toy and discarded can make it
hard for a woman to trust a husband enough to give herself to him as freely and
as joyfully as he and God expect.
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 missed two
major ideas. We made two bad mistakes that could have damaged our marriage,
but God protected us because we’d involved Him. More on that later.
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
youth group leader and served in the church, but 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 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’re supposed to
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[54]),
she asked God to choose her husband.
A year went by and she wanted to marry. 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[55]).
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 take direction.
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, but that works only
if she’s willing to follow. Women’s lib had
proclaimed that women should get jobs instead of depending on husbands and that
there was no reason for women to obey husbands. “Liberated” women at work were
Bad News even before #MeToo – they tended to disobey male bosses simply because
direction came from men. As one libbie told me, “I do what my husband would
have told me to do if he had fully understood the situation.”
I needed to know whether she’d been infected with that. Having
her object to everything I said would be unworkable. A man can’t
protect a woman without either her cooperation or her incarceration. Juliet
disobeyed her father and sneaked out to be with Romeo. It didn’t end well.
Would she obey me?
God expected me to lead her by serving her even while
dating. Servant leadership (page 2) works only on people willing followers. I wanted to know whether she’d follow me.
She knew I had taken command. Wheels turned behind her eyes as she heard God
ask, “Who’s choosing? You or me?” She gulped and said “OK.” She gulped even
though she wanted to date and was pretty sure God would give her to me. Having
seen her friends hurt, she knew that being with a man would have a major effect
on her life. She’s not alone.
Rebecca veiled herself before meeting Isaac (Gen. 24:65[56]). It wasn’t
the custom to veil or Isaac wouldn’t have told her to say she was his sister
(Gen. 26:7[57]).
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[58]).
She hoped to find rest in marriage to him. Covering herself gave her a
little space.
A woman must know the difference between being wanted and
being valued. She must know her value to God so she knows what to say to a
man. The next session discusses deciding to be with a man at all.
As the sexual revolution was getting underway, my grandmother told
me, “Those women ask for very little and that’s what they get.” It’s up to
women to set the conditions for being with a man at all.
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.
When God told Adam he’d eat by the sweat of his face, God
made no provision for Eve to eat. Women aren’t strong enough to hunt or farm
without machinery; the Chinese character for “man” combines “field” and
“strength” because men provide strength in the field. For generations, a woman
starved if she didn’t please a man enough for him to choose to feed her. 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. Rebekah knew Isaac loved her so she was able to comfort
him. A woman can’t comfort a man unless she feels loved. A
woman can’t create much love, but she multiplies all the love her
husband gives her and fills her house and church with love and light.
She re-emphasized marriage by telling me she wasn’t a toy.
She’d seen her friends get involved with men who didn’t see anything wrong with
sex outside marriage even if the woman wasn’t willing, see page 14.
God made women for men (Gen. 2:18[59], 1 Cor. 11:8-9[60]).
A woman who loves a man puts on the yoke of pleasing him (1 Cor. 7:34[61]). She needs a
man who’s naturally pleased with her the way God made her.
When a man says he loves a girl, he means he wants her to
open her body to him. Men think the birth control pill means a girl plans to
have sex. This makes it hard for her to say “No,” so she shouldn’t take it. She
can say, “We can’t do that, you’ll get me pregnant. The pill causes blood
clots and other dangers so I’m not taking it. No sex unless we’re married, and
I won’t marry you unless you grow up and get a job.”
Every man knows that a woman can give him the joys of
Heaven, that’s why men want women. 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.
On the way to the restaurant, 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 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[62]),
she knew 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!
“I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it
possible you may be mistaken!” – Oliver Cromwell
Was it Biblical to mention marriage first? Boaz saw Ruth daily
as she gleaned (Ru. 2:23[63]),
but Boaz didn’t think of marriage. Once she gave him the idea, it was such a good
idea he rushed out and married her.
Get marriage on the table immediately. 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.
She’d asked God to choose her husband. Knowing that I didn’t know
how to nourish and cherish her, the Holy Spirit led her to tell me how. 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.
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 tune out to be 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.
She saw that I could rule her when I told her we’d date,
but she wanted to know how I’d rule. Our third date was 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 upstairs to the shower and let her know she was asking for a
soaking. “I don’t have any other clothes.” It was summer; the clothes she was
wearing 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.”
From then on, she’d occasionally say “Yes, sir” when I
addressed her. Not every time, but as the spirit moved her. I liked that a
lot, but we had no idea how important it was. The Bible teaches you to call
your husband “Lord (I Pe. 3:8)” and to reverence him (Eph. 5:33[64]). This is difficult if you
don’t respect him. Ladies should wait for a man whom they want
to call “Sir.”
“Sir” meant she’d respect me in spite of my mistakes. We’re
told to confess our faults one to another (Jas. 5:16[65]). Men don’t like doing
that and they really don’t like telling wives things they’re afraid will
cost them respect. Many men ignore Pr. 31:11a[66]
and won’t open their hearts to their wives. Calling me “Sir” helped me open my
heart to her when I realized that God wanted me to belong to her; we’re glad
she could do it.
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 along the way. 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 chose to follow me.
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 looked at me with a peculiar look and 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 that kissing could trigger her desires. We
hadn’t understood God’s warning:
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.”[67] [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 the moment we met. 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, but I backed
her up until she sat down in 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 for
a few seconds 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 (keep) the garden (Gen. 2:15[68]), failed to
protect her from her desires.
“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.”[69]
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? Studies show that’s 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”[70]
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[71]).
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.
She knows that the time will come when she's got the flu, she's pregnant out to
here, the other 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 through it instead of running off.
But how does she know?
Before the welfare system existed, a father knew that his
daughter and his grandchildren could starve if her husband abandoned her.
Prospective bridegrooms among the Fulani tribesmen in Nigeria had to prove their
manhood and their desire for the woman by submitting to a severe flogging.[72]
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.”[73]
Women always want to know, 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.
The Book of Esther shows how badly wives want to talk to
husbands. King Ahasuerus had an empire-wide beauty contest for a new queen.
Esther won and became queen. When Haman conspired to murder all the Jews,
Esther’s uncle Mordecai asked her to talk to her husband to try to stop the
slaughter. Esther replied:
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
Ahasuerus “loved Esther above all the women (Esther 2:17)”
but he ignored her for a month. Wives yearn to talk to their husbands.
Suppose the king told his wives not to come to his office. When a king’s wife
tried to come in to talk to him, would a guard get physical with her to keep
her out? Not if he valued his head.
The only way to keep his wives from trying to talk to
him when he hadn’t called was to threaten them with death! That is how badly
wives yearn to talk to husbands. Proverbs 17:22 teaches, “A merry heart
doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.” Not being
able to talk to her husband dries her bones.
Some say, “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.” Opening his heart enough to love a woman’s soul takes so
many days of talk that a man can’t belong to more than one. Instead of having
one woman enjoy belonging to him, Solomon had 1,000 unhappy women under his
roof. No wonder his soul was empty (Ec. 7:27-28[74]).
Why did David want Bathsheba when
he had so many wives? Because he hadn’t taken the time to open his heart to
any of his wives enough to love her soul. He wasn’t satisfied, so he
lusted after Bathsheba.
I didn’t know that, so the Holy Spirit had my wife-to-be explain.
Shortly before our wedding, she told me she was looking forward to being
married. 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.”
What??!! 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. As she
got marriage on the table, as she asked me to focus my attention on her alone,
as she made me responsible for protecting her purity, she told me that talking
to her a lot more than I could imagine was an important part of our
coming marriage covenant.
I had no idea how vital this was. Let’s just say that a
woman can’t follow 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[75]).
It takes hours and hours of talk before a man can begin to 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.
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 my heart to her. Opening myself to her made me hers as
opening herself to me makes her mine. The Song of Solomon teaches that husband
and wife should belong to each other. God led her to ask me to promise to talk
to her and all that talk made me hers.
I
was really put off by the idea of so much talk, but the Holy Spirit’s
timing was perfect – I couldn’t contain:
But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is
better to marry than to burn. I Corinthians 7:9
That weekend her mother told me, “There’s so much to do.
We may have to postpone the wedding.” I told her she could postpone the
wedding, but I wasn’t going to postpone the honeymoon. She got it done.
When she saw us after the honeymoon, she asked if I’d
learned how to handle her daughter. “Yes,” I replied. “With both hands!” A
woman must be taught that her husband plans to handle her with both hands.
My eagerness to marry her in spite of asking for all that
talk illustrates Naomi’s advice how to get married:
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
Sex has always defined marriage. A woman may guide a
man’s house without marrying him, we have housemaids. A woman may raise a
man’s children without marrying him; we have nannies and teachers. A woman may
feed a man without marriage; we have cooks.
A woman can work with or for a man. A man and woman may do
just about everything together without being married, but there’s one
thing tradition and God say they must not do outside marriage,
and that’s have sex. As Naomi told Ruth, desire followed by commitment
followed by sex defines marriage.
Jacob worked for Rachel’s father for seven years. He saw
her regularly; they ate together, talked together, and did things together.
Why wasn’t this enough for him? Why did he want to marry her?
And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife, for my days
are fulfilled, that I may go in unto her. Genesis 29:21
Jacob wanted to marry so he could have sex with Rachel; God and
custom required marriage before sex.
Many women give a man rest without insisting on marriage.
If he can have her without marrying, what would marriage give him that he
doesn’t already have? There’s an old saying, “It don’t mean a thing if it
ain’t got that zing!” A man will marry if he wants her badly enough and
marriage is the only way he can have her.
Men and women speak in such different ways that it’s difficult
for them to understand each other[76].
Wives, opening his heart to you whenever you want to talk is as hard for
a man as your opening your body to him whenever he’s able to have you. The
Bible tells women to submit to their husbands. Doing that when she’d
rather do something else is what submission is. God gives a very
explicit command to husbands:
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
Jn. 1:1[77]
says that God is His Word. Ps. 138:2[78]
says that God values His word above His Name. If a Christian doesn’t love the
Word of God, does he love God? If a man doesn’t love his wife’s words, does he
love her? Will she feel loved? This means knowing her needs, preferences,
thoughts, feelings, and think about her when making decisions. If a
woman prefers vanilla and her husband brings home chocolate, will she feel
loved? The only way a man can get this knowledge is though hours and days of
open-hearted conversation. There’s a reward – the better his wife knows him,
the more easily she can please him.
This can be very hard. My
wife’s sister’s husband died and she flew to the service celebrating his life.
She told me about it on the phone and on the way back from the airport. She
told a friend at church sitting close enough that I heard it all. She then
told me everything she’d told her friend. She went over this very emotional
experience at least 20 times. She felt differently about it each time,
but to me, she was talking about the same thing, over and over. I had to care
about it each time in spite of being bored. That’s hard.
God is just. My wife thinks I want to do the same
old thing over and over. It’s new and different to me each time, but to her,
it’s the same. “Again? Didn’t we just do that?” God expects us to value each
other’s things (Phi. 2:4[79]),
but it takes hours and days of back-and-forth, question-and-answer to learn
what they are.
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.
There is no way a man can spend that much time
learning about more than one woman. Obeying God’s command for a husband to
know his wife means that he can have only one.
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[80])
and she knew that women are made for men (I Cor. 11:8-9[81]), 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 worked on her hormones so that she’d really be mine. A few
hours after our wedding, she was shocked at how strongly she yearned
to belong to me. My taking her to wife 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.[82]
[emphasis added]
24 hours after our wedding, she said, “I’ve been thinking about
being married to you.” I thought, “We’re married, what’s to talk about,” but
she had told me talking was important to her, so we talked. “The Bible
says God wants me to belong to you, obey you, and submit to you,” she said. I
thought, “Neat-o! 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.”
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[83]).
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’s grace. God
expects married people to serve Him by serving each other, their children, and
their church.
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[84]). 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 only 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[85]).
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[86])
to tell anyone how to get it.
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.
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
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 makes a woman 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.
The more a man takes 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[87])”
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
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 open herself to her
husband to keep him from temptation. The man not having power of his body
means he must open his heart. If he doesn’t meet her emotional needs, she’ll
be tempted to talk emotionally to other men. This often leads to physical
infidelity. God warns that its fraud against your marriage vows not to
meet your spouse’s needs. Making your spouse feel safe in being married to you
makes it easier for your spouse to meet your needs and avoid temptation, page 9.
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 younger
women of his dream of 20 times per day 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, page 21.
Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I
am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?
Genesis 18:12
Take Sarah’s advice: enjoy your husband while he has the
strength of his youth. It makes him yours:
“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.”[88]
[emphasis added] A woman gives her children a father by belonging to him.
And We Lived Happily Ever After
A wife’s role is important, but the husband has more influence on
her happiness than she has. 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 decided to let God give her to me. She’d prayed for
years that God would work on her heart to prepare her for marriage; such a strong
feeling of belonging to me 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 my masculinity on her, I expected
her to be mine. 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[89].
My possessiveness is of God.
Many women honor their husbands with their lips (Mt. 15:8[90]; Mk. 7:6[91]) without
honoring them with their hearts. If my wife had done that, I would have been
deeply hurt and deeply disappointed. I would also have been deeply ashamed
which would have harmed my health (Pr. 12:4[92]).
Very little shames a man worse that having his wife not belong to him; I know
two men who had heart attacks after suffering this shame.
As Naomi told Ruth how to get married, the wife’s mother in
the Song tells her daughter how to stay married:
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
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
Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and
rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. Psalm 19:5
Her mother knows she has more capacity than he does. If she
encourages his possessiveness, if she drains off all the energy he has, it will
be hard for other women to get his attention. Giving herself calms
her. This takes away her independence and makes her feel that she belongs to
him. She can enjoy this if he also belongs to her, but if he doesn’t, his
desire becomes oppressive and abusive. She’ll try to avoid it, but if she
sends him off to work loaded, he'll be tempted to pay attention to another
woman and they'll both be burned.
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 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[93];
21:9[94],
19[95]; 25:24[96]; 27:15[97]), 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.
Teaching our children to honor her 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 another reason to learn about her besides God’s command (I
Pe. 3:7[98]).
I’d heard men complain about women. When I told her, she told me her friends
had said, “He may love you, but he won’t like things about you once you’re
married” and they named the same things about women that my dorm mates
disliked.
I was convinced that God is good and had 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[99]),
and God gives good and perfect gifts (Mt. 7:11[100]; Jas. 1:17[101]).
Therefore, men who dislike characteristics which God made common to women are wrong.
Those traits were not defects; God made women that way 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 commands
that a husband 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[102]).
“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[103],
6:3[104],
7:10[105])
and in 7:10, “his desire is toward me.” She enjoys seeing how much he desires
her. 8:2-3[106]
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 rather 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, 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 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[107]).
“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 9. 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 to learn how
God designed her to bless me. It took 20 years, but we can explain how
characteristics my dorm mates disliked about women actually 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. 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.
Marriage is wonderful, this man is so glad to be
coming home to 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
to admire the curtains? Or for some other reason?
A
Wife is a Mirror, She’s Not a Light
Wives multiply what men give. Consider babies. You give her one
tiny cell. She multiplies your seed in her body and gives you a baby with billions
of cells. Every cell of her baby has the mark of your DNA (Gen. 5:3a[108]).
Give her joy, love, appreciation, and praise (Song 6:9[109]),
she’ll multiply it and fill your home with love. Give her anger, criticism, or
harshness, Satan will tempt her to multiply that and fill your house
with pain.
A Wife is What Her Husband Makes Her
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 the
Bible says how – convince her he’s convinced that she is a
glorious wife, page 73.
A woman heard that Johnny
Lingo had paid 8 cows for his wife[110]
when the going price was 3 or 4. She could see that his wife liked
belonging to him. 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 to convince his wife he valued her highly!
Just before our engagement, I wrote to her, “For God so
loved man that He gave him woman; for God so loved me that He gave me you.”
Marriage prospers if a man works hard to treat his wife as God’s good
and perfect gift to him and she strives to be God’s good and perfect gift to
him.
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[111], Heb. 10:17[112]). Eph.
5:1 commands, “Be ye therefore followers of God.” When you talk about
your spouse, 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. Tell
everyone that your spouse is perfect. Your words work back into your heart and
you will treat your spouse as perfect.
Even lost people know that “only praise” leads to a joyful
marriage, but some say that people can’t live that way. The fruit of the
spirit that comes from salvation (Gal. 5:22-23[113])
helps. The coming guidance for avoiding conflict in marriage helps couples
live without saying anything negative about each other at all.
We aren’t talking about low carb, caffeine-free diet
matrimony that lost people do, we’re talking about Holy Matrimony, which is set
apart to God Himself. That’s what “Holy” means.
God ordained both salvation and marriage. If you try to go
to Heaven your own way, you go to Hell when you die. If you try to do marriage
your own way, you can make life Hell on earth, but if you do it God’s way,
which we’ve talked about, you can give each other a taste of the joys of
Heaven, right here on earth.
There is no joy for a man that compares with having his wife
like belonging to him, but he must convince her that he delights
in nourishing, cherishing, and opening his heart to her for that to work. She
can make him no happier than he makes her (Ecc 9:9[114]).
How happy does he want to be?
Remember what marriage is. Jesus told Nicodemus, “Ye must
be born again (John 3:7).” You must die to your sins in order to be born again
(Acts 17:30, 20:21).
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
God used the same word for human marriage and for marriage
between God and His people.
Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What
therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.[115] Matthew 19:6
The only way a man and a woman can become is to put aside
their individual wants, needs, and goals. They must die to their former
independent lives and dedicate themselves to serving the new family. It's
really simple - you either marry to give or you marry to get. A wife doesn't
feel loved unless her husband opens his heart to her whenever she needs to talk.
A man doesn't feel loved unless his wife opens herself to him whenever God
gives him the strength to be able to have her. To put it differently, she
doesn't feel loved unless he opens his heart to her whenever she has the
strength to talk.
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. Men and women think
so differently that it can take a long time for a man to learn to talk
to a woman in a way that meets her needs for emotional connections. Working
mothers don’t have time to teach their sons the basics, so a woman has to be
very patient and kind while a man learns to connect to her in the way she needs
from zero.
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
my wife’s 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
and my openness helped her give herself to me. We each had to connect in the
other’s way!
We’ve defined Holy Matrimony, said that couples must always
praise each other and treat each other kindly at all times. We’ve been asked
how to correct something a spouse really does wrong. The next several sessions
deal with handing conflict in marriage. There is a way!
Ch. 5 – Sat. 1PM-2PM – Handling Conflict in Marriage
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
fact that the study of conflict agrees with the Bible means 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
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?” Every call center employee is frustrated by the computer
every day; this approach puts me and the call center person on the same side,
trying to reason with an unreasonable computer.
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.
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 emotions 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 another after that.
Our emotions, that is, the things we do from the heart,
determine 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[116],
30:6[117],
Mt. 22:37[118],
Mk. 12:30[119],
Lk. 10:27[120]).
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.
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
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.”
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[121],
19:13[122],
21:19[123],
25:24[124],
27:15[125]).
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 9, 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 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, page 56.
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.[126]
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[127]).
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.
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[128]),
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
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[129]),
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
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.”[130]
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.[131]
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 she’s
on my radar.
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.
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[132],
I Cor. 6:11[133]).
We’re commanded to treat each other with kindness (Eph. 4-32[134])
and follow after God (Eph. 5:1-2[135]).
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.
Ch. 6 – Sat.
2PM-3PM – Sources of Conflict
– Sex and Communication Styles
The main sources of conflict in
marriage are personality, in-laws, children, sex, communication, and money.
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 said that a man plans to have his wife 5 times before
breakfast, lunch, dinner, and bed (Gen. 29:21), a woman said, “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 white 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, so
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 Corinthians
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, the term “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.
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 her 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 “Dizez.” “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 its 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 tell his parents when they fly over for the wedding that
in Japan, the groom’s family is responsible for 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. Jesus said:
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? 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.[136]
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 came out at the next meal. And the next meal, and the
meal after that in stubborn cases.
When he was 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.
This went on 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. What
was going on? 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 (Ezekiel 16:44) and that Adam bore a son in his own
likeness (Gen. 5:3).
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.
The Bible says your kids are you. 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 static 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 probably not. We were bewildered. It
turned out that dad hated carrots from his youth up, but he and mom sincerely
believed that all things are to be eaten with thanks. He’d set an example for
us 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 or broccoli.
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. Past a certain age, you know it will hit the wall, and you can’t
stop it. All you can do is pray and, knowing the terror of the lord (II Cor.
5:11), try to persuade. Other child-related conflicts feed on lack of
communication. Unlike in laws who seldom deliberately stir up conflict between
spouses, 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, 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 (Pr. 21:19, 27:15).
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.
Men and women have different ways
of communicating, which makes getting to agreement more difficult. Men
sometimes feel that women act more on their feelings than they should, but
consider:
a prudent wife is from the LORD. Proverbs 19:14b
The exact 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 their thoughts 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.”
Then there’s the husband who told his wife he was getting her a diamond for
their anniversary. She said, “Nothing would please me more.” so he got her
nothing.
Then there’s the husband who found a note on the
refrigerator, “This isn’t working. I’m at my mother’s.” He opens the fridge,
finds it is working, doesn’t understand why she thought it was broken, and sits
down to wait for her to get back from her mother’s place. She, of course, is
waiting for him to call her. Disconnect!
It’s likely that she’d been hinting of trouble and he’d
missed it. A friend sent me an email 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. H e 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 almost 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. He should let her make him aware of
her distress, work to find out why, and reassure her:
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, 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 what she’d said that was important and explained
how I was trying to fit it 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.
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
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.”
Most wives think their husbands should understand them, but
not even God expects a man to understand his wife, He expects him 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 when 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 finally decided I really couldn’t tell
which way was up. Then she noticed a tag on the quilt and told me 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.
This took patience. I see no difference between the top and
bottom, but the tag, I can find. She had to be patient while she figured out
how to tell me how to meet her needs. I figured out putting toilet seats down
and rinsing the sink after I brush my teeth by myself, but the quilt, I simply
didn’t get.
After I told this story at a meeting, a woman mourned that
her husband never laid their quilt with the eagle’s feet toward the bottom of
the bed. Her husband was passing near her and said, “The eagle doesn’t have
feet.” Her talk about putting the feet down was wasted because they weren’t on
the same planet.
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 because someone overlooks a detail. Women worry
about a huge number of details that aren’t on a man’s radar. A woman’s “baby
bag” has many different things in it 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 outside issues, 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.
Men use “report talk” to say what
happened. Women use “rapport talk” to build relationships.[137]
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 rejected 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 Dina 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, they’ll do something else, to
your sorrow.
Now we’ll discuss sources of conflict
Ch. 7 – Sat.
3PM-4PM – Sources of Conflict – What
We Say and What We 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 aren’t following the principle of belonging to each other
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.
Although women enjoy sex from time to time, they're not generally as driven for
sex as men are. Most women yearn to build relationships by sharing their
heartfelt feelings instead. Open-hearted conversation 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[138]). Eve wasn't strong enough to hunt or to farm without machinery and
she had other burdens while pregnant, nursing, and raising children. Through
generations of hunter-gathering and muscle-powered agriculture, 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 teaches that 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 best 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[139]).
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 a lot easier for me to open my heart to her and show her 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[140],
6:3[141]).
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 I do it your way.”
She desired 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.
While we were dating, she asked that I never criticize her. “I want to love
you very much,” she said. “The more I love you, the more your disapproval
hurts me. I won’t be able to love you as much as I want to love you if you
hurt me.”
That made sense – the Bible speaks of women as “tender and
delicate.” I don’t want to make it hard for her to love me, so I watch what I
say. God said the same thing:
There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword: but
the tongue of the wise is health. Proverbs 12:18
I need this too. A man can be hurt as badly by a woman he
loves as a woman can be hurt by a man she loves. My wife tries to speak so
that the 10-foot area near her is the most pleasant place in the entire world
for me to be. That’s why I like hanging around her and hurry home to be with
her (Song 2:8[142]).
Keeping your talk gentle and kind is one of the fruits of
the spirit (Gal. 5:22-23[143]).
It avoids conflict.
Sex Communicates
God intended that a wife should
welcome her husband’s physical drive and keep it focused on her:
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
I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me. Song
of Solomon 7:10
His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand
should embrace me. Song 8:3
How can a man be ravished always with his wife’s love unless
she always welcomes him? Draining off all his sexual energy convinces him that
she belongs to him. This makes it worth his while to nourish her and cherish
her (Eph. 5:29[144]).
Keeping his desire focused on her makes it much 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 cares enough about her 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 understand this. An unsanctified wife may feel that
any woman would satisfy her husband. This makes her feel like a whore or an
interchangeable 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 there could
be. The only way a man can praise so that a woman believes it 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 being invaded 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. Ezekiel pointed out
that men’s 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.
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[145]).
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 waited until we got the November heating bill and laid out
a cash flow projection for her. This was before spread sheets; it’s easier
now. I showed what we got after taxes. I showed all our 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 spent on heat was a dollar we
couldn’t spend on her freezer. She bought very heavy quilted men’s underwear,
took in the waist, drank a lot of 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.
She knew that paying her air fare had left us in a bad
position, but she wanted the vase. “If you buy groceries so we can 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.”
God expects each husband and wife
to belong to each other:
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
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 7:4-5
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.
If a woman belongs to a man, her happiness also belongs to
him. He’ll soon 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 former individual lives and be
re-born into a one-flesh married unit. This is just 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 bitterly disappointed in women, even though he had a thousand (I
Kings 11:3[146]).
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
of Solomon 7:10
The Song, particularly 8:2-3[147],
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 even though Deu. 17:17[148]
told him not to “multiply wives” because having a lot of wives would turn him
away from God. That happened to Solomon, but having so many women 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[149],
21:9[150],
19[151],
25:24[152],
27:15[153]).
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 relationships 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 taking care of 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.
God made males and females different 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.
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 her, 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!
This chapter discusses how male and female brains work to
help couples share the ways they think.
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
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou [Adam] eat bread,
Genesis 3:19a
And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent,
Genesis 24:67a
I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear
children, guide the house, I Timothy 5:14a
God told Adam to live by the sweat of his face
without mentioning Eve. 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[154]).
The Bible values multiple sources of advice:
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 foolish for a man to ignore his wife’s knowledge and
counsel when making decisions. Even if her ideas 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 to get all the
facts, but the decision is usually obvious once everyone’s concerns are
understood.
The benefits of knowledge sharing are great. That’s one of
the ways God wants us to edify one another (1 Thess. 5:11[155])
and provoke one another to good works (Heb. 10:24[156]).
God designed men and women to think differently. 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[157].
My mother couldn’t stand the baby’s distress. She knocked, said, “Can I help
you,” and picked up the baby.
Hormones on a woman's skin affect a baby's brain[158].
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 the sounds of her baby.
When men complain that women think emotionally, women feel that
men believe that women don’t think at all. This makes them unhappy and
unwilling to try to explain how they think, which 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 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 the expected symptoms. “We need more
tests” means that the guess was wrong, backward chaining failed, but they now
have more facts. They’ve forward chained 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 men tend to
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
very hard for a woman to operate in another woman’s territory. Gen. 31:33-34
tells how Laban searched separate tents for each of Jacob’s four wives. The
women were able to share 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 shortly after we were married and promised that she’d never do
that 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.
This Smithsonian article describes motherhood “as an unseen
and poorly understood cellular-level revolution that rebuilds the female brain.”[159]
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 can protect women from bigger,
stronger men. Gavin de Becker’s “The Gift of Fear” describes many women who’d
been robbed or raped. They said they felt uneasy, but told themselves not to
be silly and kept walking. His book said to pay attention when we feel
something’s wrong and discusses ways to tell which fears are real and which are
not. Judges 16:18 teaches that 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….
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 herself and her thoughts which
were so helpful to our marriage that we wrote them down for our granddaughter
on page 17.
Even with decades of practice, it can be hard for her to
explain. A friend was in the hospital for heart surgery. His washing machine
failed. My wife offered to do 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 the reason 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 used 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. “Can we let
algorithm take decisions we cannot explain?[160]”
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.
Research shows that men and women have different verbal[161]
and spatial reasoning[162]
skills. God gave male and female brains the same basic structure and the same
brain cells but the connections are different.
“Men's and Women's Brains Are Wired Differently, but What
Does It Mean?[163]”
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[164]”
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.
Our brain cells connect into “neural clusters” which store
memories, hear sounds, process images the eyes see, and do many 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[165].
A woman’s hormones change during pregnancy and during her monthly cycle; this
also affects her brain.
“Hormonal Influences on
Cognitive Function[166]”
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 …
“Menstruation And The Female Brain: How Fluctuating Hormone
Levels Impact Cognitive Function”[167]
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.[168]
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 the servants He has bear children and
raise them to serve Him. The differences in the way we think makes women
better mothers than men are and helps improve decision quality in the home if
husbands take advantage of the diverse thought processes God built into wives.
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[169]).
Ch. 9 – Sat 4:30PM-5PM – How A Man Can Open His Heart
A wife needs a lot of 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 76.
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
·
God multiplied sorrow to women by making them sensitive to what
men say about them. This helps a wife please her husband as she gets to know
him if he doesn’t kill it through criticism.
·
How many babies would women have had to bear to populate the
earth if nobody died?
·
Childbirth became painful. This sorrow is a separate punishment
from being sensitive to criticism.
·
Eve wanted to be with Adam enough to accept him claiming her and
naming her (Gen. 2:23[170],
3:20[171]),
but God increased this desire in His punishment of Eve. A woman
can cause herself a lot of pain if she isn’t careful to control this desire and
not get involved with an unworthy man or one who’s too young.
·
Men rule harshly in most cultures. Christianity is the only
faith where men and women are on the same level and have equal value before God
(Gal. 3:28[172]).
A God-fearing man honors his wife.
When God told Adam he’d eat by the sweat of his face (Gen.
3:18-19 page 75), God didn’t say how Eve would eat.
Women aren’t strong enough to farm or hunt without machinery. 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 their connection to a man who fed them and
knew how to do it.
Opening his heart to his wife reassures her that he belongs
to her but opening up is both scary and frustrating because women think so
differently from men.
Men use “report talk” to say what happened. Women use “rapport
talk” to build relationships.[173]
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.
When men complain that women think emotionally, women feel that
men believe that women don’t think at all. This makes them unwilling to try to
explain how they think which wastes their knowledge and ideas.
Dismissing women’s thoughts goes back to the Greek philosophers
who gave us Aristotelian logic: if A is true, not A is false. Greek
philosophers found that the women who were guiding the house didn’t think that
way and assumed that women didn’t think at all. Aristotelian thinking is so
useful that men tend to believe that it’s the only way to think. Most 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 to fit each
new baby into the family.
Every woman has her own way of seeing her kitchen so it’s
very hard for a woman to operate in another woman’s territory. Gen. 31:33-34
tells how Laban searched separate tents for each of Jacob’s four wives. The
women could share 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 about it 15 years later. She
told my wife about it shortly after we were married and promised that she’d
never do that 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 holistic situational sense can protect women from bigger,
stronger men. Gavin de Becker’s “The Gift of Fear” https://a.co/d/cHBCZ1G describes women who’d
been robbed or raped. They felt uneasy, but told themselves not to be silly
and kept walking. His book said to pay attention when we feel
something’s wrong and discusses ways to tell which fears are real and which are
not. Judges 16:18 teaches that 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.
Pr. 31:1 speaks of the wisdom King Lemuel’s mother taught
him. Most of Proverbs is written as father to son. Pr. 31 is usually preached
as if it’s written to women, but it’s mother to son. Which parent is
best equipped to teach a son how to nourish and cherish his future wife?
Working mothers don’t have time or emotional energy to teach this. A wife has
to be patient and kind while her husband learns how to talk to
her from zero.
Men fear emotions. He may declare his love, but not
admit his love to himself. God says it’s safe:
The heart of her husband doth safely trust
in her, Proverbs 31:11a
After His disciples went fishing instead of starting the
church (Jn. 21:3a[174]),
Jesus went after them again. He didn’t criticize, He fed them. Jesus then
asked Peter, “Do you love me?” three times (Jn. 21:15-17).
Having created Peter, Jesus knew Peter didn’t want to admit
his love because Peter had seen Jesus’ sorrow when Jews refused Him and went to
Hell (Mt. 23:37[175]).
Peter knew that if he let himself love the lost as Jesus did, he would sorrow
when people he loved refused the Gospel. Jesus didn’t make Peter love
Jesus, but changing and admitting it to himself made him willing
to spread the gospel.
Men fear to let themselves get emotionally involved with a
woman for fear of being hurt. His emotions are as private to him as a woman’s
private parts are to her. A woman’s privacy is physical; a man’s is emotional.
If a man won’t change to admit his love for his wife to himself,
he can’t convince her. Being willing to love her and happy
to learn how to nourish her will make her happy in finding rest in belonging to
him.
However, this is where a woman needs the patience of Jesus.
If her husband is trying to learn to share his feelings and she criticizes,
he’ll shut down. We know a couple where the wife’s people skills were better
than his. When he told what he’d said at work, she yelled, “How could you have
been so stupid!” He stopped talking about his work so she couldn’t help him.
That’s why it’s “only praise” no matter what.
Even with decades of practice, it can be hard for my wife to
explain her thoughts. A friend was in the hospital for heart surgery. His
washing machine failed. My wife offered to do their laundry and bought 2 new laundry
bags. 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 the reason 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 used 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 answers we can’t understand. The article “Can we
let algorithms take decisions we cannot explain?[176]” points out that
unexplained decisions make people nervous, just as men get nervous when a woman
can’t explain why she has a strongly-held idea which makes no sense to them.
The exact 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 their thoughts 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 was getting her a diamond for their
anniversary. She said, “Nothing would please me more.” so he got her nothing.
A husband found a note on the refrigerator, “This isn’t
working. I’m at my mother’s.” He opens the fridge, finds it’s working,
doesn’t understand why she thought it was broken, and sits down to wait for her
to get back from her mother’s place. She, of course, is waiting for him to
call her. What a disconnect!
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. H e 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 almost 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 ever lock his wife out of his thoughts. 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[177],
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.
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 finally decided I really couldn’t tell
which way was up. Then she told me 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. I see no difference between the
top and bottom, but the tag, I can find. She had to figure out how to tell me
how to meet her needs. I figured out always putting toilet seats down, combing
hair out of her brush, and rinsing the sink after I brush my teeth, but the
quilt, I didn’t get.
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 think on outside issues, 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[178])
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.
Sunday
School – Split Sessions, Men and Women Separately
You must earn your wife’s
trust from the moment you meet her until your death. How can she
respect, follow, obey, honor, open herself to you, and submit herself to you if
she can’t trust you? She’ll want to know whether you’re able to lead her, will
you lead her, and if so, will you lead gently by serving her (page 2)?
Will you blame her when things go wrong as Adam did (Ge.
3:12[179])
or will you take responsibility? As leader, failure is yours. Work
with her and use her gifts with yours to figure out how to prevent future
failure.
God generally gives women more sensitive emotions than He
gives men, so you are the most likely person to hurt her feelings by being
careless in how you talk to her. Always protect her from you. Nowhere
in the Bible does a man criticize his wife! The Song teaches “only praise (page 5).” Mutual kindness is the foundation of a joyful
lifetime marriage, page 9.
There is no joy this side of Heaven
for you that compares with having your wife enjoy belonging to you and
having her follow you gladly. For her to follow you, she must trust you to
protect her from your passions and from hers from the moment you meet
her until one of you dies.
Marriage can’t last without strong connections, but men and
women connect differently, see back of title page. Men tend to think of their
feelings as private. Page 6 discusses the
difficulties. Men seldom think about their feelings. It may take practice for
you to know your feelings and even more to learn to put them into words she can
understand, but it’s worth it. It will be much easier for her to belong to you
if you convince her that you value her as highly as God does and that
you love her in the same way that God loves you, page 69.
Suppose a
young man badly wants a special bicycle. His father orders a bike far beyond
his sons’ imagination. His friends want to ride. “You’re getting the bike for
Christmas,” they tell him, “why not go out for a spin?” He takes the bike out
of the garage and goes riding.
His father added features he didn’t know about. His abuse
of the gift damaged it. Has this young man received a treasure from a loving
Father, or has he turned it into a toy? How would you react if your son or
daughter did this? How does our Heavenly Father feel when He prepares a
special gift and the man opens the gift too early? Does this glorify and honor
a Holy God, or does it offer Satan a chance to accuse?
Men say, “She wanted it,” but so what? Taking a woman outside
marriage is sin. The man’s a thief and a predator; the fault lies with
him. Women don’t feel urges as men do, they aren’t used to it. Men control
themselves 24/7, we’re used to it. We must protect women from our passions and
from theirs as well.
“But what if I just honk the horn or spin the pedals. Is
playing OK as long as I don’t actually mount the bike?” Having made men, God
knew men would think of that. He covered that, too.
Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is
good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let
every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. I Corinthians 7:1-2
Touching a woman in a possessive way can kindle her desire
to belong to you and lead both of you into sin. I Tim. 5:2 commands men to
treat “the younger as sisters, with all purity.” Even the lost know it’s wrong
for a man to desire his sister. Would a man help his sister with her coat or
hold her up if she slipped? Of course. Would he try to kindle her? Of course
not. She’s a sister until you’re married.
Men and Women are More Different than We Imagine
The Bible tells us how a man reacts
to taking his bride to wife, page 5.
He feels like Superman, he’s ready to leap tall
buildings at a single bound! He wants to do it again as soon as he can. What
about her? Unless she was warned, she may be terrified, page 23 discusses her fear. That’s why you must
protect her purity, see page 19 which explains the danger of hugging or kissing.
Deu. 21:14, 22:9 and Eze. 22:10-11 say that a man “has
humbled” a woman by taking her, that’s part of the cost of a man in her
life, page 6. A wife should choose to humble
herself as Jesus humbled Himself:
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
Having trusted me enough to choose to humble herself, she
decided it was OK for God to give her to me.
Being mine was an act of her will. Her mind didn’t see any
reason to give up her independence and belong to me but God had answered her
prayer and worked on her heart so that she wanted to be mine. As she
prayed, she decided that her heart wanted what God wanted and her mind followed
where her heart led. Having decided that she would belong to me, she’s
always done her best from her heart and from her mind.
Having humbled herself, she could be a keeper at home. Many
women want to keep working because earning money gives them freedom and
independence. Having willingly given up her independence, the money, recognition,
and praise of work had much less appeal. Humbling herself made her content to
give up her job and take care of our children, her husband, and our home as God
desires (1 Tim. 5:14[180]).
The fact that I had earned her trust made her able to
give up her job when the time came. A woman who doesn’t trust her husband
generally wants to keep her own income stream just in case. Consider
this:
The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh leaping
upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. Song of Solomon 2:8
Why is he rushing home? To admire the curtains? To see how
neatly she’s stacked her towels? No, he’s rushing home because he’s confident
that his wife will welcome his intimate touch. She, on the other hand, is
eagerly awaiting his desire to talk to her, tell her everything that happened,
how he felt about it, and to hear all about how her day went, in
mind-numbing detail. It’s as scary for a man to open his heart to his wife
as for her to open her body to him, but that’s what the Bible teaches. God did
indeed make them male and female.
Talk convinced her that I was hers so that she felt
safe enough to like belonging to me.
The hormones which take away
independence wear off in a few hours. If her husband makes love to her more
often than that, she’ll stay calm and always feel like belonging to him. When
he leaves for a while, these feelings fade, independence returns, and she can
guide the house vigorously while he’s gone.
A married woman takes on herself the yoke of pleasing her
husband as we take on Christ’s yoke.
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.
Matthew 11:28-29
Making sure your wife can trust you helps her find rest in
belonging to you. She won’t like flipping back and forth between independence
and dependence unless she trusts you as deeply as the wife in the Song
trusts her husband, page 5. If you give your wife
comfort and rest in belonging to you; she’ll rejoice that God made her so
desirable and like seeing you enjoy her so much. If you don’t give her rest,
she’ll find your desires an ugly burden. We’ve heard women say, “I’d rather
die” than submit.
This gives occasion to Satan the adversary to speak reproachfully
because lost people see this.180 We need to demonstrate that the
Bible has the answers.
“Those who abstain from sex until marriage significantly
add to their chance for avoiding problems and finding happiness.”[181]
Confession is the only way to heal sin. You must confess to
your wife, her parents, and anyone else who knows. In a case where the man
didn’t confess, it took him more than 20 years of caring for her before she was
able to trust him enough to enjoy belonging to him. We’ve seen confession heal
much faster.
Belonging to me was so frightening
that my wife didn’t think she could have stayed if I hadn’t promised God that
I’d be hers until death. She’d have walled off that part of her emotions, and it
might not return. There is non-Biblical evidence for her fears, page 3.
Women know that men should protect them from their
emotions. If he takes her out of season, she’ll think of him as a thief even
if she wanted it at the time. Having seen me protect her from my passions
and from hers, she decided to trust me. A man wants his wife several times per
day. That seems like too much to a woman, especially in the first months when
she isn’t sure how well her lubrication works.
When she was nervous, I’d tell her I’d stop if she said,
“Ouch!” and I did. Knowing that she could trust me not to hurt her, she
was willing to try. Except when she was ill, or hadn’t drunk enough water, or
right after giving birth, God made her able to absorb all the passion I can
generate so “Ouch” didn’t happen often.
Showing his wife that he doesn’t
care about hurting her is stupid. A woman has a thousand thousand ways
of deflecting his desires. She’ll evade him and frustrate his desire unless
she trusts him to be careful with her.
Being humbled makes her more sensitive to how he feels about
her. If he’s as appreciative of her as the husband in the Song of Solomon,
she’ll be OK with feeling his love and desire more strongly (Song 7:10[182]),
but if she thinks he’s unhappy with her, she won’t want to feel disapproval any
more often than she has to.
Your wife multiplies what you give her, page
29. We reap what we sow; sow kindness and forgiveness:
Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man
soweth, that shall he also reap. Galatians 6:7
Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and
evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to
another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake
hath forgiven you. Ephesians 4:31-32
God gave your wife sensitive emotions so that she wants you
to be pleased with her (1 Cor. 7:34[183])
and so that she can tell whether you’re pleased or not. Give her anger,
criticism, unhappiness, she’ll be tempted to use her power to vex your soul to
death (Jud. 16:16[184]),
multiply your unhappiness, and give all your unhappiness back to you.
If you give her praise, appreciation, honor, and love, she’ll multiply all the
happiness you give her and fill your house with the light of your joy in her.
A man must teach his sons to honor and appreciate their mother. If a
meal turns into a kitchen disaster, for example, they must appreciate
it, help clean up, and fix it if possible, if only for the sake of the loving effort
she put into it.
Nowhere in the Bible does a man criticize his wife or
a son his mother. Not for burned food, not for broken houseware, not for anything
at all. Not ever! We know wives who received so many complaints that they
quit cooking and bought prepared food so they could say, “Take it up with the
manufacturer.” Wives seek praise. A woman is more likely to stop doing
something that’s not praised than if she’s ordered to stop.
Sow love; reap a house of love. The secret of happiness in
marriage is for you and your children to convince your wife that they are
happy with her and protect her so that she trusts you enough to follow you and
enjoy giving herself to you. That makes her happy, and her happiness fills
your home with love and light.
The choice is yours; God made her a mirror reflecting back your
relationship to her and your feelings toward her. It really is that
simple. That’s why you should base your marriage on only praise, page 5.
Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against
them. Colossians 3:19
God expects you to love your wife as He loves you. Women can
drive men crazy; that’s part of the package God gives. You don’t get to pick
and choose which features you want and which you don’t. Neither does she – you
also come as a complete package. That’s why both of you should ask God to
choose His best for you.
Are you prepared to help your wife develop her gifts and
talents to present her to yourself a “glorious wife? (page
73)” “Without spot or wrinkle” means that you must treat her as perfect for
you page 2.
For the love of Christ constraineth us; II Corinthians 5:14a
We work to spread the Gospel because our love for Christ
“constraineth us,” that is, makes us do it. We serve Him because our love for
Him makes us want to please Him. In the same way, your love for your wife should
constrain you to do whatever you can to please her. Lost people who see
married Christians working to please each other out of love often ask how we
can handle the problems the other person causes. We can then explain that God
expects us to forgive other people in the same way He forgave us.
As you start to interact with a woman, think! Are you ready
to dedicate the rest of your life to nourishing, cherishing, and
serving (Mk. 10:42-45[185])
her as Christ expects? If not, it would be dishonest for you to puruse her, get
her interested in you, or to marry her.
Older women should teach younger
women about men because they don’t know:
That they [aged women] 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
Our society is confused; you may have to review what women are,
see page 12. The Bible tells us:
This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the
day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; 2Male
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
Adam and Eve were “in the likeness of God” when Eve was in
Adam’s body “in the day they were created.” You complete an image of God when
you and your husband become “one flesh” as Adam and Eve were.
Page 3 explains this man-woman thing.
A man will marry if he wants you badly enough and marriage is the only way you’ll
let him have you. If he can have you without marriage, why marry?
David murdered Bathsheba’s husband to get her. Isaac
thought “men of the place” would kill him for his wife. Abimelech was angry
because “one of the people might lightly have lien with thy wife, and thou
shouldest have brought guiltiness upon us (Gen. 26:10).” Rebekah had no
right to her body; rape would have been no crime if she wasn’t married.
She was married, though, so rape would have been a property crime against
her husband. Women must know how strong a man’s desire can be, but
they’ll never understand.
Marriage brings great trials. God
put powerful desires into men to make them stay with their wives when
things get tough. When a man’s attracted to a woman, he’s driven to get
physical with her, and his desire increases the more he’s with her. A girl
must know this and be careful of any man not her husband.
How can a woman tell when a man’s sexually aroused? He’s
breathing. Nurses in old-age homes say that when a man is no longer aware of
them as women, he’s a few hours from death.
Giving herself to a man humbles a woman (De. 21:14, 22:29,
Ez. 22:10-11). Rebecca veiled herself before meeting Isaac (Gen. 24:65[186]).
It wasn’t the custom to veil or Isaac wouldn’t have told her to say she was his
sister (Gen. 26:7[187]).
Why cover herself? Marrying would put on her the yoke of pleasing her husband
(1 Cor. 7:34[188]).
She knew Isaac’s plans would have a powerful effect on her. She
veiled herself to get a little space.
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
Your husband should let you help him. Avoiding temptation
is your most important help, see page 77.
Men and Women are More Different
than We Imagine
Taking his wife exalts a man, page 5. A girl needs to know that touching can arouse her,
page 4.
A wife has many needs she expects her husband to supply.
Telling a young woman about a man’s physical desires and discussing what my
wife told me about herself will help, see page 17. The better she understands her needs, the better she can explain, and the more
confident she can make him that he’ll make her happy.
A grandmother read our chapter on how to be a husband.
“Must I read what you said about being a wife?” she asked. She had married
daughters. She knew what men want, so I said “No.”
“Let me put it this way,” she said. “If my husband treated
me that way, I would not only be glad to do what he wants, I would be honored
to do that for him.” Giving herself to a man makes a woman more sensitive to
his feelings about her. If he really appreciates her, feeling his joy
in her strongly makes her happy. If he’s upset or critical, she won’t want to
feel his negative views and will evade his desires whenever she can.
Women are so different from men that God warns men to love
their wives instead of being bitter (Col. 3:19[189]).
Men can irritate women, often without knowing why. The Bible shows how to
handle that:
She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is
the law of kindness. Proverbs 31:26
If you scream at your husband, he won’t want to hear what
you say. When Boaz told Ruth he’d told other men to leave her alone, she asked
him why (Ru. 2:10[190])!
Instead of ignoring her, he opened his heart to her. Ask your husband gently
why he did what irritated you. He may have a good reason or he may not have
known it would bother you. There’s more detail in Handling Conflict in
Marriage on page 31.
The Book of Ruth shows how Naomi
instructed Ruth how to get married. Ruth was a widow who knew about men
so Naomi didn’t have to explain a man’s physical drive. A woman should know
about a man’s basic drive and then study How Ruth Found Rest in the Home
of her Husband on page 87.
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) You’re made for
him and he’s not made for you. You’re the tail on his kite; be sure his
kite has a string so you and he can soar together. If he has no string, you’ll
bump on the ground and get all muddy. 3) Wait for a man who respects
and honors you so you can find rest 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) Courtship is when you find out if
he trusts you enough to accept your help and to open his heart. Make sure
he opens his heart to you and that he values your mind enough to meet your need
to talk all your days.
The Song shows how husbands and
wives should treat each other, page 5. Women are often amazed at how often men want them. Giving herself whenever he wants her
proves to both of them that she belongs to him. Men are possessive. Knowing
that she belongs to him helps him want to care for her. Giving herself is
humbling (Deu. 21:14, 22:29, Ezekiel 22:10-11). She won’t want to do it unless
she knows that he values her.
A man can't praise his wife in such detail without paying
attention to her and opening his heart to her when she wants to talk.
Marriages are based on communication; women communicate heart-to-heart, men
communicate belly-to-belly. How many marriages would fail if husband and wife
never, not ever, criticized each other and looked for ways to give thanks
instead? That’s the essence of the Song.
What Should She Teach Her Husband About Her?
80-90% of how a marriage works out
lies in how the husband acts toward his wife, but a high percentage of how he
treats her is based on how she behaves before they marry. It's
important to get it right, page 13.
A girl can be Toy, Treasure, Trophy, or Trash. God made women
to be treasures; society teaches girls to be toys. They dress in marketing
mode and send the message “Come play with me.” Boys are happy to do that.
Ever watch a boy play with a toy truck? He plays until he's
tired of it. Then he discards it and grabs another toy. Being discarded is
hard on women. Any boy can play with her but it takes a man to stay
with her. Toy or Treasure, play or stay is the issue, see “Unprotected” on page 3.
Being a trophy isn't much better. When he tires of showing
her off, he'll discard her for a newer, flashier model. Being discarded harms
women badly – if it happens too often, they feel like Trash.
A man who isn't sure she’ll be happy holds back his emotions
so he won't be hurt. If a woman wants to be a treasure, she has to say so up front
and show him that he can make her happy by treating her as a treasure. Her
happiness in him will make him very happy, but she can make him no
happier than he makes her.
My wife asked God to choose her husband. God had to teach
me how to care for her before He could give her to me, so the Holy Spirit led
her to tell me about her. This made me want to marry her because I knew
how to care for her, see page 17. This became the foundation for our joyful marriage. Her ideas will help a woman
make a man confident he can make her happy. He’ll feel safe opening his heart
to her and show him that making her happy will make him very happy. God puts a
very high value on a wife:
Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above
rubies. Proverbs 31:10
She must understand her value and insist that any man
pursuing believe that she’s beyond price.
There is no joy for a man this side of Heaven that compares
with having a woman like belonging to him, but he has to convince her
that he likes belonging to her and that he likes caring
for her for that to work.
Sound Bite Marriage
·
Accepting salvation is two words: “only believe (Ro. 10:9[191]).”
You must choose to believe!
·
Sexual morality, that is, when a man and woman may come together
physically, is 50% more complicated than salvation, it’s 3 words, “Only in
marriage (1 Cor. 7:1-2[192]).”
·
Entering Holy Matrimony is three words, “vowing, paying, taking”
(Gen. 24:67[193],
Ru. 4:13a[194]).”
Men make public marriage vows before taking the women. Isaac supplied
the tent and Boaz had wealth.
·
Staying married is two words, “only praise
(p 5).” Nowhere in Scripture does a man criticize his wife. The Song
shows a couple praising every little detail. We must rule our tongues
(Pr. 25:28[195],
Jas. 1:26[196]).
·
Marriage is built on “seed and speech (1 Cor. 7:3-4[197],
1 Pe. 3:7[198]).”
A husband plans to have his wife 5 times before breakfast, lunch, dinner and
bed. God doesn’t often give him that much strength, but that’s his plan
(Ge.29:21[199]).
She wants him to open his heart to her at least that often. He puts
himself into her body. She puts herself, that is, her words, her thoughts, her
feelings, her nature, into his heart.
He leaves his seed in her body where it calms her and can
give her a baby. She leaves her essence, her being, in his heart where it
affects his thinking about her, how he treats her, and how they relate to
others (1 Pe. 3:7[200]).
People know whether a couple belongs to each other by watching them or hearing
them.
She wants to hear him thanking God for creating marriage and
for giving her to him. He should tell her she’s important to him and that he’s
becoming more and more involved with her.
He wants her to say, “That was wonderful, I like belonging
to you. Let’s do that again as soon as you can.” This encourages him to stay
awake and talk to her for a while.
She wants him to say how much hearing her ideas and thoughts
helps him make better decisions. She should point out that they could do it
more often if he was in better shape. Giving him a motive for exercise helps
him live longer and shortens her time of being a widow.
He wants her to encourage him to have her when he hasn’t
asked; she wants him to seek out her knowledge, ideas, thoughts, and feelings
when she hasn’t suggested that they talk.
“If a man loves a woman’s soul, one is all he needs, but if
he sees only her face or figure, all the women in the world won’t satisfy
him.” He can’t love her soul without many, many hours of open-hearted talk.
Couples should be one as Adam and Eve were before God
separated Eve from Adam’s body (Mk. 10:8[201]).
And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving
one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. 5:1Be
ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; Ephesians 4:32-5:1
Jesus expects us to follow after God. When God looks on
your spouse, He sees the purity and perfection of His Son, our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ whose blood washes away all sins (Ps. 103:12[202],
I Cor. 6:11[203]).
To follow God, you must look on your spouse and think of a reflection of the
perfection and purity of Christ.
See your spouse as perfect, thank God for a perfect spouse,
and speak of your spouse as perfect.
God made women for men (Gen. 2:18[204]);
men are not made for women (I Cor. 11:8-9[205],
Pr. 18:22[206]).
Jesus taught that a wife is a gift from God and the bride’s parents to the
groom (Lk. 17:27[207],
20:34[208]).
The story of the talents (Mt. 25:14-30) teaches that God holds a man
accountable for using every gift God gives to glorify Him including all
the gifts God gave his wife. Once married, her groom is as accountable to
God for developing and using her and their children’s gifts as he is
accountable for developing and using his own.
Pr. 31:1[209]
shows that Chapter 31 was written to men and that King Lemuel’s mother
taught him how to nourish and cherish his future wife. Working mothers
don’t have time to do that so few men have learned how to bless a wife. A girl
has to be ready to explain her needs and the Biblical principles for helping a
man make her happy enough to receive the joy God intended for both parties when
He instituted marriage.
After all, a wife can make her husband no happier than he
makes her (Ecc. 9:9[210]).
The happier he makes her, the happier he will be. She must tell him that she
plans to be a treasure for her husband and that she expects him to treat her as
a potential lifelong treasure before the first date.
Ch. 12 Sunday AM - Comparing Marriage and Salvation
God knew we would have trouble with His plan of salvation. He
knew we couldn’t handle two plans, one for salvation and one for marriage, so
He made one plan work for both. Let’s 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[211]
… 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 is so, it is so. That is
the foundation of Christianity – it starts with 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’s Word tells us what to believe
and tells us what to do. Some say, “the Bible is authoritative for faith and
practice.” Let’s also look at 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
God’s people 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 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 Word, we’ll do what He commands, but it
works the other way, too. If we do what God commands, we’ll get understanding
when we look back and see how obeying His commands blessed us.
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, believe that He rose from the dead, 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 find the grace of God in their new
walk with Christ. When marriages are being destroyed by sin, our marriages
should show the grace of God to the lost. There are many short ways to explain
marriage so that you know how to help your friends build their marriages.
·
Salvation and marriage are both undeserved gifts of 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 and her grace to him. A woman is not
worthy of her husband giving his life to nourish and cherish her, that’s God’s and
his undeserved gift of grace 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[212])
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 God’s people in 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[213],
Eph. 2:10[214],
Phi. 2:4[215]).
Once we’re married, our love for each other should constrain us to serve
each other (1 Pe. 5:5[216]).
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 truly based on 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[217]
gives all you must know to be saved. Genesis 24:67[218]
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 safely in traffic. As with salvation, “discipleship” is
essential for successful growth in marriage.
·
We must keep our hearts perfect with the Lord our God as David
did. David sinned, but he never worshiped 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[219],
Mk. 10:8[220]).
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[221]).
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[222])
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[223]).
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[224]).
·
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[225]).
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 its 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 commands us to fulfill. Husbands must love their
wives (Eph. 5:25224), wives must reverence husbands (Eph. 5:33[226]).
Love and reverence are not products of emotion; they are acts of will which we choose
to do.
·
Jesus begins a good work in us at the point of salvation (2 Pe.
3:18[227]).
He helps us grow in grace until the day He returns (Phi. 1:6[228])
or we die. Husband and wife begin a good work of growing in grace together
at marriage and continue encouraging each other ‘til death do them part.
·
Salvation doesn’t just take us to Heaven, we have work to do for
Christ (2 Cor. 5:14[229]).
“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[230]).
Christians must follow after God (Eph. 5:1-2[231])
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 him 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. That’s how our light shines before men (Mt. 5:16[232]).
When lost people see couples giving God’s grace to each other, they want God’s
grace for themselves, and we tell them how to get it.
·
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[233]).
The only way to rest (Ruth. 1:9a[234])
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; must
lead her by serving her (Mk. 10:42-45[235],
9:35[236]).
He must open his heart a great deal in talk to her 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[237]).
God’s marriage covenant ends only at death (Rom. 7:1-3[238],
the book of Ruth).
If you’re saved and relate to God as He desires, your
marriage relationship 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 can minister
reconciliation to each other. If husband and wife both 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
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 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[239], 10:44[240]) as He wants me to walk
(Ro. 12:1[241]).
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’ll 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” as taught
in the Song:
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 of Solomon 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 that 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.
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.
God Explained What Happened
to Women After the Fall
God expects joyful Christian marriages to attract lost people.
Genesis starts by teaching that if God says something, it’s so. The later account
of the fall 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
God’s love wants to bless us but His holiness means He can’t
unless we keep all His commandments!
Adam was told to care for the garden
and to “keep it” which means to protect it. God formed Eve to help him after
telling Adam not to eat from the tree of knowledge (Gen. 2:15-18[242]);
she didn’t hear it from God. Her “neither shall ye touch it (Gen. 3:3)”[243]
wasn’t part of what God had said.
Adam wasn’t deceived (1 Tim. 2:14[244]),
so he must 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? It was his duty to keep her,
that’s why God blamed him (Ro. 5:19[245]).
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[246]
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 the
logic behind his view on 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.
Instead of confessing his sin of eating the fruit, Adam blamed Eve
and blamed God for giving her to him. She followed his leadership and blamed
the serpent (Gen. 3:12-13[247]).
To this day, many men blame their wives when things go wrong instead of
accepting the responsibility God gave husbands for leading
their wives.[248]
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; 18Thorns
also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; 19In the sweat of
thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; Genesis 3:17b-19A
Adam wasn’t cursed, the ground was cursed. 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[249])
or she’d starve. Women have a strong desire to be with men even though
men cause women a lot of work and frustration with occasional joy.
Women should know why men feed them. My grandmother visited
after our first child. Her husband was harsh and dictatorial, she became a
“steel magnolia,” feminine, but tough as nails. She asked when to expect 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[250]).”
If a marriage isn’t as joyful as our loving God planned, if a man wants more
joy, he must take the lead in fixing it.
Think
About Eve’s Life in the
Garden
She didn’t need a house - it didn’t rain (Gen. 2:6[251]).
They were naked; she didn’t need clothes (Gen. 2:25[252]).
She could always find fruit to eat (Gen. 3:2[253]).
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 worry was clothes. Women’s care about clothes
feeds a multi-billion dollar fashion industry.
God made Eve not only to keep Adam from being alone, but 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 by working with him to sew the fig leaves? Or did he sew alone?
A wife’s need to help her husband wasn’t punishment; a
strong desire to help was built into her from the beginning. 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 build her house. Women pour their lives
into serving families on emotion. Men, would you like to be married to you?
Could you do what your wife does? Women build homes and churches through love
and emotion, but they can’t unless they’re free to express emotions and
are appreciated for it.
God punished Eve by giving women a strong emotional
desire to please men (1 Cor. 7:34[254]).
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; God made women think the way they
do on purpose. The mixture of logic and emotion God gave makes a wife
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[255],
8:2-3[256]).
A man desires to have a woman belong to him (Song 7:10[257]).
Eve desired to be with Adam enough to accept him claiming and naming her (Gen.
2:23[258],
3:20[259]),
but God increased women’s desire for a man in His punishment of
Eve. Warning:
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
they marry. 90% of how a marriage goes comes from her value which she sets by
what she does. If her price is a few dinners, she’s worth little. Her price
should be him dedicating his life to caring for her until death by
marrying her before he can have her.
Eve wanted independence instead of following God’s perfect
leadership (Gen. 3:6[260]).
After the fall, her imperfect, sinful husband ruled her instead of God.
Marriage should bring a wife joy (Song 8:2-3[261]),
but she can’t make her husband any happier than he makes her (Ecc. 9:9[262]).
How happy does he want to be?
Having made Adam, God knew what
men wanted, He knew what men needed, and He had His own plans (Ge. 1:28[263]).
He considered all this when He made Eve. It worked – Adam claimed Eve the
moment they met (Gen. 2:23[264]).
By creating Eve to help Adam, God gave women the ability to help their husbands
avoid sin.
My wife teaches that a man marries when he wants her badly
enough to caring for her and their children. The desire of a man for a woman
is strong enough to build a family and a Godly seed. It’s so
strong that Pr. 2 and 5 warn men not to be tempted by loose women. A woman
can’t understand this drive; she must know it and defend her husband
against being tempted at work or in Walmart, Target, or any public place. The
wife’s mother in the Song tells her daughter how to help her husband avoid the lust
of the flesh:
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
She has more capacity than he does. If she encourages his
possessiveness, if she drains off all the desire he can produce, it will be hard
for other women to get his attention. Doing this 3 to 5 times per day takes
away her independence and makes her belong to him. She’ll enjoy being his if
he belongs to her and appreciates her. If he doesn’t, his desire is oppressive
and abusive. She’ll try to avoid it, but if she sends him off to work loaded, he'll
be tempted to pay attention to other women and they can both be burned.
God made women to want to connect to men (Gen. 3:16[265]).
A man must help his wife avoid temptation by meeting her need for a strong emotional
connection to him. If he doesn’t, she’ll be tempted to talk emotionally to other
men. Emotional adultery can lead to physical adultery. Men and women both
need to connect to spouses, but they express it differently: women in talk, and
men through touch.
God calls it fraud against our marriage vows if you don’t
meet your spouse’s need:
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
A wife wants her husband to open his heart to her more
often than he takes her. That’s how he avoids fraud and gets knowledge of
her as God expects (1 Pe. 3:7[266]).
If he opens his heart as sincerely, as deeply, as patiently, 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 as taught in the Song (2:16[267], 6:3[268]) gives them both a taste
of the joys of Heaven.
A man wants his wife to offer her body to him. She wants
him to offer 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 inside her body where it calms her and
can give her a baby. She wants to leave her essence, her being, in his heart
where it affects his thinking about her, how he treats her, and how he relates
to her. People can see whether they belong to each other by looking at
them or hearing them.
My wife helps me write about the emotions of marriage. This
takes a lot of time, but she likes my wanting and appreciating her help. Having
her works praise her is one of the rewards of being a virtuous wife (Pr. 31:31[269]) but it’s
possible only because I want her help, ask for it, and make sure she has
time to help me.
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 meet my wife so
they’ll know I belong to her. Women forget that a man she can seal can
be stolen from her.
It takes hours and days of daily back-and-forth talk to become
one as Jesus expects (Mt. 19:5-6[270]).
Women open their hearts to each other all the time and don’t
understand how scary it is for men. 1 Cor. 11:9[271] says that women are made
for men. Few men understand how scary it is for women to belong to men. They
must overcome fears of connecting in the other’s way. This is where kindness
is all-important. When a man gets his wife’s feelings wrong, if she yells at
him or hurts him, he’ll probably shut down for fear of being hurt more – being
the strong, silent type is safer, see page 9. A woman’s words can hurt:
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, and men tend to think of their feelings
as private. Men also have less practice explaining their feelings. A wife may
have to be very patient as her husband learns how to connect to her.
He may not admit his love to himself. God says it’s safe to
love a virtuous wife:
The heart of her husband doth safely trust in
her, Proverbs 31:11a
Wives, how can you expect him to open his heart to you as
you need if you hurt him? Men, how can you expect your wife to open herself to
you if you hurt her? Kindness is fundamental to a healthy marriage.
Being kind at all times is a fruit of the spirit made
possible when the Holy Spirit comes into us when we’re saved. Salvation starts
us on a path of loving God and other Christians. This builds churches and
families.
And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more
in knowledge and in all judgment; 10That ye may approve things that
are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of
Christ. Philippians 1:9-10
Being sincere and without offense brings joyful marriages.
As our love abounds “yet more and more” for fellow Christians and for our
spouses, we come to love one another the same way we love God.
God’s command “love the Lord thy God” is in scripture 14
times! This shows the logic of God’s plan for us. Choosing to
love Him as He commands helps us serve Him better. Couples who strive to love
each other as much as they love God will give each other a taste of the joys of
Heaven, right here on earth.
Paul prayed “that your love may abound yet more and more in
knowledge and in all judgment (Phil 1:9).” Pray that God will make your
love abound for Him, your family, your church, and the lost. People who see
your joy in loving each other and loving them will want God’s love for
themselves! Any group or society based on loving God and each other as He
commands will bring joy to everyone who joins together in loving God.
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
Therefore thou shalt love the LORD thy God, and keep his charge,
and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, alway. Deuteronomy 11:1
And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently
unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love the LORD your God, and
to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, 14That I will
give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter
rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil. Deuteronomy 11:13-14
For if ye shall diligently keep all these commandments which
I command you, to do them, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways,
and to cleave unto him; Deuteronomy 11:22
Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or
that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love
the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Deuteronomy 13:3
If thou shalt keep all these commandments to do them, which
I command thee this day, to love the LORD thy God, and to walk ever in his ways;
then shalt thou add three cities more for thee, beside these three: Deuteronomy 19:9
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
In that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God,
to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments,
that thou mayest live and multiply: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the
land whither thou goest to possess it. Deuteronomy 30:16
That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest
obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the
length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD sware unto
thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them. Deuteronomy 30:20
But take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law,
which Moses the servant of the LORD charged you, to love the LORD your God, and
to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and
to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul. Joshua 22:5
Take good heed therefore unto yourselves, that ye love
the LORD your God. Joshua 23:11
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
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
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
Loving God with your soul is mentioned 8 times, mind 3
times, strength twice, might once, and so on. We choose in our minds to
give more than just our hearts and love God with everything we have!
This is a deliberate, practical choice. Deciding to love in this way
binds us together with God and with each other.
Deciding and striving to love in this way
builds strong, lasting marriages.
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. What’s worse, 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 31 describes 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. What
the authors said agreed with Scripture. 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 raise children. Those commands
take 5 or 10 verses in the Bible. Hooked has 173 pages. If God explained
the reasons for His commands, the Bible would be far too big for hand-copying.
God 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.[272] [emphasis
added]
“Those who abstain from sex until marriage significantly
add to their chance for avoiding problems and finding happiness.”[273]
“Drugs such as cocaine and amphetamine target dopamine
neurons [which give great pleasure].[274]
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.”[275]
[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.
“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.”[276] [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”[277]
[emphasis added]
Mating drives are essential for
human reproduction. Any interaction between a woman and a man can
trigger neurochemicals which change their brains to bind them together.
“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 . . .”[278]
[emphasis added] 1 Cor. 11:9 teaches that women are made for men.
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.[279] [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.”[280]
“. . . 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.”[281]
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.[282]
[emphasis added]
God made women for men (I Cor. 11:8-9[283]). 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.”[284]
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 himself 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.”[285]
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 an interchangeable
sex toy, see “Unprotected” page 3. 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. They’ll have to proceed in faith that
their children don’t expect them to be perfect, but they do expect honesty and
say that they didn’t know.
“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.”[286] [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.”[287]
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 not being content with what 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 manipulate 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.”[288]
[emphasis added]
“. . . they[women] say that they ‘give’ sex for security”[289]
A woman must know the difference between a man wanting her
and a man valuing her.
Few Americans Treat Others As People As Opposed To Treating Them As Men And Women
The Bible tells us how people who aren’t married to each other
should interact:
The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with
all purity. I Timothy 5:2
My first talk with my wife was person to person. From a
transcript, you wouldn’t know whether it was a girl mish kid talking to an
American boy or a boy mish kid talking to an American girl. Once I knew that
she was worth my time, I told her I was going to date her. I didn’t know how
easily a woman’s emotions trigger.
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.[290]
[emphasis added]
“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.”[291]
[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”[292]
[emphasis added]
There is no God-honoring reason for man-woman talk
between people who are neither married to each other nor considering marriage.
Men and women can talk 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. It starts with woman-man talk that doesn’t meet
God’s standards of purity.
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 post-partum 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 commanded 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]
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/all-about-sex/201101/attention-ladies-semen-is-antidepressant
“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]
Semen biochemistry, also known as seminal fluid 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.
Prostaglandin https://www.britannica.com/science/prostaglandin
Ch. 14 - Ruth’s Rules for Finding Rest in Marriage
God defined both salvation and marriage. If you try to get to
Heaven your own way instead of God’s way, you go to Hell when you die. If you
try your own way of marriage instead of God’s way, you can make life Hell on
earth. Our culture has become so confused about marriage that we must review
God’s definition:
And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read,
that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, 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? Wherefore they are no more twain, but
one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
Matthew 19:4-6
In God’s eyes, marriage is one man and one woman serving each
other until death (Ro. 7:1-3[293]).
Titus 2:4-5[294]
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
seek to learn from a godly grandmother who hasn’t divorced.
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, to give up their independence, belong to each other, and be
no more twain, but one flesh (Mt. 19:6[295])
just as they were one flesh before God separated Eve out of Adam’s body (Gen.
2:21-22[296]).
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[297],
6:3[298],
7:10[299]).
A man expects that marriage means he can have his wife
whenever he’s able to take 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[300]).
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 talks
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[301]).
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
believes 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.
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
her 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. This makes your burden harder to bear. A good husband belongs
to you. If a man belongs to you, if he nourishes and values you as God’s
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:” The Bible warns
that having a man in your life cumbers you with much serving (Lk. 10:40) and brings
trouble. Marriage is so much trouble that the Bible says not to
marry 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.
Ruth was a widow and knew what a husband would cost; 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, if you want to.
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.
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 takes 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 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 man that badly?
Many call Boaz the “kinsman redeemer,” describing him as 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[302]).
We know little about most of the names. God put details of Boaz’s life into
the Bible because he married a woman virtuous enough not only to choose to
belong to God but also to marry into the line that led to Jesus Christ.
“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[303]),
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 to call 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 the book whereas the mother’s advice to her daughter how to stay
married takes only one verse (Song 8:3[304]).
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[305])
- Naomi wanted her daughters to find appreciative husbands who liked
nourishing and cherishing them and paid their expenses cheerfully.
Experience shows that 80-90% of how a marriage works depends
on how a man treats his wife, but 80% of that depends on how she sets her value
by her conduct before marriage (Pr. 31:10[306]).
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:
Ladies, the main question in deciding whether to let a man
take you to wife is: does he help you glorify God? The foundation for
glorifying God with your husband is 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
hometown 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 home,
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 take it one promise at a time. Ruth said, “whither
thou goest, I will go,” your husband expects that 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.
In addition to going wherever 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[307]).
You’ll know your husband’s faults. The only way you can call him “lord” from
your heart and reverence him the way the Bible commands (Eph. 5:33[308])
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[309]).
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 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.
On a day-to-day basis, 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.
Some sayings have a secret half. 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 doing what a
man’s gotta do, he’s tired, so he takes a nap. You gotta clean
up the mess, and do it quietly so you don’t wake him. Does this sound
familiar?
You also have to 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 came to trust that she could find his socks, his underwear,
and other unimportant things, he trusted her to find important things
like his tires.
Picture this - you’ve been married a month and your
apartment looks just right. Your husband tells you he’s going to drive
his motorcycle up 3 flights into your living room to rebuild 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 working on the transmission? It’s
hard to get men to talk at all, its bad tactics shut off discussion. At
least he warned you, that’s better than average.
There’s one right answer. “Lets get a tarp so your parts
won’t get lost.” This makes it easier 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 importantT. 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. 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
have to share experiences with him. This gives you something to talk about.
Fixing his motorcycle together in your living room is a shared experience
that relates you to him.
The Bible says of a virtuous woman, “She will do him good
and not evil” (Pro 31:12).
Ladies, there’re two ways to get a man to do what you want.
You can be “a continual dripping,” you can nag or 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 home as a place to keep a woman. If you don’t
convince him it’s his home, if it isn’t he wants to be, he’ll
find reasons to go other places. A man can work harder or go out with the boys
instead of being 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!
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, he’ll husband be known
in the gates (Pr. 31:23[310]).
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 riding
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 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 maybe 1/5 of the burden of having a
husband. Older women must teach younger women how to love their husbands, love
their children, and to guide their houses, that’s the rest of the yoke of being
married. You must know what a man costs so you can decide
whether belonging to a particular man will be worth what he costs. It’s
hard to glorify God with your husband and about your husband if he costs
you 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:
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 several
times while thinking about him. If you can’t promise him Ruth’s vow from the
bottom of 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? A man to put his arm around 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! Want! 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 romantic
love, 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
what he costs. A bad husband doesn’t give you rest so he isn’t worth what he
costs. 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 him, 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 the house? Can you rest while
he’s in your house?
Does “rest” mean that she doesn’t have to work? No, 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.
Husbands, is your yoke easy, is your
burden light? Are you meek and lowly in heart toward your wives? 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. As the years go by, 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.
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 had 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 emotions:
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.
Based on her experience with her boyfriend, she knew that
she would 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 9.
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 5.
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.
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 one 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,” Boaz knew Ruth 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 where she had 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 that winter 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
Adam was to eat by the sweat of his face. Not just his
brow, his entire face.
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. That’s why relationships are so important to a woman: her tie to her
man was life or death. That’s why it meant so much to Ruth when Boaz praised her
walk with God. When Boaz not only fed her but had the reapers drop bundles for
her, she rested in the knowledge that 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.
Which single 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 right
after Ruth came back from the party, 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 become convinced that a woman’s concern for
detail is of God and 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 with words and
music, 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[311]),
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 53. 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, Romans 14:23 says, “whatsoever is
not of faith is sin.” If your wife obeys without being persuaded, she’s in sin
because she’s following you, a man, rather than following what God wants.
Following a man instead of God is idolatry. Commanding a wife without
persuading her leads to serious sin.
You must persuade your children 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, in fact, 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 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 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.
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 babies
from infection.
“Man may work from sun to sun; women’s work is never
done.” Women can be so driven to take care of 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 all about it. What did He do? A
mother got more time off when she gave birth to a girl than when she gave birth
to 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 had to resume her
routine.
God honors women. Anna was the first to proclaim salvation
(Luke 2:36-38[312]).
A woman anointed Jesus’ body for burial (Mt. 26:12[313]).
Pilate’s wife tried to persuade him not to crucify Jesus (Mt. 27:19[314]).
Women were last at the cross (Mk. 15:47[315])
and first at the tomb (Jn. 20:1[316]).
Women proclaimed the resurrection (Mt. 28:5-10). Women attended prayer
meetings (Ac. 1:14[317]).
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 tends to creep into
conversations. This leads to temptations and gives Satan an advantage. The
Bible tells how:
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.
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 the harvest, there was enough food, he wouldn’t
starve that year, and he could rest a bit. He might even be open to
think about lesser matters like marriage.
Men haven’t changed since Boaz or since Adam. What Naomi
told Ruth after the party 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 would he marry?
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.
Young ladies want attention from men. If older women
haven’t fulfilled God’s command to teach them about men, they tend to end up in
fornication. Even secular writers know that this can be damaging. The book “Unprotected”
by Miriam Grossman explains biological reasons why this is so. To
oversimplify, 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; it takes a man 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.
There’s another common error – many girls think a man will marry
her if she has his baby.
And when the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her
womb: but Rachel was barren. And Leah conceived, and bare a son, and she called
his name Reuben: for she said, Surely the LORD hath looked upon my affliction; now
therefore my husband will love me. And she conceived again, and bare a son;
and said, Because the LORD hath heard I was hated, he hath therefore given me
this son also: and she called his name Simeon. And she conceived again, and
bare a son; and said, Now this time will my husband be joined unto me,
because I have born him three sons: therefore was his name called Levi. And
she conceived again, and bare a son: and she said, Now will I praise the LORD:
therefore she called his name Judah; and left bearing. Genesis 29:31-35
Poor Leah! It took three sons for her to learn that having
Jacob’s sons wouldn’t make him love her.
But unto the sons of the concubines, which Abraham had,
Abraham gave gifts, and sent them away from Isaac his son, while he yet
lived, eastward, unto the east country. Genesis 25:6
Abraham was a friend of God (2 Chr. 20:7, Isa. 41:8), yet he
sent away women who had his babies without marrying. I asked a young lady why
she thought he’d marry. “He’d have to marry me to be near his baby.”
Nonsense. She said she wanted to get married, but
she moved in with him without marriage. To him, what she said about wanting
marriage was a lie. She said she was on the pill, but she stopped taking it
and told him he’d have to marry her. Now she’s a lying manipulator. Why marry
someone like that?
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.
A man may have head knowledge about birds and bees, but in
his heart, a man doesn’t believe he has anything to do with making babies.
Your baby is yours – you had it last – but what has a baby to do with him?
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.
A woman gives her children a father by belonging thoroughly
to him before they’re conceived, but he has a hard time valuing her enough to
value her children as God expects of him if she gives him rest out of season.
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.
What God Expects of Women
I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear
children, guide the house, I Timothy 5:14a
A job puts great strain on women. Working mothers have
neither the emotional energy nor the time to raise their children as
effectively as stay-at-home moms. God expects a mother to give her children 3
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 still
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; fathers should uphold, praise, and
help.
The second gift is a father with strong emotional and
financial ties to her child. Remember the old saying: “The time my father got
me, his mind was not on me.” What was he thinking? Was he thinking at all? Giving
yourself to him often moves your children from head knowledge to
knowledge in his heart.
“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.”[318] [emphasis added]
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. Women with jobs have neither
time nor emotional energy to teach their sons how to be Biblical husbands or
their daughters to be Biblical wives.
A wife must be content to live on what her husband earns,
encourage him in his career, and mother her children. Pr. 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 # 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.
Here’s another area where Ruth took advice. 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 13. A meek and quiet spirit is of great price in
the eyes of God (I Peter 3:4[319]),
and the right man treasures it too.
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 appreciates 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. A wife can’t make you any happier than you make her.
A woman can’t give her husband rest as often as he needs unless
she’s happy about belonging to him and giving him rest. She can’t be
happy about belonging to him unless he values her and appreciates her, and it’s
hard 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 take care of 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
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 Solomon’s 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.
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
It’s safe for a man to open his heart to a virtuous woman
who will do him good and not evil. 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[320]).
Few men know how badly women need open hearts.
My wife teaches that a man expects to have his wife 5 times
before breakfast, lunch, dinner, and bed. He wants you to open your
body to him. You want him to open his heart to you. He wants to put himself
into your body. You want to put yourself, your words, your thoughts, and your
feelings, into his heart.
He leaves his seed inside your body where it affects your
mood and can give you a baby. You want to leave your essence, your being, in
his heart where it affects his thinking about you, how he treats you, and how
he relates to everyone else. People can tell you belong to each other by
looking at you or hearing you.
There's no simple formula for a man to keep a woman happy
because women aren’t nearly as alike as men are. If he opens his heart to her
as sincerely, as deeply, as widely, as patiently, as attentively, as often, and
as gladly as he expects her to open her body to him, they will come to belong
to each other. Once they belong to each other, they can give each other a
taste of the joys of Heaven, right here on earth.
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, so he married her.
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?
Here’s how my wife did it. We met at church, I told her I’d
be away for a month but that I’d date her when I got back, and I asked her out
the next time I saw her. She said, “Before you spend any money on me, you
should know that I’m looking for a husband. I’m not looking for fun; I want to
get married. I’m not saying you have to agree to marry me before we go out at
all, but I want you to agree that the purpose of being together is to decide
whether we should marry. God made me to be a treasure for some man.
If you aren’t that man, fine, we can part friends. I’m not a toy, I
don’t want a man to play with me, I want a man to stay with me.”
I valued that and so has every man I’ve told. Men know
they don’t understand women, men know that an unhappy woman is a
hardship, a man worries about keeping you happy. If you state what you
want clearly and simply and explain your needs before you date, a man
can know whether he can give you rest or not.
Think about it from my point of view. Her telling me she
expected to be a treasure for her husband was a great
recommendation. What man wouldn’t want a woman who planned to be God’s
treasure for him?
She wanted me to agree on why we were together. She
put marriage on the table and insisted that I treat her as a treasure.
I soon decided that she’d told the truth about being a treasure and took
her to wife.
During my trip, my aunt asked if I knew any women, I said
I’d met one, but I wasn’t thinking marriage. When she mentioned
marriage, I realized that marrying her might be a good idea, but without
her bringing it up, I don’t know if I’d have thought of it. Who mentioned
marriage first, Boaz or Ruth? Men don’t always think of marriage,
ladies, I didn’t, Boaz didn’t. My wife didn’t ask for marriage, she asked me
to consider marriage. Put marriage on the table before the first
date. What if he walks away? If he’s against marriage, if your being God’s
treasure doesn’t move him, you don’t want to fall in love with him.
Guard your heart:
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the
issues of life. Proverbs 4:23
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 in finding out, 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[321],
James 1:5[322]).
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 this guy will give you rest, it’s time
to 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 him 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. Why else have a man at all?
You want to please your husband (I Cor. 7:34[323]),
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 us 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. Any man who ignores his
wife’s gifts and knowledge when making decisions is a fool (Mt. 27:19[324]).
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 drinking coffee, dancing, movies, rock
music, Bible versions, spanking children, TV, or women wearing trousers to see
whether 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 to have you be his treasure and take you to 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[325])?
God doesn’t force people to follow His will. Jacob got what
Jacob wanted (Ps. 106:15[326]),
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. Does God ever try to tell a husband something
by telling his wife (Judges 13:2-13)?
You must find out his beliefs about
what women are. Men have two basic 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; everything that ever goes wrong is a woman’s fault just as
Adam blamed Eve:
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 on the same
day as one creature 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 completes 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. The fall came 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. Comparing Gen. 2:17[327]
with Gen. 3:3[328]
shows that Eve didn’t put it right.
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 meet for him. Genesis 2:15-18
God told Adam not to eat the fruit before forming Eve, did
Adam add to what God said when he told Eve? Exo. 19:10-11, 15[329]
shows that Moses added “come not at your wives” to what God told him.
Did Adam add to what God said as Moses did? The Bible
doesn’t say who added. “Adam was not deceived (1 Tim. 2:14[330]);”
he had to have heard what the serpent said. Gen. 3:6 shows that Adam was there
“with her.” Why didn’t he protect or “keep” her by correcting her or telling
her not to talk with the serpent?
If he 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[331],
Mt. 7:11[332],
Jas. 1:17[333]).
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.
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.
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 also help fix broken marriages. Very few women
have been taught to declare that they’re treasures. A woman should
declare herself before marriage, 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[334]),
nor is it too late for a man to 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 from the bottom of 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 in the same way Rebekah
comforted Isaac (Gen. 24:67[335]).
You can't make your husband any happier than he makes you. How happy does he
want to be?
[1] 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
[2] 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
[3] Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded. Titus 2:6
[4] Fisher, Anatomy of Love, p 21-23
[5] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 60
[6] 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
[7] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 58
[8] 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
[9] 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
[10] For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and
cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: Ephesians 5:29
[11] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 139
[12] 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
[13] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 58
[14] Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far
above rubies. Proverbs 31:10
[15] 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
[16] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 132
[17] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 67
[18] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 41
[19] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 60
[20] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 37
[21] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 92
[22] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 113
[23] Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better
than wine. Song of Solomon 1:2
[24] Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned? Proverbs 6:28
[25] 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
[26] 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
[27] For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and
cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: Ephesians 5:29
[28] If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and
servant of all. Mark 9:35b
[29] 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
[30] 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
[31] 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
[32] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 60
[33] 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
[34] 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).
[35] 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
[36] 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
[37] This means behavior, not talk.
[38] 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
[39] 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
[40] 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
[41] 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
[42] 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
[43] 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
[44] Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded. Titus 2:6
[45] 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
[46] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 113
[47] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 41
[48] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 60
[49] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 58
[50] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 139
[51] 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
[52] 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
[53] https://www.narratively.com/p/when-metoo-came-to-ancient-rome
[54] 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
[55] And when Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart Judges 16:18a
[56] 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
[57] 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
[58] 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
[59] 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
[60] 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
[61] 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
[62] 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
[63] So she kept fast by the maidens of Boaz to glean unto the end of
barley harvest and of wheat harvest; and dwelt with her mother in law. Ruth 2:23
[64] 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
[65] Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for
another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man
availeth much. James 5:16
[66] The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her Proverbs 31:11a
[67] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 37
[68] 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
[69] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 92
[70] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 67
[71] 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
[72] Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, 17th series, pages
not numbered. Ripley also reported a Scottish town where a would-be groom had
to prove 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.
[73] https://www.history.com/news/chivalry-knights-middle-ages
[74] Behold, this have I found, saith the preacher, counting one
by one, to find out the account: 28Which 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
[75] a prudent wife is from the LORD. Proverbs 19:14b
[76] https://successful-marriage.blogspot.com/2018/12/what-drove-jesus-11-nobodies-to-turn.html#thinkDifferent
[77] In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. John 1:1
[78] I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name
for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word
above all thy name. Psalm 138:2
[79] Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on
the things of others. Philippians 2:4
[80] 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
[81] 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
[82] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 36
[83] 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
[84] 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
[85] For the love of Christ constraineth us; II Corinthians 5:14a
[86] For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye
are God's building. I Corinthians 3:9
[87] 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
[88] 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
[89] 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
[90] 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
[91] 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
[92] A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband: but she that maketh
ashamed is as rottenness in his bones. Proverbs 12:4
[93] the contentions of a wife are a continual dropping. Proverbs 19:13b
[94] It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a
brawling woman in a wide house. Proverbs 21:9
[95] It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious
and an angry woman. Proverbs 21:19
[96] It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop, than with a
brawling woman and in a wide house. Proverbs 25:24
[97] A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman
are alike. Proverbs 27:15
[98] 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
[99] Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of
the LORD. Proverbs 18:22
[100] 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
[101] 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
[102] That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in
sanctification and honour; I Thessalonians 4:4
[103] My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the
lilies. Song of Solomon 2:16
[104] I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the
lilies. Song of Solomon 6:3
[105] I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me. Song of
Solomon 7:10
[106] 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
[107] If he take him another wife; her food, her raiment, and her
duty of marriage, shall he not diminish. Exodus 21:10
[108] And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his
own likeness, and after his image; Genesis 5:3a
[109] 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
[110] https://successful-marriage.blogspot.com/2013/10/why-johnny-lingo-paid-eight-cows-for.html
[111] I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own
sake, and will not remember thy sins. Isaiah 43:25
[112] And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Hebrews 10:17
[113] 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
[114] 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
[115] The Oxford English Dictionary defines “divorce” as “The legal dissolution of a marriage by a court or other
competent body.” “Let not man put
asunder” means that although people may divorce according to the laws of man, no
man has authority to end Holy Matrimony which is set aside to God.
You’re married ‘til death do you part no matter what in God’s eyes.
[116] 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
[117] 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
[118] 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
[119] 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
[120] 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
[121] It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than
with a brawling woman in a wide house. Proverbs 21:9
[122] A foolish son is the calamity of his father: and the
contentions of a wife are a continual dropping. Proverbs 19:13
[123] It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a
contentious and an angry woman. Proverbs 21:19
[124] It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop, than
with a brawling woman and in a wide house. Proverbs 25:24
[125] A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious
woman are alike. Proverbs 27:15
[126] 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.
[127] 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
[128] 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
[129] 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
[130] “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
[131] Time Magazine, March 13, 2017, p 23
[132] As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our
transgressions from us. Psalm 103:12
[133] 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
[134] And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one
another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. Ephesians 4:32
[135] 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
[136] 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).
[137] 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”
[138] 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
[139] a prudent wife is from the LORD. Proverbs 19:14b
[140] My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the
lilies. Song of Solomon 2:16
[141] I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among
the lilies. Song of Solomon 6:3
[142] The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh leaping upon the
mountains, skipping upon the hills. Song of Solomon 2:8
[143] 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
[144] For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but
nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: Ephesians 5:29
[145] 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
[146] And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three
hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart. I Kings 11:3
[147] 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
[148] 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
[149] the contentions of a wife are a continual dropping. Proverbs 19:13b
[150] It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a
brawling woman in a wide house. Proverbs 21:9
[151] It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious
and an angry woman. Proverbs 21:19
[152] It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop, than with a
brawling woman and in a wide house. Proverbs 25:24
[153] A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman
are alike. Proverbs 27:15
[154] 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
[155] Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one
another, even as also ye do. I Thessalonians 5:11
[156] And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to
good works: Hebrews 10:24
[157] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/new-science-motherhood-180977456/
[158] https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-politicization-of-motherhood-1509144044
[159] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/new-science-motherhood-180977456/
[160] https://towardsdatascience.com/can-we-let-algorithm-take-decisions-we-cannot-explain-a4e8e51e2060
[161] This research is explained in “You Just Don’t Understand” by
Deborah Tannen, she also wrote “That’s Not What I Meant”
[162] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190411154728.htm
[163] https://www.healthline.com/health-news/mental-mens-and-womens-brains-wired-differently-120713
[164] https://www.medicaldaily.com/brain-facts-know-and-share-men-have-lower-percentage-gray-matter-women-292530
[165] https://goflightmedicine.com/on-combat/
[166] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6422548/
[167] https://www.medicaldaily.com/menstruation-and-female-brain-how-fluctuating-hormone-levels-impact-cognitive-341788
[168] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4285578/
[169] 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
[170] 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
[171] And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the
mother of all living. Genesis 3:20
[172] 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
[173] 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)
[174] Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing. They say unto
him, We also go with thee. John 21:3a
[175] O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and
stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children
together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would
not! Matthew 23:37
[176] https://towardsdatascience.com/can-we-let-algorithm-take-decisions-we-cannot-explain-a4e8e51e2060
[177] 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.”
[178] 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
[179] 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
[180] 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
[181] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 132
[182] I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me. Song 7:10
[183] 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
[184] 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
[185] 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 see
also Mark 9:35
[186] 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
[187] 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
[188] 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
[189] Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against
them. Colossians 3:19
[190] 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 2:10
[191] That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and
shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt
be saved. Romans 10:9
[192] 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
[193] 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
[194] So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife: Ruth 4:13a
[195] He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken
down, and without walls. Proverbs 25:28
[196] If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his
tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. James 1:26
[197] 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. I Corinthians 7:3-4
[198] 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
[199] And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife, for my days are
fulfilled, that I may go in unto her. Genesis 29:21
[200] 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
[201] And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain,
but one flesh. Mark 10:8
[202] As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our
transgressions from us. Psalm 103:12
[203] 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
[204] 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
[205] 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
[206] Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth
favour of the LORD. Proverbs 18:22
[207] 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
[208] And Jesus answering said unto them, The children of this
world marry, and are given in marriage: Luke 20:34
[209] The words of king Lemuel, the prophecy that his mother
taught him. Proverbs 31:1
[210] 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
[211] 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
[212] 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
[213] 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
[214] 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
[215] Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the
things of others. Philippians 2:4
[216] 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:
[217] 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
[218] 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
[219]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
[220] And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain,
but one flesh. Mark 10:8
[221] 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
[222] 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
[223] 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
[224] Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church,
and gave himself for it; Ephesians 5:25
[225] Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice. Philippians 4:4
[226] 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
[227] 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
[228] 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
[229] 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
[230] 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
[231] 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
[232] 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
[233] 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
[234] The LORD grant you that ye may find rest, each of you in the house
of her husband. Ruth 1:9a
[235] 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
[236] 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
[237] 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
[238] 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
[239] 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
[240] And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of
all. Mark 10:44
[241] 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
[242] 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[242]
meet for him. Genesis 2:15-18
[243] 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
[244] And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived
was in the transgression. I Timothy 2:14
[245] 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
[246] 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
[247] 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
[248] https://successful-marriage.blogspot.com/2021/06/wedding-wisdom-simplicity-of-marriage.html#fallFault
[249] 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
[250] 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
[251] But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole
face of the ground. Genesis 2:6
[252] And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not
ashamed. Genesis 2:25
[253] And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the
trees of the garden: Genesis 3:2
[254] 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
[255] Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is
better than wine. Song of Solomon 1:2
[256] 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
[257] I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me. Song
7:10
[258] 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
[259] And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the
mother of all living. Genesis 3:20
[260] And 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 3:6
[261] 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
[262] 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
[263] And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful,
and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over
the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing
that moveth upon the earth. Genesis 1:28
[264] 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
[265] 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
[266] 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
[267] My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies. Song
of Solomon 2:16
[268] I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the
lilies. Song of Solomon 6:3
[269] Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works
praise her in the gates. Proverbs 31:31
[270]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
[271] Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the
man. I Corinthians 11:9
[272] 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).
[273] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 132
[274] Fisher, Anatomy of Love, p 21-23
[275] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 60
[276] 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
[277] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 139
[278] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 58
[279] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 37
[280] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 92
[281] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 67
[282] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 36
[283] 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
[284] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 108
[285] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 113
[286] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked,
Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 41
[287] 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
[288] 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
[289] 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
[290] 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
[291] 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
[292] 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
[293] 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
[294] 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
[295] Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What
therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. Matthew 19:6
[296] 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
[297] My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the
lilies. Song 2:16
[298] I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the
lilies. Song 6:3
[299] I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me. Song
of Solomon 7:10
[300] 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
[301] 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
[302] And Salmon begat Booz of Rachab; and Booz begat Obed of
Ruth; and Obed begat Jesse; Matthew 1:5
[303] Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. James 4:8a
[304] His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand
should embrace me. Song of Solomon 8:3
[305] 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
[306] Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above
rubies. Proverbs 31:10
[307] 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
[308] 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
[309] And their sins and iniquities will I remember no
more. Hebrews 10:17
[310] Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among
the elders of the land. Proverbs 31:23
[311] 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
[312] 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
[313] For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she
did it for my burial. Matthew 26:12
[314] 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
[315] And Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses beheld
where he was laid. Mark 15:47
[316] 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
[317] 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
[318] 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
[319] 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
[320] 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
[321] 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
[322] 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
[323] 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
[324] 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
[325] The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he
delighteth in his way. Psalm 37:23
[326] And he gave them their request; but sent leanness into
their soul. Psalm 106:15
[327] But 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. Genesis 2:17
[328] 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
[329] 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
[330] And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was
in the transgression. I Timothy 2:14
[331] Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth
favour of the LORD. Proverbs 18:22
[332] 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
[333] 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
[334] 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
[335] 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
