PT-1 "A Word to Husbands" (Col. 3:19)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/20/2017 9:32 PM

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus:  PT-1 “A Word to Husbands”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  Colossians 3:19

            Message of the verses:  “19 Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them.” 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, 26 so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. 28 So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; 29 for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, 30 because we are members of His body. 31 FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH. 32 This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. 33 Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband (Ephesians 5:25-33).”

            First of all we need to think of all of the failures that the church has been a part of, and yet Christ continues to love His church.  Likewise even though a wife may make mistakes, as all people do, the husband is to continue to love her.  I have attended a marriage conference where I learned that the Bible does not tell the wife to love the husband; similarly as it says that the husband is to love his wife.  Now the Bible does say that as believers we are to love one another so that means that the wife is to love her husband, but if you look at verse 33 of Ephesians chapter 5 you see that the wife is suppose to respect her husband, and this is a very important task for the wife.  A woman needs to be loved and a husband needs to have his wife respect him, for this is the way the God has created us.

            John MacArthur writes “Paul addresses two commands to husbands.  First, they must ‘love’ their ‘wives.’  The present tense of the imperative agapate (‘love’) indicates continuous action.  The verb itself seems best understood in the New Testament to express a willing love, not the love of passion or emotion, but the love of choice—a covenant kind of love.  It could be translated, ‘keep on loving.’  The love that existed from the start of the marriage is to continue throughout the marriage; it must not give way to bitterness.  The willing, covenant love is in view here is the activity of self-sacrifice.  It is a deep affection that views the wife as a sister in the Lord and the object of a promise to be kept.  The love that Paul commands sees the wife as a weaker vessel to be cared for while at the same time a fellow-heir to grace (cf. 1 Pet. 3:7), a best friend, and life-partner.  Such love was expressed by Isaac for Rebekah.  ‘Then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and he took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her.’ (Genesis 24:67).”  Indecently the longest chapter in the book of Genesis is about Abraham’s son Isaac getting a wife as Abraham’s servant was the one who looked for a wife for Isaac.  5/20/2017 9:50 PM