Love and Respect (26 page)

“The right word at the right time is like golden apples in silver jewelry”

(Proverbs 25:11 NIRV).

Remember, do not sign it, “With all my love.” He knows you love him. Sign it, “With all my respect.” Your husband will keep that card forever. You will walk in on him years from now and find him re-reading that card. Why? Because you said it his way—in his mother tongue. To speak in a husband’s mother tongue of respect is very powerful, indeed. One man wrote:

I had received a “respect letter” from my wife. I was so amazed by this letter I saved it . . . it clearly had a powerful effect on me. Not only did I save it, I read and re-read it. I guess if there’s one fan I want in the world, it would be my wife. And this letter seemed to fit the bill nicely. I was pleased that she did recognize some of my sacrifices, not that I’m looking to be a martyr . . . but the respect/love cycle that you talked about is right on the money.

The respect this husband felt when he wrote me is light-years from what happened to the man in the following story. It seems that Joe was ninety and dying. All his adult children were gathered around the bed, and suddenly he smelled the aroma of his wife’s apple strudel baking out in the kitchen. He said weakly, “Oh, Mary, I smell your mother’s strudel. What a woman! For seventy years I’ve been married to her. Mary, would you tell your mother I’d like just a little bit of that strudel?” Mary left but returned almost immediately without the strudel. Old Joe asked, “Mary, my daughter, where is the strudel?” Mary answered, “Mom said you can’t have any. It’s for after your funeral.”

A ridiculous story, true, but it does make a point about respecting a man in his home right up to the last. If you want a Love and Respect marriage, do not argue or fight against hierarchy. Also, guard against slowly “taking over.” Joe’s wife was so focused on the needs of others that she took over the family, and in the process her husband was once again put down, belittled, overlooked. She is an example of how a woman can be so loving toward her family she doesn’t see her disrespect for her husband. This is why I keep calling on wives to awaken to God’s revelation concerning a husband’s position as provider and protector and his need for respect. Perhaps this wife’s letter says it as well as any:

I can’t believe I’ve never heard [unconditional respect] before. My father was a pastor. We did premarital counseling, I was on staff at a major church, and I teach women’s studies at the church. I’ve sought counsel from older, wiser women, and we’ve been to marriage counseling . . . all to have my eyes opened up now through your book. I realize now that my husband is not being arrogant when he talks of feeling disrespected. That’s his love language. I also realize I must learn to respect him because of the position God gave him in our family, not because I feel he deserves or doesn’t deserve it, but because God wants me to be obedient to Scripture. He knows what’s best for me—HIS way is always best.

YOUR HUSBAND WILL FEEL YOU APPRECIATE HIS DESIRE TO PROTECT AND PROVIDE WHEN . . .

• you verbalize your admiration of him for protecting you and being willing to die for you.

• you praise his commitment to provide for and protect you and the family (he needs to know you don’t take this for granted).

• you empathize when he reveals his male mind-set about position, status, rank, or being one-up or one-down, particularly at work.

• you never mock the idea of “looking up to him” as your protector to prevent him from “looking down on you.”

• you never, in word or body language, put down his job or how much he makes.

• you are always ready to figuratively “light the candles,” as E. V. Hill’s wife did when they couldn’t afford to pay the light bill.

• you quietly and respectfully voice concerns about finances and try to offer solutions on where you might be able to cut spending.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
AUTHORITY—APPRECIATE
HIS DESIRE TO SERVE
AND TO LEAD

I
t was question-and-answer time in one of our Love and Respect Conferences, and the topic was, “The Husband’s Authority in the Home.” An eager young wife said, “I want him to be the head; I want him to be the leader. I just want to make sure that he makes decisions in keeping with what I want.”

The room broke into laughter—men as well as women (perhaps a lot of the men present knew exactly what she was talking about). The gal turned beet red. She had made the comment in all innocence. She wasn’t being belligerent or malicious or trying to demand her rights. She was just being honest. I had to chuckle a little myself. Her innocent remark reminded me of a story I chose not to share at that moment because I wanted to spare her more embarrassment. It seems a couple got married and decided that he would make all the major decisions and she would make all the minor decisions. After twenty years, he realized that there had not been one major decision yet.

WHO’S THE BOSS AT YOUR HOUSE?

In today’s feminist-dominated culture, the question of, “Who’s the boss?” can be a source of humor or of conflict. Many men have been cowed by the feminist argument that men and women are totally equal, and husbands don’t have any more authority than their wives do.

But for the Christian couple, the question is, what does the Bible teach about who has authority in the home? We have already seen in chapter 17 that Paul lays out the biblical hierarchy of the home: The man is the head, and the wife is to be subject to him (see Ephesians 5:22–23). And we have seen that the goodwilled husband does not try to use his position of head as some kind of club to beat down his wife and his children. He acts responsibly—and lovingly—to be the leader that God has asked him to be.

Nonetheless, the subject of male headship and authority is a sensitive one. The young woman who said her husband is to be the head and make the decisions as long as his decisions met with her approval is not alone. Many wives feel the same way. In fact, many wives would tell you that they are better decision-makers than their husbands, and they often are. They have better judgment than their husbands on many fronts, yet they are stuck with this concept of having to defer to their husbands and let them “be the boss.”

A wife’s deferential attitude should not undermine her God-given abilities: “She considers a field and buys it; from her earnings she plants a vineyard” (Proverbs 31:16).

A wife who runs her own business and admits she has a strong personality struggles with submitting to a husband who is “not much of an encourager.” She realizes the issue is really “between me and God,” and she knows that if she could trust the Lord:

. . . it would be so much more peaceful. Wow, why is it so hard to lay it down? I can see it, and I believe it, but I’m not doing it. I hear my daughter, who is fifteen, talk about never getting married because she will never submit to a man, and I feel very ashamed. We are having a lot of good talks about this stuff, but, of course, more is caught than taught, and I want to get it right. So, anyhow, I am going to keep at it, and by God’s grace get it right! (And try not to strangle my husband in the process.)

DOES SCRIPTURE TEACH “MUTUAL SUBMISSION”?

Many Christian wives are uneasy with subjects like headship and authority. When Paul pens lines like Ephesians 5:22–23, he sounds hopelessly sexist, especially to women who have domineering husbands. And it doesn’t help any when he adds in 1 Timothy 2:12: “I do not allow a woman to . . . exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.” In recent years there has been a movement in the church among some scholars and teachers to suggest that the Bible talks about “mutual submission”—that is, that men and women are to be equally subject to one another. The text that is used for this position is Ephesians 5:21: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (NIV).

When women “follow the lead of their husbands” (Titus 2:5 NIRV), they trust God to guide their decisions.

According to the mutual submission point of view, Ephesians 5:21 means that “every Christian should be subject to every other Christian, and wives and husbands, especially, should be ‘subject to one another.’”
¹
The idea behind mutual submission in this sense is that the wife does not owe submission of any unique kind to her husband.

But if this is true, it is hard to explain Ephesians 5:22, where wives are clearly told to “submit to your husbands
as to the Lord
” (NIV; italics mine
)
. As I mentioned in chapter 17, the Greek word for “submit” is
hupotasso,
which means to rank under or place under. As a wife places herself under her husband’s protection and provision, there will come moments when disagreements arise. Honest stalemates can still happen. If a decision must be made, the wife is called upon to defer to her husband, trusting God to guide him to make a decision out of love for her as the responsible head of the marriage.

What, then, did Paul mean when he said Christians should submit to one another? For husbands and wives, I believe the answer is found in Love and Respect. If husband and wife have a conflict over how to spend money, for example, the husband “submits” to his wife by meeting her need to feel that he loves her in spite of the conflict. He submits to her need for love (see Ephesians 5:21, 25). On the other side, the wife “submits” to her husband during a conflict by meeting her husband’s need to feel that she respects him in spite of the unresolved issue. She submits to his need for respect (see Ephesians 5:21–22, 33).

Note that Paul and Peter both begin their discussions of marriage by speaking of submission (see Ephesians 5:22 and 1 Peter 3:1), but they end their discussion by speaking of respect (see Ephesians 5:33 and 1 Peter 3:7). The bottom line is that if husband and wife approach each other with the Love and Respect Connection in mind, all will be well in the marriage, even if a decision appears to be stalemated. A wife who attended our Love and Respect Conference wrote:

I was struck by the “back to basics.” There is much talk about communication in marriage, and meeting each other’s needs, when the simple solution to our marriage problems is in God’s Word. We say that the Word gives us what we need for life and godliness but stray from that into popular psychology. I periodically read the Ephesians passage to remind myself of submission. Although humbling myself to submit is hard, having a considerate, wise Christian husband makes it easier.

HUSBANDS ARE RESPONSIBLE TO “MAKE THE CALL”

Obviously, someone can say, “All right, Emerson, suppose love and respect are both present—he wants to love her and she wants to respect him. Which way should the decision go? Who is going to make the call?” I believe that in most cases when love and respect are both present, couples resolve the conflict. Two goodwilled people who feel loved and respected almost always discover a creative alternative that resolves the conflict.

When love and respect are present in the marriage, husbands and wives process things far more wisely. They accept the fact that a degree of conflict is inevitable in a marriage relationship. As the conversation progresses, neither one overstates his or her position. No one “loses it” emotionally. Proposals are made to solve the conflict. There are offers and counteroffers. There is give and take. All of this results yin a course of action that makes sense to both of them.

There are times when a wife “must obey God rather than men”

(Acts 5:29).

We have already seen that Paul clearly teaches that there are times when wives should submit to their husbands as head of the household (see Ephesians 5:22–23). Does this mean that a wife must submit to something illegal, wrong, or evil? Should she go along with being beaten by her husband or watching him beat the children? Should she submit to his plans to do something dishonest or unethical? The clear scriptural answer is, of course not, because that would be preposterous. When a man acts in this way, he is not a goodwilled husband, and he forfeits his right to be head and to be followed. A wife’s submission to God takes precedence over her submission to her husband. She is not to sin against Christ in order to defer to her husband. (Read the story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5:1–11.) And, sadly, let me add, a wife may need to physically separate from her husband (1 Corinthians 7:11) or divorce him for adultery (Matthew 19:9).

As we have seen so far, there is much a husband and wife can do to “mutually submit” to one another through love and respect. But when somebody has to call the shots, the husband is responsible to do it. How should a wife act if she strongly disagrees with her husband about some issue? First Timothy 2:12 has some advice. Paul writes, “I do not allow a woman to . . . exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.” Now, if Paul ever penned a sexist line, this would seem to be it. But the Bible is not sexist. The Bible is sharing what the Hebrew mind understood about wisdom and real empowerment. As discussed in part 1, women can win their husbands without a word through their “chaste and respectful behavior” (1 Peter 3:1–2). Is Peter saying that women are insignificant? Of course not. What he is saying is that your quiet and gentle spirit will melt your man’s heart.

If you’re in a conflict and you remain respectful and quiet as you distance yourself a bit instead of preaching, lecturing, or criticizing, what will he do? Well, it depends. If your quietness is the right kind of quietness—respectful and dignified, not pouty and sour—he will move toward you. He will want to comfort you and take care of you. In essence, he will want to show you love. For the goodwilled husband, the wife’s quiet and respectful behavior will act as a magnet.

“Wives, follow the lead of your husbands. . . . Then let them be won to Christ without words by seeing how their wives behave”

(1 Peter 3:1 NIRV).

Feminists say the Bible puts down women. Actually, the Bible holds up women and gives them advice on how to realize their fondest desires. You don’t have to fight. You don’t have to push and push and struggle to understand him as you try to move closer only to have him coldly move away. There is another way to get his love, and the Bible tells you what it is. Your quiet and respectful behavior will win him. This is the key to empowerment:
you get what you want by giving him what he wants.