The Christian Husband

I know I turn to Phil. 2:5-8 quite a bit, but it tells us so much about Jesus’ character and how we are to act as God’s children:

⁵ Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, ⁶ who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷ but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. ⁸ And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

We see here the relationship of the Son and the Father as an example of how we are to be as Christians.  We are to humbly assume the roles God has placed us in.  While Jesus and the Father were still equal in nature, Jesus voluntarily took on a submissive role.  This is a wonderful picture of what we see in 1 Cor. 11:3 that the Head of Christ is God.  We also see both how our relationships as husbands should be to Him and to our wives:

But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.

We see from Phil. 2:8 that Jesus voluntarily humbled Himself, placing Himself under the Father’s authority.  We see this acted out in the garden.  Jesus spoke with the Father about how the payment for our sins was to be made.  Jesus yielded to the Father’s will.

I think that’s a good example of how the headship works in marriage.  The husband has the authority to make decisions regarding the family.  Our wives have voluntarily placed themselves under that authority because God says they should.  But, with authority comes responsibility.  Like the Father speaking to Jesus in the garden, the intelligent husband listens to his wife.  God doesn’t make decisions, so this isn’t a perfect analogy, but it does show how we are to act as Christian husbands.

I think this sheds some light on the “elephant in the room:”

Eph. 5:22-23 ²² Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. ²³ For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.

Yes, the husband is the head of the wife but as Christ is the head over the husband.  Do we want to be under Jesus’ thumb, or do we want to work with Him as friends?  Jesus is love incarnate.  All His actions are made with love as should ours as husbands be.  The passage in Ephesians continues:

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, ²⁶ that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, ²⁷ so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

Our job as husbands is to love our wives and do all we can to support them in their Christian walks.  A woman needs love.  They need to be told often we love them.  They are God’s treasure, and we are stewards of the purity and wealth of wisdom God has placed in them.  We fail them so often I often think women only marry men because there isn’t an alternative.

Why is this important?

I was standing in line at the grocery stores with a bouquet of flowers I had bought for my wife.  A little girl and her mother were ahead of me inline when the little girl pointed to me and said, “Look Mommy.  He did something bad.”  The mother chuckled.  I knelt down to the little girl and said, “Sweetheart, if you meet a man some day you want to marry and he doesn’t treat you like the gift from God that you are, look for someone else.”

That’s the responsibility of Christian husbands.  Our wives are gifts from God.  We must treat them as such and love them as such.  The world and the Lord are watching.

Prov 31:10 ¹⁰   An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels.