1 Peter 3:1-7 "Wives and Husbands" | SERMON ONLY

Hi, my name is George Sinclair. I'm the lead pastor of Church of the Messiah. It is wonderful

that you would like to check out some of the sermons done by Church of the Messiah,

either by myself or some of the others. Listen, just a couple of things. First of all,

would you pray for us that we will open God's Word well to His glory and for the good of people

like yourself? The second thing is, if you aren't connected to a church and if you are a Christian,

I would really like to encourage you to find a good local church where they believe the Bible,

they preach the gospel, and if you have some trouble finding that, send us an email. We will

do what we can to help connect you with a good local church wherever you are. And if you're a

non-Christian checking us out, we're really, really, really glad you're doing that. Don't hesitate to

send us questions. It helps me actually to know, as I'm preaching, how to deal with the types of

things that you're really struggling with. So God bless.

Let's just bow our heads in prayer as we stand. Father, sometimes Your Word frightens us,

and even maybe Father embarrasses us if our friends who follow other ways were to hear this. We ask,

Father, that Your Holy Spirit would lead us and guide us into all truth,

that You would bring a deep remembrance to us, Father, of who Jesus is and what He's accomplished

for us on the cross, and to understand that the words You speak to us are words of love

and words of wisdom for our good. And we ask this in the name of Jesus, Your Son and our Savior. Amen.

Please be seated. And I set my timer.

So I've had the great privilege over the years to try to help different people learn how to do some,

you know, not just some public speaking in general, but also in particular how to open the Bible,

how to teach the Bible. And one of the things that we always say, it's just a very common thing in

rhetoric, is you want to have an opening that grabs people, that makes either create some tension that

has to be resolved or create some curiosity, which people are curious about what's going to happen next.

And you cannot beat, in terms of creating tension, saying in Canada in 2024,

likewise wives be subject to your own husbands,

which is immediately tension-inducing for many people and curiosity-inducing forever, for others.

The first time I preached on this text was, I don't know, 10 or 12 years ago. At that time,

there was a coffee place down on Rideau Street that I'd go to between the services, and I was

coming back, cutting behind the Ottawa Little Theatre to come into this store, and an older saint from

the congregation looked at me, and I was wearing my Birkenstocks, and he said to me,

no, you don't have your dancing shoes on. And I said, dancing shoes? He said, well, I always look forward to

ministers speaking on texts like this, to see how they dance around the text and never deal with it.

And so, once again, I don't have any dancing shoes on, I have sandals, but I don't want to make light of a text

which is so hard and threatening for many Canadians. So first, what we're going to do is, I'm going to read through the text,

and then I'm going to, well, make a lot of different comments about it, and at the end of the day, I'm going to commend the text to you.

So if you have your Bibles, it's 1 Peter 3, verses 1 to 7. If you don't have your Bibles, those blue books over there are Bibles.

1 Peter 3:1–7

You can get up of your seat and go and grab your own, or if you have a YouVersion, you can look at it on your phone.

So here's how the text goes. Likewise, so it's, he's earlier given some advice to slaves, and it's connecting

what he's about to say to women who are married, Christian women who are married, and Christian men who are married.

He's connecting it to the whole general moral teaching that he'd given before in the first two chapters.

So likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word,

they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives.

Now just pause here for two short little things.

I spend time in academic commentaries as part of my preparation for a sermon like this,

and one of the things I, in particular, am looking for is to see whether there's some translation issues

from the original language into the modern language.

And sometimes, of course, there's multiple meanings or a range of meaning or something like that,

and I could say a couple of things about the word be in submission or subject to,

but at the end of the day, the word's actually, it's, all of this text is actually quite well translated into English.

It's not, I'm not going to be able, in a sense, to rescue some of the problems that we might have with the text

by saying, well, in the original language, it's, no, that's not an option to us.

There is a language thing which isn't quite caught later on, which I'll mention,

but this is fairly well translated.

Verse 2, oh, sorry, we'll just go back a bit.

So even if some do not, oh, by saying if some do not,

it's implying that not all Christian women are married to Christian men.

So this is a word to Christian wives, regardless as to whether or not your husband is a Christian,

and actually the same idea is there later on with husbands,

but that's where I'm actually going to show the original language brings out a nuance that you can't get in English.

But the husbands, it's, once again, it's recognizing that not all Christian husbands will have Christian wives.

So regardless as to whether your wife is a Christian or outside of the Christian faith,

the command to the husband is still the same.

So verse 2, when they, that's referring to the wife's husband,

when they see your respectful and pure conduct,

do not let your adorning be external,

the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold, jewelry, or the clothing you wear,

but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart

with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit,

which in God's sight is very precious.

And just before we go any farther,

the text isn't saying that a woman shouldn't wear makeup or really beautiful dresses

or anything like that.

It's just really saying put first things first.

And the first thing is, in a sense, you work on you.

And the second thing is you work on your clothing.

I don't know how many of you, if you go into the self-help sections of libraries

and you read books on how to have a good attitude or something like that,

one of the things you'll see in those often is,

they'll use the example of how much time a person might spend in the morning to look good,

and then ask yourself how much time you spend to get yourself with having a good attitude for the day.

And a lot of people spend their time in the bathroom looking at the mirror,

being grumpy about their day,

and all their time to look good.

And they'll say, you know, what attracts you to people is actually working on your inner self.

That's what attracts you.

That's often what gets, you know, the promotions or etc.

is that inner aspect of your life in terms of your attitudes and your thoughts and your habits.

So it's actually, in some ways, this is no different than the self-help literature

is just, in a sense, playing a riff on this old Christian teaching.

So it's not saying to women, don't put on makeup or anything like that.

It's saying, make sure this is the first thing that you're working on.

Verse 5,

Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way or with knowledge.

It could either be translated as understanding or with knowledge.

Showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel.

Yikes.

We're going to talk about that in a bit.

Since they are heirs with you of the grace of life,

so that your prayers may not be hindered.

And in the original language, that word, heirs with you,

there's a bit of a double meaning in the original language.

And it's saying, so that someday they might be heirs or that they already are heirs with you.

So it's once again acknowledging that the Christian husband might not have a Christian wife.

And as you'll notice, there's six verses spoken to the wife

and only one verse that's spoken to the husband.

And so some of you might say, whoa, that's way worse than I remembered

when Emma read the text just a few minutes ago.

And it just seems very, very sort of wrong to us.

Referring to a woman, the wife, as a weaker vessel.

Every single one of us, like I could get up here and I could effortlessly go on a rant about this text.

And I could well imagine that if I was to read something like this at the University of Ottawa,

if I was to, not only to, if I read this at the,

if I read this amongst the conservative MPs or the liberal MPs or the NDP MPs,

there'd probably be no difference in their reaction to it.

And people would tell me that I have blood on my hands if I don't repent of this text

and tell people to disregard it.

That telling wives to be submitting to their husbands will lead to the violence against women

and literally death of women, that I actually literally would have blood on my hands.

But I'm not going to go, we all know, we all can easily fill in the blanks

about how people would talk about this text.

And I'm going to walk towards that.

But what I'm going to do is I'm going to give two points.

I'm going to give a big picture explanation of the seven verses.

And then I'm going to talk about some of the objections to it.

And then I'll come back and help us to understand these particular big lessons.

And so if you could put up the first one, that would be very helpful.

And the first one is from Jesus to the wife.

Remember, if those of you heard my sermon last week on slavery,

one of the things which is unique about this biblical text,

which isn't obvious in the English, is that Peter talks directly to slaves.

He talks to them as if they have integrity, autonomy.

I mean, they don't have full autonomy because they're slaves, obviously.

In a very fundamental way, they don't.

But internally, they have integrity.

They have dignity.

They can do something even in their context.

So he's talking directly to them.

And in the same way here, we have a similar type of thing.

For those of us who are husbands, we listen in while the text speaks directly to wives.

And then for those who are wives, we listen in directly as God speaks directly to the husbands.

And for those who are not married, we all get to listen in to what the word of God says directly to each group.

So from Jesus to the wife, you have a quest.

And I'm using the word quest because one of the standard ways of understanding a quest is it's a long endeavor that changes you.

It's a long endeavor towards a goal, towards an end that changes you in the process.

Classic example would be in The Lord of the Rings and Frodo's quest to destroy the ring.

And it takes a lot of pages.

It goes through lots of hardship.

And it changes him in the whole process as he's on this long quest.

And so how we should hear these texts is that in both cases, it's going to be a quest.

So from Jesus to the wife, you have a quest with three strands woven together to learn to submit to and respect your husband,

to grow a deeply quiet and gentle spirit, to learn to live without fear.

And three strands that are complementary, three strands woven together will make it far stronger.

And of course, if it's mixed with different colors, it will also be more beautiful.

And so I've used that analogy on purpose, that there are these three complementary strands, but they're different.

And they're to be woven together, to learn to submit to and respect your husband,

and to grow a deeply quiet and gentle spirit, and to learn to live without fear.

And now there's a direct word to the husbands.

From Jesus to the husband, you have a quest.

If you could put up the second point, that would be great.

You have a quest with three strands and a solemn warning woven together.

The wife doesn't have a solemn warning.

The husband has a solemn warning.

What are the three strands?

To lovingly know or understand your wife, to honour her as precious or worthy,

to remember that she's your co-heir in glory,

and to refuse this quest will mean that your prayers are hindered.

So once again, there's three strands.

Complimentary, that have to be woven together.

And it's still a quest.

The quest is, for me as a husband, is to lovingly know and understand my wife,

to honour her as precious or worthy,

to remember at all times, or in a deep way, that she's my co-heir in glory,

and for me to refuse to do these things,

means that my prayers will be hindered.

Now, some of you might say,

okay, George, that's a little bit different than what I thought you were going to say and summarize,

but, you know, frankly, it still sucks.

Like, it's terrible advice, George.

Like, how, this is 2024.

Like, you're in downtown Ottawa.

You're minutes from the Parliament building.

You're minutes from CBC.

Your embassies all surround you.

There's University of Ottawa's right there.

How on earth can you still stand up here and say that's the summary of the text?

Like, first of all, why is it so terrible to women,

and why are they having something which is so completely and utterly different?

Like, why aren't they, like, maybe, you know, maybe I could accept it if it said,

okay, husband, submit to your wife, wife, submit to your husband.

Like, I still think that's terrible, George,

because, you know, surely you'd think that it's not a matter of submission.

It's a matter of finding your power, learning how to roar,

grabbing a hold of your own destiny,

and expecting, honoring each other's quest to be more powerful,

to be stronger, to roar, to be themselves.

Like, there's all sorts of, but, you know, it's terrible advice,

and it's different advice, and George, like,

frankly, George, I don't even know what to say to you.

Well, there's a little bit of a pushback

before we lose too much sleep over this.

And, by the way, if you're here outside the Christian faith,

and you don't know much about Christians,

texts like this terrify Christians.

Like, if you watch this thinking that this is something

that we beat our chest on all the time,

and talk about all the time,

I can guarantee you that if you go to most conservative churches in the city,

they're terrified of texts like this,

and they rarely talk about it.

I can guarantee you that that's the case.

And if they do talk about it,

they undermine the text.

They say, well, well, well, you know,

there's other places in the Bible

that says that we should all be quiet, have quiet minds.

And there's other places in the Bible

where it says we should all submit.

And they all give you all these different Bible verses,

and the end of the way is that they've erased the text.

So if you're outside the Christian faith,

you should understand that's a problem.

I would say it's a problem for Canadian Christians right now.

But how do we respond to this

and to the voices we hear in our head from our culture?

Here's the first thing.

For 55 years,

there has been a consistent message in Canada,

fairly consistent types of messaging in Canada

about how to have successful marriages for 55 years.

And the marriage has all been not about submission,

about autonomy,

about a whole range of things like that.

We could all effortlessly list,

probably if we just sat down,

what's the five pieces of marriage advice

or seven pieces of marriage advice that our culture gives us?

And we'd probably put it all down.

And at the end of the day,

we'd probably come up with a list of 10 or 11 things

that say we'd all agree that this is what Canadians would say.

And here's the question we have to ask Canadians.

How is it working?

After 55 years of advice,

are marriages way up?

Are there no divorces?

Is there no abuse in marriage?

Are all children wanted?

Are people open to even having children?

Are people marrying early

because it's such a good thing they want to get in on it?

No.

Marriages are down.

Abortions are up.

Unhappiness is way up.

Insecurities are way up.

We've had 55 years of consistent advice,

and it is not making men and women in Canada happier.

And it is not making us have better marriages.

Einstein famously said that one definition of insanity

is to do the same thing over and over,

hoping for different results.

And that's our Canadian culture.

So, you know, if in fact they could say,

listen, you know,

there used to be this old way of talking about things,

and for the last 55 years,

you know, we've taught a new and better way

to talk about marriage.

And just look at how spectacular everything in Canada is.

And then we might have to say,

well, I don't know,

maybe this text doesn't have anything to teach us.

But that's not the case.

In fact, I can tell you absolutely right now,

if your marriage advice is to learn how to roar

and be your authentic self,

that is a recipe to ruin a marriage.

It's a recipe to make it hard for you to marry.

And here's another thing about this.

Okay, well,

okay, well,

maybe you have something there.

Maybe we should listen.

And now that I look at your points,

there's a couple of good things in there.

Like you said to the women,

the wives,

that they're to learn to live without fear.

Okay, that's actually a really good point.

I'm a little bit surprised

that I actually have to say

that that's actually pretty smart advice.

I'm a bit surprised it's in the Bible.

I don't know,

it's still making women a bit passive.

I still understand why the men and women are different,

and I think that's just completely wrong.

And then to that,

we have another time out.

You see,

our culture is incoherent about women.

Why are we incoherent about women?

Well,

here's four different messages

we hear about women in our culture.

Message number one,

women are very,

very specific and unique

and different types of people.

And their voice absolutely has to be heard.

And that's why

whenever Pierre Polyev,

if he wins the next election

or if Trudeau wins a re-election,

he should really make sure

that there's at least 50% men

and 50% women

because you need to hear

the very distinct and unique voice of women

in cabinet.

And you need the same thing

in university faculties,

you need the same thing

in boardrooms.

Women have this very unique voice

which needs to be heard.

Our culture also says,

might even be by the same blogger,

a week later,

a week later,

men and women are basically the same.

The only thing that's different about them

is their plumbing

and they should be treated completely

and utterly equally in all things.

And then a week later,

there'll be another blog.

We all know that gender differences

are a social construct.

They're just invented by our culture

and generally they're oppressive.

Okay,

well,

one moment,

if that's the case,

then why is it

that you need the same 50%

on the boardrooms?

And our culture never asks that question.

And really,

you think men and women

are so clear and distinct

that you can be very clear

and that's why you need 50% men

and 50% women.

If men and women

are so completely distinct,

then why is it

that I could declare

that I'm a woman

and you need to accept it?

How on earth

is that showing

that there's actually

something powerful

and unique about a woman?

And once again,

in our culture,

you could have the same blogger

writing each one of those points

four consecutive weeks

and never thinking

that they've said anything

inconsistent or incoherent.

In some ways,

our culture has to

pick a lane

before you criticize this text.

Pick a lane.

But George,

what about women being weaker?

Didn't it say that in the text?

Like, George,

George,

that's just

so wrong

to say,

well, actually,

I think the Bible's

actually pretty wise on this.

And in fact,

actually,

I think the Bible here

is giving

what we deeply want

in our culture.

It's subverting

our culture,

but at the same time,

if you listen to the Bible,

it's giving us

what we actually really want

and long for

beneath our incoherence.

Why do I say that?

Okay,

women aren't the weaker vessel.

I think

Mike Tyson

should be able

to fight

mixed martial arts

with women.

I think whoever

is the heavyweight champion

of mixed martial arts

man should be able

to fight women equally.

If you believe that,

you will literally

have blood on your hands.

Literally,

you will have blood

on your hands.

The man would kill

the woman,

not on purpose,

but he would.

What about Leah Thomas?

What's the 146th

ranked college swimmer?

And he declares

that he's a woman

and he wins

the woman's races?

But here's the thing

about this text.

On one hand,

this is just saying

anything,

I mean,

who knows,

maybe we'll get cancelled

because I just said this

and it's on YouTube

and somebody will find out.

But we all know

that's true

and people just don't

want to say it out loud.

Very few people

want to say it out loud.

But at the same time,

this is not saying

anything derogatory

about women

because of that text

about developing

a quiet spirit.

Who's stronger?

A person with a chaotic spirit

or a quiet spirit?

Who's stronger?

The person who cannot

control their impulses,

cannot control their greed,

cannot control their lust,

cannot control their anger,

cannot control

their power hungriness,

cannot just,

whatever whim strikes them,

they want to get

what they want

and they have,

in fact,

a chaotic spirit.

Who is stronger?

A person like that

or a person

who's quiet and calm?

We all know

that the person

who's quiet and calm

is the stronger person.

Constant movies,

constant novels,

the person always flying,

the boss,

the husband,

the wife,

always flying off

in rages

and often the underlings

are the ones

that actually have

the quiet spirit,

can put up with the things

and just quietly

get things done.

We all know

that in the event

of some terrible tragedy

happening

and some of us

completely and utterly

come unglued

and can't think straight

and maybe we're crying

and we're raging

and we're worrying

and then we're completely frozen

and we feel afterwards

that it's such a blessing

that somebody who loves us

and cares for us

comes alongside

and they're calm

and they can make the decisions.

The calm person

is the strong person

and it even goes further

because when it talks

about a quiet

and gentle spirit,

the quiet spirit

is not a passive spirit.

The quiet spirit

is the strong spirit.

Simple example.

Daniel Avitan,

there's me,

Daniel Avitan.

There's me,

there's Daniel Avitan.

Okay?

Look at our arms,

there's me,

there's Daniel Avitan,

right?

How easy would it be

for me to push

Daniel Avitan over?

Well,

I mean,

maybe,

you know,

just because I'm his boss,

he'd let me push him

a little bit,

but the fact is

if he just wanted

to stand his ground,

you know,

or me and Andrew,

or me and Patrick,

how easy do you think

it's going to be

to push Andrew over?

He's going to just be

quiet and calm.

Same with Patrick.

Wouldn't even be

working up a sweat

as I try to push them over.

This is passive.

Throw it away.

The chaotic spirit

is the passive spirit,

overwhelmed by passions,

idols, fears, whims,

insecurities,

insanities.

The quiet spirit

is the strong spirit,

able to maintain a course,

able to see clearly,

able to choose,

able to love,

able to serve.

This Bible text

is actually warning

is actually calling

the woman

to develop

the strongest

possible strength.

And even the language

of co-heirs,

if you look at verse 7

where it says,

you know,

one of the things

for a husband

is to remember

that his wife

is an heir with him.

Ours just says,

are heirs with you

or it could be co-heirs.

should I add a couple

of other politically

incorrect things

to say in my particular

sermon this morning?

But here's the thing.

Increasingly in Canada,

rights and the protection

that come along with them

are merely that

which the courts

and the parliament

or the house of,

the parliament decides.

But when the Bible here

says that I'm to remember

that Louise is a co-heir

with me,

this is saying

something very profound.

You see,

because it's picking up

on an idea

that when Adam and Eve,

you know,

whether or not you believe

in them literally,

that's a whole other talk.

You can ask me about that

at coffee.

But that Adam and Eve,

in a sense,

they're created

so that human beings

would be the heir

of all things.

And that's squandered

when human beings fall

and they become proud

and they try to become

their own gods.

And so the whole message

of the gospel

is that God sees

our profound and deep need

and out of love for us

and knowing that we cannot

leave ourselves

to fix ourselves,

that he sends his son

to come and be amongst us

and to live the life

that we can live,

to die the death

that we deserve,

but that would unmake us,

to face the judgment

that we deserve,

to bear the shame

that we deserve,

all which would

completely and utterly

unmake us.

And he does all of that

for us completely

and utterly out of love.

And the purpose is

to restore us

to a relationship with him.

And so when the Bible text

is saying that

Louise and I are co-heirs,

it's saying that

there's something

about Louise and me

and our dignity

and our integrity

and what it means

to be human

that is something

that God created

the entire universe

with having human beings

with this type

of proper dignity

and proper worth

and proper integrity.

And so it's saying

that there's something

about human beings

and their integrity

that goes all the way

into the very,

very depths of time

and ancient time

and it's woven

into our very,

very nature.

And by the time

the same language

errs,

it's saying that

no matter how high

a mystic goes,

it goes right

into the future,

it goes into the new heaven

and the new earth,

that there's something

equal that has integrity

and dignity

and a proper place

that's given by God,

not by the state.

The state will be judged

by God

in whether or not

it recognizes

the integrity

and dignity

of human beings

because the state

does not get

to decide that

and there's something

that is of dignity

and worth

that goes right back

to creation

and goes into

the new creation

and that's what

the Bible is telling us,

that there is such

a profound equality

between men and women

that goes right back

to creation

and into the new creation

and at the same time

the difference

between a man and woman

is mysterious

and obviously

it's going to work

itself out in a different case

in every particular person

it's going to be

culturally different

but there's something

there which is different.

There's something there

which is different.

Let's look at our two points

and just try to listen to them.

If you could put them up again

that would be very helpful.

So the first one

is from Jesus to the wife.

You have a quest

with three strands

woven together.

Woven together for strength

woven together for beauty.

Now as I talked about before

submit and respect

is it to be a type of posture.

It ultimately has to also

lead into behavior

but it's a type of posture.

I don't know why it is

that he says

respect for the husband

rather than some other word

but that's the word

that's given to us.

Submit and respect

are like dimmer switches

as I talked about last week

not on and off switches

and it's a relative word.

How a woman

is going to play that out

in the case of a husband

which is very boorish

very absent

very autocratic

uncaring and demanding

is going to look

very different

than a husband

who takes verse 7

very very seriously

or at least it should.

And as I talked about

last week with slaves

the Bible is designed

in such a way

that it assumes

that there's going to have

to be communal discernment

and prayer

in the reading of the Bible

as maybe all the moms

in a church

where they have groups

together of moms

or women

and they talk about

these things

and they struggle with them

and they pray with each other

and they weep with each other

at the hard things

that some wives

have to go through

or they rejoice

with other wives

with the wonderful things

that they're going through

and there's a rejoicing

and there's a commiserating

and there's a deep prayer

and there's a studying

of God's word

as these things

are figured out

in terms of what it means

but that's a fundamental

type of posture.

And then the second thing

that is to be in a sense

part of their quest

is to grow a deeply quiet

and gentle spirit.

Well that's a wonderful thing

to grow.

Why is it not the same

for the husband and the wife?

I don't know why

it's not the same.

You can't go behind the text

to figure that out

but that's the quest

which is given.

And then finally

to learn to live without fear.

Like why is that bad advice

those last two?

And if those last two

are part of the advice

then maybe that first piece

of advice is also something

which is needed.

And then look at the second one

from the Jesus to the husband.

Now here is where

Bible Christians nowadays

quickly lose their mind

because they try to jump in

and fill this text

with all sorts of things

that aren't there in the text.

So here's the thing

that you would expect.

Our culture would expect.

And here's the things

that we worry about

with this text

when it comes to

what the Bible is saying

to me, a husband.

At the earlier service

there's a fellow

who comes regularly.

He used to be a speechwriter.

He would write speeches

for the prime minister

and for cabinet ministers regularly.

He made his living

writing speeches.

So I said to him,

I said you must have had

lots of times.

He's just at 8 o'clock service

there's like there's

seven people and me.

So we have a bit of a conversation.

I said there must have been

lots of times

when you were writing speeches

where you'd sit down

with the cabinet minister

or the prime minister

as advisors

and they'd say

we'd like a speech on this.

And then you'd go back

and you'd say to your wife

at the end

I don't really know

if they know

what they want me to write.

I have no idea

what they just really

told me to do.

Like it wasn't very coherent

or straight.

And I said that to him.

He said that happened

about like almost

100% of the time.

They actually didn't really know

what they wanted me to say.

But they wanted me

to write something to say.

Anyway, so I said you know

so normally

if you hear this first bit

what you're going to expect

with the second bit

is the lesson to the husbands

is this.

George, you need to learn

how to speak clearly.

You need to learn

how to speak strategically.

You need to be clear

and give very, very clear

easy to follow commands

to your wife.

And that's what the Bible says, right?

No.

It's not there.

In fact, the husband

is given a completely

different quest.

You see, all of the advice

to leaders,

obviously if you read

Stephen Covey's

Seven Habits of Highly Effective Leaders

because ultimately

there's a lot of

just common wisdom,

one of the pieces of advice

for highly effective leaders

is seek first to understand.

But generally speaking

we don't like that bit very much

and what we work on

is how to explain ourselves

more clearly.

And often in marital conflict

what we think is

what we need

is for me to explain

more clearly.

And if I finally just

nail the right words

the problem is gone.

But the Bible here says,

George,

don't think of all the things

you should have said

or could have said better.

Work on understanding

your wife

with clear-eyed knowledge.

Clear-eyed,

lovingly understanding

your wife.

Work on that.

Clear-eyed means

she married a sinner,

I married a sinner.

It means there's strengths

and weaknesses,

there's glories,

there's wounds from the past,

you know, whatever.

There's dreams and desires

and try to understand

your wife.

And try to understand

your wife with love.

And the second thing is,

and this is similar

to the first one,

is George,

you need to figure out

ways to honor your wife.

That she's worthy

or she's precious.

You need to figure that out,

George.

That's your task.

That's your quest

in your marriage

to figure that out.

Now once again,

in this text

it's very, very interesting.

The Bible doesn't say,

wives,

you get to determine

when your husband

is honoring the way

he should.

And husbands,

the Bible text

doesn't say

that you get to control

when the wife

is submitting

as she should.

No power is given

to either of us.

If you say,

well that makes

absolutely no human sense,

then the Bible

would say,

right.

Yes,

we agree.

and then finally,

the third one is

that I'm to work on

remembering at all times

that she's my co-heir.

She will be in heaven

with me

and she has this dignity

and worth.

And then finally,

there's a warning to me

that if I refuse this quest,

my prayers will be hindered.

This works itself out.

I'm almost done.

Just two very brief things

in closing.

Another way to look

at these two quests

is in terms of

what a husband and wife

should do

when there is conflict

or unhappiness.

So let's say

there's conflict

and unhappiness

and maybe we decide

let's just give this 48 hours

because I don't know,

we're just not getting

anywhere with it.

And in general,

in our culture,

it would say,

okay, go work

on how you love each other more

or how to communicate better

or all that.

And you know,

I'm not saying

those are bad pieces of advice,

but the Bible

would actually give us

different advice.

It'd say,

you know,