1 Peter 3:7, Husbands, Honor Your Wives
Series: N/A
Service: Sun AM (2)
Type: Sermon
Speaker: Scott Kercheville
I grew up in a home with three other brothers, but no sisters. Ashley travelled to Arkansas to meet my family in the summer of 2009 in between our sophomore and junior years of college. One evening we played a card game named “Nerts.” It is a fast-paced game and it always got rowdy in my family. We called names, slapped, pushed, threw cards. It was great. After we cleaned up, I realized Ashley had disappeared. I found her in her bedroom crying. “You guys are so mean! You all hate each other!” I was confused — we just finished playing the most amazing game of Nerts ever. “No we don’t, we were just having fun!” She replied, “Then why is your mom crying too?”
Men and women are different. And unfortunately, men, sometimes we do a poor job of living in an understanding way with the most important women in our lives. These days, women have been increasingly turned off by Christianity and the church. Often, the behavior of Christian husbands and men in the church and the lack of accountability is cited as a top reason. From the perspective of many, if women or wives do not behave properly, action is taken. But if men or husbands do not behave properly, it is not uncommon for women to be told to just endure. And yet, the early church was a revolutionary place because men were finally held accountable for their behavior too — so women flocked to the Church as a refuge.
Peter is in the middle of a section instructing us about our relationships — last time we looked at his instructions to wives, and today Peter addresses one very direct sentence to husbands. Peter offers two instructions and two reasons why husbands should obey. Let’s read 1st Peter 3:7.
Do: live with your wife in an understanding way
We men don’t like to look dumb. We like to be competent — the authoritative experts in our field. But do we understand our wives? If not, how can we live with them in an understanding way? Remember how we treated her when we were still dating? We were sensitive to her needs and careful with our tone. We tried to avoid misunderstandings. We studied her, wanting to know her likes and dislikes. Just watch a couple that is seriously dating, engaged, or in their first year of marriage for a reminder of what that was like. Here’s a temperature gauge for our relationship — if we asked her now, would she say that we “get” her? That we are thoughtful? There shouldn't be a major difference between then and now.
Husbands, you might be thinking: she’s too complicated, too sensitive, I don’t understand her, she does things wrong. We don’t have to be Christians. Nobody is twisting our arms. But if we are going to do this, we need to remember who we are doing this for. We are doing this for the Lord (Col. 3:23-24). When we study our wives, figure out what makes them tick, and live with them in a considerate way, this is one way we show the Lord we respect him. And if we do that, Paul says, “He who loves his wife loves himself.” You know this to be true from experience: if we live with her in an understanding way, we’re actually helping ourselves in the end.
Do: show honor to her as the weaker vessel
What do you own that is considered a prized possession? Something valuable that you handle delicately? For us, it’s our premium Bibles. Premium Bibles are actually more sturdy and durable than cheap, economy Bibles, but that doesn’t mean we are careless with them. We read them, but there is a certain care and reverence for how we deal with them. We don’t leave them outside. We don’t even let the kids read them.
I don’t know that Peter is saying that our wives are actually weaker than us. He may be pointing to the fact that women generally tend to be weaker in body, social standing, and in forcefulness so we need to make sure we honor her. Either way, we should honor her as if she were a delicate vessel, a prized possession.
Just consider the weak, vulnerable position wives are in. She has left her father’s home and she trusts you. Do we honor her? Do we uplift her in front of the kids? Do we open doors for her? Get out of the way when she is working? Do we praise her? Do we show her she is precious to us in what we do for her, buy for her, say to her?
How do we treat her when the doors are closed? Do we honor her, or do speak to her like she’s our child? or worse, our slave? — giving her deadlines, criticizing her, acting like she is incompetent? It’s one thing to meekly lead her with respect, it’s another thing to act like she’s an employee that we need to manage. “Yes,” one Houston mom told me, “that’s why women get married! They are a helpless little lambs wandering around the countryside calling out, ‘Anyone, please, marry me! Tell me how to cook, clean, and spend money!’”
Peter isn’t just calling us to not treat her like a slave, he’s telling us to honor her. Honoring our wives means praising not criticizing them. It means thanking them for the meals they make and for the other unseen things they do. One way I have watched my Dad honor my mom is by how he always cleans the kitchen at the end of the day, and often cooks Saturday and Sunday evenings. Either way, honoring her means recognizing she is just as intelligent as you and treating her as such. It means she gets the same amount of spending money as you or more whether or not she works a paid job — because she works just as hard as you for the family, school, church, and community. It means she doesn’t get the leftovers of our love, time, money, or attention.
Here’s a good time for a reminder: while Proverbs 31 is a great picture for wives and mothers to aspire to, it wasn’t written to tell wives how to be perfect, it was a mother helping her son see that he has the ideal wife and he had better reward and honor her for that. Proverbs 31:28–31 ESV, “Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: “Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.” Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.”
Peter offers two reasons why it is vital for us to treat our wife in this way.
Since They Are Heirs With You
Wives have weaker frames, quieter voices, and a submissive role, and so that can lead us to think differently, but they are heirs with us. Both now and in the age to come, we are equal co-heirs of eternal life with one another. She has the same standing before God as we do. Let us look at our wife as our sister in Christ. In the age to come — imagine seeing her in her glorified state. C.S. Lewis put it well when he said that, “The dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk [which is not your wife] to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship…” In that day, we won’t be criticizing her or bossing her around. In fact, if we treat her like that now, we may not be heirs of eternal life at all. Which leads to the second reason: we ought to treat them with understanding and honor…
So That Your Prayers Aren’t Hindered
Prayer is precious communion between us and God and we sever it when we do not honor our wives and live with them in an understanding way. Do you ever feel like there is a wall between you and God? Can you unashamedly come to God’s throne and pour your heart out? Beg of him what you need and offer praise to him and have 100% confidence he hears you? Does it ever seem that God doesn’t have your back?
Isaiah 59:1–2 NIV, “Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.” When we do not treat our wives properly, our prayers are hindered. Or, as my brother put it, husbands who mistreat their wives do not have a relationship with God. Let me say the same to wives: wives who mistreat their husbands do not have a relationship with God.
Reminder: Keep Your Conduct Among the Gentiles Honorable (2:12)
Consider the ramifications of the fact that this is how Peter started this section in 2:12, “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.”
The church should be known as a place where wives, sisters, and daughters are honored as delicate vessels. And yet this is not always our reputation. The world often associates the inconsiderate behavior of husbands with the church. Sometimes they are wrong, sometimes they are right.
A Christian woman once remarked to me: “Women are conditioned from a young age to believe that it is acceptable for men to yell at women based on how their fathers speak to them and their moms.” How we talk to and treat our wives teaches our daughters what we believe to be acceptable behavior. Here’s a good test: do we want our daughters to marry a man that treats them like we treat our wives?
Wives across the country — including in this church — are hurting from how their husbands treat them: whether from sins with their words, their actions, or their eyes. We have all made missteps, but when we don’t confess and turn away from our sins, we cause shame to come upon Christ’s name. Men, sometimes we need another man to remind us what godly behavior looks like; so, wives, if your husband is living in a pattern of treating you poorly and he is not responding to your pleas to change, please, this is why the shepherds are here.
But here’s a temperature check, brothers. How does your wife respond to you coming home? In the home I grew up in, Dad couldn’t wait to see Mom, Mom couldn’t wait to see Dad. They would kiss and whisper things to each other in the kitchen. Now, we don’t have to be that over the top. But if our wives aren’t excited for our return home, maybe it’s because we aren’t a very pleasing person to be around.
What’s the goal? We want our conduct to stand out so much — to be so honorable — that our wives and the world glorifies God over the conduct of husbands in the church.
Woe Is Me (Isaiah 6:1-5)
Have you ever had the experience where you speak rudely to your spouse and then you suddenly realize that someone else heard you? It’s embarrassing because we realize that we have probably spoken like this at other times too. Isaiah had a worse moment. One day Isaiah suddenly found himself in God’s heavenly temple where the Lord was high and lifted up and seraphim were praising God as “holy, holy, holy.” There, what did he realize, but that he was “a man of unclean lips.” It is incredibly easy to let so many things pass our lips in the confines of our cars and homes that we would never say to our husband or wife if someone else were with us, much less the king of kings.
So, I have a recommendation. If you aren’t already spending alone time in the presence of this king, make it happen. Consider getting up just 20 minutes earlier: go to your closet, sit on a stool, read a chapter from our daily reading, pray about it, and make confession. There is something very humbling about that time because there, like Isaiah, if we let ourselves, we feel exposed before the Lord, and we suddenly hear our words and see our actions in a new light so that we can repent. This may make the difference between whether God hears any of our prayers at all. Husbands and wives, let us honor God in our exile by how we treat one another. Let’s change our reputation and give the world a reason to glorify God with us.
