Contrary to what you may have heard the Bible never instructs husbands to rule or command their wives. And he comes to application in the thirteenth verse, and he says, Now therefore, in light of these doctrinal indicators, here are some of the moral-ethical imperatives. Now you should live in a certain way. Prepare your minds for action, be self-controlled, set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. Now notice verse 14. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.
Okay? So, as non-Christians, we lived in ignorance. We were not simply ignorant of the way of salvation, but we were ignorant of the purposes of God for the way that life should be lived.
Now all that has changed. So the Christian husband discovers that salvation for him must impact his marital relationship with his wife. He no longer lives in ignorance. He is now to live according to knowledge—the knowledge which has become his as a result of the work of redemption within his life.
Well, what kind of knowledge? Well, certainly these things—that husbands are to live with their wives in the knowledge, first of all, of the wonderful provision that God has made for us in marriage. He also comes in the knowledge of the clear parameters that God has set for marriage to be lived the way God intended it to be. So the Christian husband is different from his non-Christian golfing buddies. He doesn't laugh at the same jokes. He doesn't read the same literature.
Why? Because he is committed to dwelling with that woman, kata nosin, according to the knowledge that he cannot step out with the parameters that God has created for that marriage bond and still enjoy the privileges God intended. Thirdly, in the knowledge of the unique purpose for which God has ordained husband and wife. Fourthly, in the knowledge of what it will mean for his wife to live out the principles of 1 Peter 3 verses 1 to 6. "'Dwell with your wives in light of what I've just said,' says Peter. You're living with a lady who is seeking to fulfill verses 1 to 6. You need to understand the implications of that." And fifthly, in the knowledge of what his wife is by nature and what she is by grace. That comes in the phrase, by nature she is the weaker partner, by grace she is a joint heir. And to that will come in a moment.
But notice the next phrase with me, will you? Husbands in the same way, dwell with your wives according to knowledge—notice this—and treat them with respect. Again, I think the authorized version is better here in that it uses the word honor. The word honor has more majesty to it, is a richer word. For example, we may respect the thirty-five-mile-an-hour signs along the road, but we don't get down and plant flowers around them or salute every time we pass.
We may respect the decision of the referee on the basketball court, but we don't bow down and worship him at the end of the game. So there is a distinction in some measure, even in our English usage, between respect and honor. And in actual fact, the word which is used here is the same word that is translated in the seventh verse of chapter 2 by the word precious. Now, to you who believe, this stone is precious.
Okay? So the literal translation back here in 1 Peter 3 7 is this. Husbands, treat your wives with preciousness. Let your wives know how precious they are to you. Precious things are afforded a special place and are treated with particular care and courtesy.
Well, let's just pause for a minute and take a discursus in the real intense practicality of this gentleman. Question. Have our wives lately been made unmistakably aware of the fact that apart from Christ, they are to us the most precious relationship that we enjoy in the whole world? Have we been about the business husbands of making sure that the preciousness of our wives is manifested and is exalted and is experienced and is enjoyed by them? Have we realized lately what it means for our wives to endeavor to live out the first six verses of 1 Peter 3? Have we realized what it is for them to walk into an environment which is totally alien to these things, as they have sought to invest themselves in motherhood, as they have endeavored to work out the implications of submission, and as they've done so, they're bombarded by their peers who are saying to them, You're a freak!
Do you realize that? There aren't many ladies like you left. Why don't you get out of that narrow, strange, Judaistic root and get in here in the mainstream? Get with us! We're the women of tomorrow! And our wives have been saying, No! Do you realize what it takes for them to say, No? Do you realize how much they are in need of affirmation, approval, affection, action, support, encouragement, preciousness? Where else will it come from?
Why is it that between the ages of thirty-seven and forty-two, there is the greatest declension amongst women in the marriage bond? I'll tell you why it is, guys. Because we're not doing the job. Oh, we're doing a job hours and hours a week.
But we're not doing the eejaw. Here comes Mr. X. He walks in, opens the back door from the garage. He's late, he's tired, and he's inconsiderate.
He's talked out. He turns to the usual spot where the male is, where he likes it, and discovers it isn't there. And so without having said anything else, he says, Where's the male? Nice greeting to begin with. So his wife scurries off to find it, unless, of course, she has decided not to go with the one-peter-three, one-to-six route, in which case she answers, Find it yourself!
Which is, of course, a possibility, but not in this illustration. As he waits for his meal to be served, which he will eat alone because he has now not come home for the seventeenth time in a row to eat with his family, he grabs the remote control for his television and flops down, half reading The Plain Dealer and half watching sixteen channels on the television. His wife watches him eat, and up he scrambles off to his racquetball appointment, which he can never miss. He returns sweaty and with just enough energy to turn on the stereo and listen to his favorite song, which goes like this, in which he always sings along on the chorus. Shel Silverstein, put another log on the fire, cook me up some bacon and some beans, and go out to the car and change the tire and wash my socks and sew my old blue jeans. Come on, baby. You can fill my pipe and then go fetch my slippers and ball me up another pot of tea, then put another log on the fire, baby, and come and tell me why you're leaving me. Now, don't I let you wash the car on Sunday? Don't I warn you when you're getting fat? Ain't I gonna take you fishing someday?
Well, a man can't love a woman more than that. Ain't I always nice to your kid's sister? Don't I take her driving every night? So sit here at my feet, because I like it when you're sweet, and you know that it ain't feminine to fight. Put another log on the fire, baby.
Come on, baby. The interesting thing is that when you turn to the pages of Scripture and you ask the question, What are husbands told to do to their wives and for their wives? None of the verbs that we've bought into. No, we're husbands told to rule their wives. No, where are they told to command their wives? No, where are they told to subject their wives? No, where are they told to order their wives? What are they told to do to their wives? Love their wives!
Love them! Let them know how precious they really are. But guys, in too many cases, there's been an abdication. Wholesale, big-style abdication. No meaningful communication. No tenderness. No understanding.
No sweetness. On the wife's part, no response. No wonder! And this crazy, sweaty, racquetball hulk who now arrives back home thinks that, despite the fact he hasn't had a meaningful conversation with his wife in the last twenty-six days, that somehow, ex nihilo, in a vacuum, she is going to be supremely interested in displaying all of her affection for him! And she isn't!
And it's hardly surprising. The honor that we bestow upon our wives is to be bestowed in light of who she is, naturally and spiritually. Now, let's deal with these two phrases, and we're through for this morning with our study, and then we can praise God together and worship.
Notice, display honor, the preciousness of your wife, first of all, because she is the weaker partner. Now, what are the two most important letters in the phrase, the weaker partner? If you were going to go through that and circle two letters that are absolutely crucial to understanding that phrase, what are they?
I'll tell you what they are. They are the E-R on the end of the word weak. Weak-er. It doesn't say as the weak partner. And yet so often, it is read as the weak partner. I am the strong guy. She is the weak partner.
That's not what it says. Peter has already said, in the twenty-fourth verse of chapter 1—if your Bible's open, you'll see it there—that we're all weak, that we are all in humanity weak. All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.
The grass withers, and the flower falls. The same picture that you have in Jeremiah 18 and Romans 9 concerning the potter and the clay. The Bible says that as humanity, we are weak. Therefore, we share that weakness. But in some dimension, the wife is the weaker partner. Notice that the word partner is there as well.
Don't let's miss that. And the recognition of the wife's greater weakness is not derogatory, and it is not in any way implying inferiority. Now, when you meet all those ladies out there that are telling you that 1 Peter 3.7 and its counterparts is suggesting that a woman is a doormat, a woman is this, a woman is that, you've got to know your Bibles, guys. You've got to be able to say, no, no, you don't… Let me explain to you something. That's not the truth. Because an alien environment is setting up straw men and women so that they may power hose them down.
Make no mistake that this is an arena of spiritual warfare. Now, while the physical factor in this phrase, the weaker partner, has been the traditional explanation, I wonder if there isn't another possibility in explaining this. Because the fact of the matter is that wives are not weaker in so many ways. They're certainly not mentally weaker than us. They're certainly not morally weaker than us. So in what way would they be weaker than us?
Well, they can't carry as many bricks up a ladder. All right? Well, is that it? Is that all we can find? Yes, and maybe that's all it is.
Maybe it is simply an acknowledgment of the physical constitution of a woman. But what about this possibility? Search your Bibles and see if there's any validity to it. What about the notion that what Peter is referring to here is the unique position taken by the 1 Peter 3 1–6 wife—i.e., the wife, in assuming her God-given role, has accepted a position of submission and therefore a position of vulnerability, and therefore a position of potential weakness. And so Peter writes to the man, and he says, Your wife, because she wants to be a wife God's way, has put herself in a position of vulnerability in her role as a woman. Therefore, make sure that you do not exploit her. Make sure that you do not take advantage of her. Make sure that you value her as precious. Don't make her do everything to the degree that she is overwhelmed with life and goes under. Don't prevent her from the opportunities that are uniquely hers. Otherwise, you make her feel useless or in control of nothing at all. Recognize that delegation within the marriage bond is not taught down.
It's lateral. If we're going to live with our wives according to knowledge, then we need to recognize who they are naturally and finally spiritually. They are heirs with us of the gracious gift of life—joint heirs, as King James Version puts it. In other words, our wives believe in the same Savior, our wives are redeemed by the same ransom, our wives live by the same grace, and they look forward to the same destiny. And you will notice that the final phrase reminds us of the transcendent dimension of all of this. Why is all of this important ultimately? Notice he does not say, So that you will all be a happy family.
Isn't that interesting? There is an approach to family life which is nothing more than idolatry. Oh, I can't worship, I can't come to this, I can't go to that.
Why? I am worshiping at the shrine of family. Now, are we to pay attention to family? Of course we are. But is that to become a God before the only God who exists in the whole world? No.
Notice what he says. The reason you're to fulfill these role relationships, as per God's instruction, is so that nothing will hinder your prayers. In other words, he says, your domestic relationships have a profound impact upon your spiritual fellowship. If your relationship with your wife is wrong, the doors, the windows of heaven will be closed to you.
Our relationship with God will never be right as long as our relationship with others is wrong. When's the last time we led our wives in prayer? I often ask couples when they come to talk with me concerning their marriage. Perhaps they've got an area of peculiar concern.
Perhaps they're burdened with some particular sphere, and they've read this and they've read that, and many things helpful are coalescing for them. As they seek the way forward, I ask them this question. Husband, when is the last time you took your wife by the hand and knelt down at the side of your bed and led her before the throne of grace in prayer?
When's the last time? And almost without exception, one makes the discovery that husbands and wives have been going everywhere and to everyone, and yet have neglected to go the one place that God says come—to his throne, where we find grace to be that kind of husband, to be that kind of wife, and where we find mercy, forgiveness for being the wrong kind of husband, forgiveness for being the wrong kind of wife. Peter is not calling us to an action that is new. He is calling us to continue.
What he is saying is, I want you to get better at fulfilling the roles uniquely given you by God, even if society laughs, even if society sneers, even if it stretches you to the limit. Resolve today. God said it. That settles it. Never mind the I believe it. That comes next. Remember, the old pastor from the inner city sorted us out on that.
Remember that? I was with him, and he said, my congregation says, God says it, I believe it, that settles it. He says, I told him, God said it, that settles it, I don't care whether you believe it or not. So here we go. God said it, that settles it. Now here we go. I believe it, now I'm gonna live it. I ask you this morning, what will become of another generation?
What do you think will happen to this nation when a generation of children growing up in a corrupted society and in a confused church, with a dad who doesn't know what he's supposed to do and a mum who hasn't got a clue, finally hit the streets to make their way in life? Loved ones, this is so crucial! Husbands, let your wives know how precious they really are. Clearly, this is a challenging message we're hearing from Alistair Begg today, especially in our current culture. This is Truth for Life. Alistair returns with prayer in just a minute. Our mission here at Truth for Life is to teach the Bible every single day, even when the message is challenging, like the message we've heard today. Scripture never airs, it remains applicable. God's Word has something to say to everybody, to every person, in every generation. To supplement Alistair's messages, we choose books with our mission in mind to help you dive deeper into our series topics. The book we're recommending today is titled Gospel Shaped Marriage, Grace for Sinners to Love Like Saints. This is a brand new book that helps Christian couples view marriage in the context of the gospel. The book explores the biblical history of marriage. It shows how marriage emulates Christ and his relationship with the church. When you read the book, you'll learn how you can rely on Christ to exhibit the grace needed in a marriage relationship. Gospel Shaped Marriage is a book that Alistair highly recommends. In fact, he wrote the foreword for this book, saying that Christian marriages that are patterned after God's instruction present us with an opportunity to shine as lights in the world. Request the book Gospel Shaped Marriage when you give a donation to support the ministry of Truth for Life.
Simply click on the app or visit us at truthforlife.org slash donate. And if you'd prefer, you can give us a call at 888-588-7884. Now, here's Alistair to close today's program with prayer. Father, we want your Word to take root in our lives today. We confess to you the gaps that we find as we turn to the mirror that's before us here. And we thank you that with you there is forgiveness and plenteous mercy, that we can come this morning and say, Well, that was yesterday, but this is a new day, and by your grace, I want to be the man of your appointing.
Help us, Lord, we pray. How else will we live as lights in the darkness? What will it mean in our society?
Surely this, at least in part—that as we go into restaurants, as we involve ourselves in recreation, as we take our wives to office functions, as we drive in the car and as we walk the streets, there would be some dimension that the world would look at and wonder, so that we might be able to magnify the God of all creation and his Son Jesus Christ. We want to offer you our lives today. And so we pray that you will come and stir up our spirits within us, that we might love you and serve you and follow you. Hear our prayer, for Jesus' sake. Amen.
I'm Bob Lapine. Just about every marriage will be tested by various temptations. Join us Monday to learn how to put a hedge of protection around your relationship. And we hope you enjoy your weekend and are able to worship with your local church. On behalf of all of us at Truth for Life, I want to take a minute and wish every dad who's listening a very happy Father's Day weekend. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.
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