In this sermon, we share detailed instructions from the Bible on how to love your wife as Christ loves the Church.
This is a follow up to my talk on How to Rule Your Wife. The first point was to rule with love. In this article, I go into detail about how that looks.
1. Value your wife
Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered (1 Peter 3:7).
1 Peter 3:7 reveals, while the relationship between a husband and wife is one of dominance and submmission, this doesn’t mean a man does not have to respect his wife. Contrarily, a lack of respect will cause a husband’s prayers to be hindered.
God also commands husbands to “dwell with their wives according to knowledge.” In other words, learn to understand women instead claiming they’re these sophisticated crazy creatures. Learning to understand a woman is an act of love—its kindness (1 Cor 13:4-7).
2. Give her Agapao love
In Ephesians 5:25, God commands husbands to “love” their your wives. The word love used in the Greek is Agapao (not Agape) and it means the following:
- To be welcoming
- Fond of (liking)
- Affectionate
- Tender (accepting)
- Appreciative
- Warm
- Compassionate
3. Don’t be bitter with her
Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them (Col 3:19).
Bitter means to be sharp; cruel (disposed to inflict pain or suffering), and severe. A husband must guard against a bitter mindset that could lead to actions that would be harmful to his wife.
This is not to say you forgo discipline and punishments for low performance and bad behavior. Never bow to someone who wants you to weaken your rule as a godly patriarch. Know the difference between bitterness and discipline; and love your wife with agape and agapao love.
4. Have sex with your wife
2 Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.
3 Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband.
4 The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.
5 Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency (1 Corinthians 7:2-5).
5. Help her grow
When you study Ephesians 5:25-33, you see what a husbands love for his wife ought to look like:
- Sanctify and cleanse her
- Wash her in the water of the word
- Christ gave offices to equip the church (Eph 4:11), so do husbands serve as a pastor, teacher, prophet, evangelist to their wives (1 Cor 14:35)
- Love her like your own body. A loving husband seeks to accommodate his wife (1 Cor 7:33)
- Love nourishes: bring up to maturity
- Love cherishes (Agapao love)
I hope this provides a clear understanding on how to love a wife. In the future, we’ll study what God says about a wife’s love for her husband.
This ministry is no longer in service. I left the Christian faith and no longer agree with some of the content posted here. However, this website will remain available for archive purposes. Read the details in my last post.
