Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Husbands Live with Your Wives in an Understanding Way..

1 Peter 3:7 (ESV)
Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

Now onto husbands, not near as much admonition in this verse. But husbands are told to live with their wives in an understanding way. This can be hard for a man. We don’t always understand women. Perhaps very rarely. Men interact differently. We show honor to the woman as the weaker vessel. That is we shouldn’t be too hard on them. Let them test our patience, and learn to be forgiving. Show them honor though.
Honor. That perhaps wasn’t the most normal thing for a husband to do in the ancient world. Show them honor. Perhaps it isn’t even that today. More and more our society is losing any semblance of self-respect. Kids don’t have it, men don’t have it, women don’t have it. Popular culture certainly doesn’t teach one to honor women. The feminist movement makes a man out to be a barbarian for thinking he should treat the woman with respectful deference. Again, at the bottom of this is nothing more than Peter telling a husband what it means to love his wife.
“Since they are heirs with you of the Grace of life.” One wonders about this. Evidently, husbands being married to unbelieving wives was not that big of a problem in the ancient world. I think about the conversion of Cornelius here. He heard Peter speak, and the whole household was baptized, slaves, children, servants, wives they were baptized at his command. The whole household became Christian. I suppose that was often the case when husbands converted, that their wives converted too, though perhaps they harbored pagan beliefs secretly. Who knows? Perhaps though, they were eager to come over when they saw how their husbands changed, and began to respect and honor them as persons. Something not all wives of the ancient world could count on.

3 comments:

Brigitte said...

It would be really nice if we could trade place for a while, then we would all understand many things much better.

Instead we are meant to learn things very slowly with many foibles, learning to love, even without understanding, all the while trying to understand. It is indeed a great mystery.

Bror Erickson said...

A mystery for sure.

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