“Husbands, love your wives and do not become bitter with them.” ~Colossians 3:19
Marriage has been a fight for survival from the beginning of time. The present-day battle of the sexes is nothing new. Feminists rail against biblical marriage because the thought of submitting to a husband is barbaric and demeaning. But Feminism, with all its evils, is not the primary problem. The lack of masculine leadership is the principal problem; it has been since the Garden. Modern men respond to Feminism not by assuming masculine responsibility and seeking to win women back with strong, confident leadership but by agreeing with them that marriage is a bad deal for men as well. “The courts are stacked against us. A woman can take almost everything I have, including my children. Marriage is a bad deal for men.” Black-pilled (at least in the area of marriage) MGTOWs (Men Going Their Own Way) have blamed women for everything, becoming resentful. “Masculine” influencers encourage young men never to get married; in other words, never truly love a woman.
Marriage is risky. It always has been. You are entrusting yourself to another person, opening yourself up to the possibility of the greatest pain you can ever experience. But it is also true that you may experience some of the deepest joys known to a man. Masculine men take risks and take on responsibility. Effeminate men hide behind all the excuses of everything being against them, whine, and refuse to fight for what is good. Real men take the risk of loving a woman genuinely and deeply.
Husbands are commanded to love their wives in Colossians 3:19 and Ephesians 5:25. As the command for the wife to submit to her husband is rooted in the consequences of the first sin, so the command for the husband to love his wife is also rooted in the consequences of the man’s first sin. Whereas the wife’s resistance to submission is addressed plainly in Genesis 3:16, the man’s lack of love is addressed through imagery in Genesis 3:17-19.
God created man from the dust of the earth and subsequently created the Garden and placed man in it (Gen 2:15). The woman was created in the Garden and, in many ways, is the embodiment of the Garden. This imagery of the wife is used throughout Scripture, most prominently in the Song of Songs (Song 4:12, 16; 5:1; 6:2) and seen climatically in Revelation 21:9–22:5 with the Garden-City that is the bride, the Lamb’s wife.
God gave Adam the responsibility to “tend and guard” the Garden (Gen 2:15). While these duties extend beyond the wife, they include the wife. Paul picks up these duties in Ephesians 5, where he speaks about the husband’s love as nourishing and cherishing his wife.
To nourish literally means to provide food. A husband is to be a provider, a provider for everything that makes the wife healthy in body and heart. He is to keep the pantry full and also give her instruction and correction to lead her into holiness. He is to keep her healthy by providing masculine leadership that gives her direction and purpose in the home. As a leader in the home, the husband knows what the family is and where it is going. He encourages his wife to follow because he makes the purpose of the family attractive in his own life with his confidence, and he uses his authority to lead his wife. This decisive, confident leadership provides security and, thus, health for his wife.
Cherishing his wife takes up the husband’s call to guard her, not as a bodyguard hired to do a job but as someone precious to him. The word Paul uses speaks of keeping her warm. She is guarded bodily from the elements and anyone who might do her physical harm, but she is also guarded from unhealthy relationships with other men or women. The wife is a treasure for whom he cares deeply and zealously protects.
In Colossians 3:19, Paul adds that husbands are not to become bitter toward their wives. Sometimes, Christian wives don’t act like they’re supposed to … just as the church does with Christ. Men are tempted to abdicate leadership, throw up their hands, and resign themselves to resentment. Loving your wife means not giving up.
Several issues might provoke this bitterness. A husband may expect his wife to act like a man; she should think, feel, and relate like a man. She’s not going to do it because she’s not a man. Maybe a man’s wife is expecting him to act like a woman. Instead of working through the differences, you live in resentment. Another issue may be that a husband is asserting his authority without doing the work to win the affection and loyalty of his wife. A husband may walk around like Everett in O Brother, Where Art Thou? and assert, “I am the paterfamilias!” A husband doesn’t understand why his wife doesn’t show emotional respect or sexual attraction to him but only goes through the motions. It may be because the husband is an empty suit. Of course, the bitterness may come from having a rebellious wife. Some wives are impossible to please. The husband is never good enough, and she is never grateful for what the husband does. She is stubborn and discontent. Loving her through this is not allowing her to continue this way but helping to lead her out of it. Jesus has to deal with his wife like this all the time. Check out his letters to the churches in Asia in Revelation 2–3.
Husbands, loving your wife is a command, not a wistful hope that, at some point, you will be overwhelmed with an emotion that will motivate you. You are to love your wife by acting in love, providing for and protecting her, nurturing and cherishing her.
A Husband’s Love
