“…each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”

(Ephesians 5:33)

It is the simple insights that are often the most helpful, and unfortunately, often the easiest to miss.  So it is with the simple New Testament instructions for husbands to love their wives and wives to respect their husbands.  Husbands and wives everywhere could tell you that these are important qualities in a marriage, but often we overlook the plain fact that husbands and wives are called to different tasks in marriage.  Husbands are called to love their wives; wives are called to respect their husbands.  This does not mean that husbands don’t need to respect their wives any more than it means that wives don’t need to love their husbands, but it does instruct us that the greatest needs of men and women in marriage are different.

In recent years there have been a number of books exploring the differences between men and women as it relates to marriage.  Most of these books explore the biological and emotional differences between men and women and how these differences affect the marriage relationship.  The basic thrust of all of these books is that even if men and women are from different planets they need to figure out how to live in the same home peacefully.  The way forward is usually seen as moving beyond understanding the differences to learning to appreciate them.  There are some helpful insights and discoveries in these books, but most of them miss the love and respect quotient.  Ephesians 5 reminds us that at their very core women desire to feel loved and men want to be respected.

It is at this point that some marriages reach a stalemate where a husband may say, “I will start showing you love when you start showing me respect,” or a wife may say, “I’ll start showing you respect when you start showing me love.”  The unfortunate part about this is that couples may remain in that stalemate for a long time thinking that they will not budge until their spouse does.  But if we read this verse carefully we will find that it does not say, “Husbands love your wives if they respect you.”  Nor  does it say,  “wives respect your husbands as long as they are showing you love.”  Simply put, the task of the husband is love his wife, not to make sure that she respects him.  Likewise, the call to the wife is to respect her husband, not to point out all the ways he fails to show her love.

The question we ask when marriage seems more like work than a relationship shouldn’t be, in what ways is my spouse failing to do what they are supposed to?  But, how well am I doing at expressing love or showing respect?  These instructions should not be seen as doom and gloom or something we do begrudgingly.  As a matter of fact, when we follow these principles we will find not only less conflict in our marriages but a marriage where both spouses feel empowered to do what they’ve been called to do.

Pastor Lee Francois