Tags
“How much do you love me?” I found this question difficult to answer. My husband asked me, being playful, but there did not seem to be an easy answer. My Mom used to say “I love you a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck.” This seemed inadequate to describe the deep feelings I have for the man who has been by my side for more the 28 years. I finally came up with what I thought was an answer that conveyed some of the truth by saying “I love you enough to share my special, expensive, dark chocolate with you.”
In preparing for my marriage Bible Study, looking at love for our husbands, I looked at Titus 2:3-5:
Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.
Does it seem odd that we have to be trained to love our husbands? Not really when we consider the battle within us for our kingdom over God’s kingdom. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members (Romans 7:21-23). Doing the right thing by loving our husband does not come naturally. We are full of self-love that we need the Spirit to overcome.
What is interesting is the form of the word love used here. The Greek of the New Testament has at least 5 words for love, each of them meaning a different kind of love. Agape is the form most of us are familiar with. It refers to self-sacrificing, unconditional love, and is the kind referred to in 1 Corinthians 13. Husbands are commanded to this kind of love in Ephesians 5. But women are never commanded to this kind of love in passages about marriage. Instead, we are commanded to phileo, which describes the love between close friends. It is an affectionate and tender love which involves enjoyment and respect.
Many commentators debate if there really is such a difference in meanings, or if it really matters. But in light of Genesis 3:16, I think it does.
To the woman he said,
“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
in pain you shall bring forth children.
Your desire shall be for your husband,
and he shall rule over you.”
The word that is translated “for” can also be translated as “against”, and the implication is that we, as wives want to take his leadership position assigned to him by God at creation. So the fact that we are told we need to be taught to love our husbands seems to address this. We want to be the head, and we can thwart our husband’s efforts to take his proper role if we reject his efforts to love us sacrificially.
Women have trouble accepting help. I know the stereotype is that men won’t ask for directions, but I have found that most women, myself included, are quick to say no to offers of assistance, especially if the help will cause someone to be inconvenienced. And this is true even with our husbands. Maybe we don’t want to seem incompetent, or needy, or disorganized. But our husbands are called by God to love us as Christ loved the Church.
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.(Ephesians 5:25-28)
As wives, we need to pay attention to this. We were created to be our husband’s helpers, yet how often do we hinder him by not allowing him to love us as he is commanded to by God.
I think I have a new answer to the question “How much do you love me?” I will answer, “I love you enough to let you love me the way God called you to.”
soli deo gloria,
Diane