I wrote in the previous Nugget “I have another bombshell to deliver from what Paul wrote”. I discovered this bombshell or surprise some years ago when reading my Bible. Reading a passage that I had read over and over and not noticed the surprise. I am sure that has happened to all of us. We think we are familiar with what the Bible says but come a point when reading a verse and noticing something that we have never noticed before. The verse that hit me between the eyes was Ephesians 5:33 “So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”
I can still remember sitting there in shock after reading that verse and thinking “Oh my goodness!” After repeating the advice related to submission, Paul then says very clearly husbands love; wives respect. But this comes after a series of “one another” statements. Wouldn’t it be natural for him to say (and the amanuensis write) “love one another” in accord with his string of “one another” statements. No, Paul quite clearly wrote “husbands love; wives respect.” That people is the bombshell. The shock statement! If Paul had written “Husbands and wives love another” it would have fitted the pattern and be what we would expect him to say. But instead his advice is “husbands love; wives respect”. I sat there pondering that statement for a long time. I knew that struck a chord within me. It fell in line with my sense of what it was I was wanting deep within me. I knew I needed to ponder that one deeply. Then came a time when Tania and I were going through a crazy cycle of conflict which I didn’t totally understand why it was happening. But the full impact of Paul’s advice hadn’t hit me yet.
That would happen years later when I read the book I talk about below. What arose in my mind was the constant refrain heard in the midst of my parents arguments. He would be demanding “respect” and she would be pleading to “be loved” over and over ad nauseam. Their tension was tied up in the battle between love and respect that seemed unwinnable. Looking on I took the side of my mother. Oh I heard my father demanding respect but thought how can you demand respect when you are living like a drunk and you don’t even respect yourself. My reaction to their struggle and therefore mine back then was to refuse to respect my father until he did something to earn it. Which was also my mother’s constant refrain. Looking back now I am sure I saw the signs in my father’s reactions to indicate that he didn’t respect himself either. I wonder now whether he drank as much as he did because he didn’t like himself. He drank daily at the pub and then brought home another dozen. At times he would finish off the dozen he brought home that night. I became “rich” in school holidays when I cleared the stack of beer bottles from behind the garage and returned them to the bottle store when I could drive and load up the trailer. I saw in my father a self-loathing that surfaced from time to time. On occasions but not often and not seriously enough to affect change he would promise to stop drinking. But now I conclude that drinking was the sedative to ease my father’s lack of respect or maybe as far as self-loathing for the fact that he couldn’t in fact stop, try as he might.
I have come to realise that my mother and I reinforced my father’s lack of self-respect by telling him we couldn’t respect him. I was hardened in my attitude toward my father by two things. The way he treated my mother and me in the midst of his drunken stupors. The drunker he became the more incomprehensible he was. He would argue black and blue that black was white only to switch sides of the argument ten minutes later and declare that my mother and I had been arguing black was white when he had maintained it was white all the time. How can you win against that? I saw my father as a hopeless case. Which led to the second thing: How could I give him respect when he didn’t deserve it? So I wilfully withheld it and he would yell at me from his alcoholic cloud telling me that he was my father and I had to respect him. A “no win” situation. Oh how I wish I knew then what I know now.
Paul wrote “Husbands love, wives respect.” Why didn’t Paul tell both to love? Why are both told something different? There is no command for the woman to love because it is how she has been pre-programmed by God. He designed women to love. The detail that is found in the Bible is remarkable. Nothing is wasted in what God has recorded for us. All the detail is there for a purpose. Hidden in that verse is a clue, a gem to be studied in how men and women ought to interact according the master plan the Father designed. When we follow His blueprint things work out. Isn’t that incredible?
Paul’s advice from the 1st Century is impressive. A husband must love; a wife must respect. How does Paul know to say this? Not only was he likely not married and yet he seems to know so much about something he has no experience about. But also what is this 1st-Century-trainee-rabbi doing sharing the latest ideas in the 21st Century break-through thinking related to marriage relationships and how men and women tick? I saw the importance of what Paul had written here and began working my way through the implications. At that same stage Tania and I were going through the same kinds of struggle with husband love and wife respect. Oh not to the same degree as what our two sets of parents had faced – where both respective fathers took a totally different approach. My father chose a belligerent stance and Tania’s dad chose to abdicate and withdraw. So how do you handle this tension? We also found the issue came up frequently in context of marriage advice to those who are struggling with the same thing. How do you give advice that you are not practising yourself? What is the key? In the midst of all of this turmoil both personal and in the context of helping others we came across the book Love & Respect: The love she most desires, The respect he desperately needs written by Dr Emerson Eggerichs.
Eggerichs had seen the same secret in Paul’s writings and he had concluded this was the key to unlocking this dilemma. Emerson Eggerichs realised the truth of a principle hidden away in Scripture. Oh that I may have had that book back then at the time my father and mother were caught in the dilemma and needed help. And back then when Tania and I were working it out. But hang on a moment, I confess it is an ongoing process. In the process of writing this Nugget I have re-read Love and Respect book again and being reminded of some “forgotten” principles.
Paul wrote “Husbands love, wives respect.” Why didn’t Paul tell both to love? Why are both told something different? There is no command for the woman to love because it is how she has been pre-programmed by God. He designed women to love. The detail that is found in the Bible is remarkable. Nothing is wasted in what God has recorded for us. All the detail is there for a purpose. Hidden in that verse is a clue, a gem to be studied in how men and women ought to interact according the master plan the Father designed. When we follow His blueprint things work out.
This key needs to be applied in the context of what I shared two Nuggets ago when I took you back to the basics of God’s principles laid down in the text of Genesis 3:16 and 4:7. If you don’t; she will. That is the way God has made us. If you do then she will too. Oh I know that sounds cryptic, but my advice is to read my summary of Emerson Eggerichs’ schema below and consider it in the context of his advice wives. Knowing what I know now and having worked and still working through applying the principles I know it to be true. Below I have given you a synopsis of the book Love & Respect: The love she most desires, The respect he desperately needs.
The book begins with the crazy cycle that develops with the typical response encountered in marriage: “I’m not loving that woman until she starts respecting me.” And “I’m not respecting that man until he starts loving me.” Both end up withholding from their spouse the very marriage air they need to breathe. A woman needs love just as much as she needs air to breathe. Husband, love your wife unconditionally. A man needs respect as much as he needs air to breathe. Wife, respect your husband unconditionally.
Emerson Eggerichs and his wife Sarah ask:
- Ladies how would “I respect you but I don’t love you” sound to you?
- The same way, “I love you but I don’t respect you” sounds to your husband.
Two questions a husband needs to remember and ask himself:
- Is my wife coming across to me disrespectfully because she is feeling unloved?
- Will what I say or do next come across as loving or unloving to my wife?
Two questions a wife needs to remember and ask herself:
- Is my husband coming across to me unlovingly because he is feeling disrespected?
- Will what I say or do next come across as respecting or disrespecting to my husband?
Take the role of the mature mate and make the first move. It may be risky but it’s powerful.
- “Honey, that felt disrespectful. Did I just come across as unloving in what I said?”
- “Dear, that felt unloving. Did I just come across and disrespectful in what I said?”
Learn to have your antennae functioning and discern what is going on.
The rest of the book is structured around:-
C.O.U.P.L.E. – How to spell love to your wife
Where C.O.U.P.L.E. represents the topics: Closeness – Openness – Understanding – Peacemaking – Loyalty – Esteem
C.H.A.I.R.S. – How to spell respect to your husband
Where C.H.A.I.R.S. represents the topics Conquest – Hierarchy – Authority – Insight – Relationship – Sexuality
I don’t feel at liberty to reveal the full advice Emerson Eggerichs offers in his book. But I would heartily recommend you get a copy for yourself. Re-reading it in the last day or so has reinforced the power of what I shared with you of the explanation of the verses in Genesis 3:16 and 4:7. Emerson Eggerichs wrote it may seem chauvinistic and decidedly not politically-correct to include the topics Conquest, Hierarchy and Authority but that is the way God has designed us and marriage.
I trust this series focused on Strongholds has been useful. There is much more I could share but I will close the series with this offering. I will consider over the next week what I focus on next. I am open to suggestions.