The Godly Wife

Genesis 2:18  Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

The word “helper” here is someone who works alongside of the man, someone who man needs because he could not perform the tasks on his own.  It speaks of help that is given, not required.  The Psalmist uses this word of God as “Helper” in Psalm 20:2; May he send you help from the sanctuary and give you support from Zion!

There are a lot of passages of Scripture that show the husband and wife are equal in all ways but rank in the home.  Rank has nothing to do with the equality of the nature of husband and wife.  In fact, Jesus was subject to Mary and Joseph.  As His earthly parents, they held a higher rank in the home:

Luke 2:51  And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart.

In fact, the Christian husband is told to treat his wife as an equal showing her honor.  :

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.

Peter treats the submission of the Christian wife as a sign to the non-believing husband: 

1 Peter 3:1  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,

While again and again, the Christian husband is told to love his wife, the Christian wife would do well to show respect and appreciation for her husband

Ephesians 5:33  However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

While wives need to know they are loved, husbands need even more to know their wife respects them.  We need to know our wives see us doing the job God has called us to do and respect us for doing it.  God hasn’t just given the man spiritual headship of the family, He has given man the drive to be that head and to do it well.  So, it is part of the Christian wife’s job to show her respect for the husband and the job he’s doing.

Why is this important?

There are Christian men and women in the church even today who do not understand the roles of husband and wife in the Christian family.  The Christian husband and wife must know how God’s design for the Christian marriage works and their places in that design.

The Christian marriage, as we’ve seen, is much like the church in how it is organized.  The church is the bride of Christ.  As His bride, we look to Him as the head.  That is our choice.  We volunteer to take the role of submission to Christ.  Refusing to submit to Christ damages our relationship with Him.

In the family, the woman voluntarily takes a submissive role to the husband, but as we saw last week, it is only in the final decisions on family matters after the husband and wife have discussed the issue at length.  Only when the two come to an impasse does the wife need to yield to the husband’s decision.

The Christian family design is not one of employer-employee but a partnership where one partner takes on the role as the tiebreaker.

There is so much more than I can include in a short blog post in being a godly wife.  I recommend you look into this further on your own.

Marriages break up most often because the spouses do not take marriage seriously or look into the roles each is to fulfill in their relationship.  Accepting those roles will help prevent many marriage issues.