Author: Bryan

Ephesians 5:25 ESV Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,

OK. I”m moving on to the next few words (about time, since I’ve been on one word for three blogs…). “…love your wives…” is the phrase of this blog.

The word “love” in this verse is the Greek word “agapao /ag·ap·ah·o/” and it means to “show love” or “demonstrate love”. It also means to “take pleasure in” and “to love based on its regarded value.”

I, generally as a man, am not near expressive enough in my love to my wife. I – and I’m guessing many men – are much like the old joke of the guy who tells his wife, “I said, ‘I love you’ at our wedding and if anything changes I’ll let you know.”

Two thoughts on the definition of “love” in this verse (which by the way, the exact same Greek word is used 5 words later describing how Christ loved the church – with a demonstrated love – a sneak peek at the next blog):

How do I “speak” love to my wife?

I read a book The Five Love Languages that really opened my eyes as to how I say “I love you” to my wife. Love is spoken in (according to this book) five different languages. The interesting part is that I had to learn my wife’s languages, because I was not fluent, nor even familiar, with her languages.

It is interesting – this languages thing – I adopted one of my sons from Russia and he didn’t know any English when he came to America 4 years ago… Not a word! However, he loved to talk and was determined to learn the Enlish language. He soaked it up like a sponge and used it constantly! We couldn’t get him to shut up! 🙂 But seriously, that’s the attitude I have to have in learing my wife’s love language. It turns out that we don’t natively speak each other’s love languages. My primary language is “words of encouragement” while her primary love language is “quality time,” something I knew NOTHING about. Just like my son became proficient and fluent in English, I have become better – I won’t say I’m fluent yet – at speaking her language. In turn, the better I got at speaking love to her in HER language, the better she got at speaking love to me in MY language! Yes!

What is my “regarded value” of my wife?

“To love based on its regarded value” is another killer part of this definition of the word “agapao.” I doing a quick scan of the other times in the New Testament this Greek word is used, it is obvious that the “regarded value” is not MY regarded value. The regarded value of my wife is how my Heavenly Father, who is also her Heavenly Father, regards and values her. My love demonstrated to her is to be based on how HE values her.

Can I just tell you that is a little intimidating. I don’t yet understand the depth, breadth, highth, or length of God’s love for her, for myself, for any of us.

One of the 136 verses where this version of the word “love” is used is:

Galatians 2:20 (ESV) I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

This verse is freeing, in a way, because if I get myself out of the way, Christ will love my wife – the same way he loved the church – through me. It gets all fouled up when I step in and let my own selfish desires, my own pride, my thinking “I’ve done X number of things for her… what has she done for me?”, my keeping score, my “I want to watch the tv show, or play golf, or go fishing, or whatever…”, get in the way.

It’s not about me. Christ was the most humble servant of all. That is what he’s called me, as a husband, to be. I am to “show love” to her, to “demonstrate love”, to “take pleasure in” and “love based on [God’s] regarded value” of her.

It’s a tall order. Who’s man enough to step up?

Running After Papa…

“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,” (Ephesians 5:25, ESV)

In my last blog, I stated the following:

Let’s look at the first use of the word “husband” in the Bible. It’s found in Genesis (surprise, surprise) in the Garden.

I also said that the first occurrence of this word “husband” in the bible was found in Genesis 3:6. If we only look at the English translations of that word, I am accurate, but if you look at the Hebrew word for “husband” used in Genesis 3:6, it is “iysh“.
Like it’s Greek counterpart (see last post), according to Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon, it is translated as “man” 1002 times, “men” 210 times, and “husband” 69 times among other words. The first use of this Hebrew word is actually in Genesis 2:23.

Genesis 2:23 (NKJV)
²³ And Adam said: “This is now bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.”

There is another Hebrew word that we translate as “man”. It is the word “adam“.

As near as I can tell, “adam” refers to the individual human creation, while “iysh” refers to the species of humankind.

Why does it matter?

Remember that Adam had just seen EVERY species of animal that God had created – male and female – and he recognized that there was no one like him. All the other species were made up of two – a male and female.

The Hebrew word translated as “woman” literally means “…the biological female of a species in creation, counter-part of the male.” The word translated into “taken” in taken out of Man, literally means “bring an object into one’s possession, either with or without permission of the owner.”

WHAT??? Did you catch that? “…with our without the permission of the owner.” God didn’t consult Adam? Adam didn’t give his input or permission?

Isn’t it ludicrous to think we should have any say so on what God gives us? Yet we, as men, do. You see, when we have a me-centric view of our lives and our marriage, when we have a self-serving attitude of our marriage and our spouse, we think it’s all about our pleasure, our happiness, our freedom. “I work 60 hours a week to put food on the table, so by-golly, I’m going to sit here and watch football (or play Texas Hold’Em, or play video games, etc.) while YOU make dinner, clean the dishes, wash the clothes, get the kids to bed, (insert your favorite chore for your wife to do).

That, my friends, is why the divorce rate IN the church is no different than the divorce rate OUTSIDE of the church. We have self-centered, selfish, pride-filled, hearts and attitudes and self-gratifying expectations that WE want fulfilled.

Listen, our perspective is all wrong. As I continue in this blog series, I’m going to step on our toes more and more. I’ve become passionate about loving my wife as Christ loved the church and exploring every single aspect of it.

As a culture, our understanding of who we are and who our wives are is way out of whack. Our wives were specifically created for us, by Him who made us; by Him who loves us; by Him who knows how to give good gifts to his children. She was not created “second”. She was not created “later”. Genesis 1:27 says “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”
God had both of us in mind – male and female – from the beginning… from the word GO.

If we substitute what the Hebrew meanings of the English words in Genesis 2:23, we could paraphrase what Adam said as: “Finally! My counter-part of my created type has been created! God had brought her into His possession from my flesh and bone and given her back to me!” My last blog talked about Eve being Adam’s “help-meet.”

OK, so what does all this rant have anything to do with Ephesians 5:25? Read on, my friend, read on. Paul clearly associates them in the following verses:

Ephesians 5:28-30 (ESV)
²⁸ In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹ For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, ³⁰ because we are members of his body.

We – together – are one. We – together – complete the creation of God, in His image (Gen 1:27).

Challenge: I challenge every man reading this to view your wife differently today. Pray for God to open your eyes to see her as your counter-part who was uniquely created for you – without your input, without your permission – by a Loving Father who loves you and knows exactly what you need.

Daddy, I pray that you continually keep my perspective changed and renewed. I ask You to daily reveal your creation in my wife that You brought into Your possession – for me – without my knowledge, input, or permission. Help me to understand the truth of who you created her to be and treat her with the utmost, sincere love, honor, care, respect and feeding she requires, deserves and needs – regardless of my personal wants, feelings, or attitudes. Help me to lay my selfish, pride-filled perspective at the altar and take up the perspective of Christ. Teach me to love her in a whole new way every day.

Running After Papa…

“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,“ (Ephesians 5:25, ESV)

OK. Here we go. Let’s start with the first word of this passage. Husbands… I’ve picked up over the years – through listening to good teachers and preachers – two study methods that we’re going to employ in this part of the study: The first is what I’ll call “Original Language” – what does our English word really mean in the original Greek or Hebrew language. Often, we don’t get a good picture of the word by our English translation of it. The second study method we’ll look at is what I’ll call “First Use” – in other words, when was this word first used in the Bible. So let’s dive in.

The Greek word that is translated into “husbands” in this verse is (phonetically) “anēr”. It is translated into lots of interesting words, the three most common are “husband” (53 times), man (69 times) and men (69 times). The word map below shows the various translations of the Greek word. The bigger the word, the more its use.

There is one interesting translation that I want to look at and that’s the translation into “manhood” (as the ESV translates it). It is used in the following verse:

Ephesians 4:11-13 (ESV) ¹¹ And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, ¹² to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, ¹³ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,

“Manhood” in verse 13 is the same word found in Ephesians 5:25 translated as “Husbands.” This passage teaches that God has given each of us gifts (apostles, prophets, etc) in order to build up the body of Christ until we are all “… to mature manhood.” The King James translates that phrase “… unto a perfect man”, the New Living says “…mature in the Lord”, The Message says “… fully mature adults.” You get the idea.

The same word that means “husband” also means “manhood” and implies maturity in this verse. I guess we could draw a correlation that how we husband our wives is a direct reflection of our manhood which is a directly tied to our maturity in Christ. Christ is the perfect man and HE is the model for us to strive toward.

To be a good husband is to be a real man. How different is that than what society crams down our throats?

I’ll also point out that this word has little to do with being married. While marriage is the picture God gives us, remember that Jesus was the perfect husband, yet he was not physically married. As we’ll discover, it is an attitude of humility and service.

Let’s look at the first use of the word “husband” in the Bible. It’s found in Genesis (surprise, surprise) in the Garden.

Genesis 3:6 (NKJV)

⁶ So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.

Oh Jiminy! Here is the first use of the word “husband” and the context of this verse is a whole other blog topic. We don’t see “husband” in a good light here. Adam is standing right there with Eve while she’s evaluating, picking, eating and giving the forbidden fruit to him! Again, this is a whole different blog topic for another day.

This does, however, bring up an interesting thought. You cannot have a husband without a wife, so what is the first reference to “wife?”

Before we look at the first reference to the word “wife”, let’s do a quick study on the wife – this creature God fashioned specifically for man; this most creative piece of all of God’s workmanship.

Genesis 2:18 (NKJV)

¹⁸ And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.”

Let’s look at those two words: “helper” and “comparable”…

The Hebrew word for “helper” is “ezer” which means “1. helper, assistant, i.e., one who assists and serves another with what is needed; 2. help, assistance, i.e., acts of supplying what is needed to another; 3. strength, formally, help, i.e., power to accomplish a task”

The Hebrew word for “comparable” (New King James Version) is “neged” which means: “counterpart, i.e., that object which is corresponding or like another object”

Webster’s defines “corresponding” as “having or participating in the same relationship (as kind, degree, position, correspondence, or function) especially with regard to the same or like wholes”

So, you could rewrite Genesis 2:18 to say “… I will make him a counterpart of equal relationship to supply what is needed for him to accomplish what I have for him to do…”

Doesn’t that change the way you look at what God has provided? Do you see you wife differently in that simple understanding of what the translated words mean?

Look at how the Amplified bible put it: 18 Now the Lord God said, It is not good (sufficient, satisfactory) that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper meet (suitable, adapted, complementary) for him.

I love that! A “helper meet” – suitable, adapted, and complementary.

So then, where is this word, “wife”, first used? Its a few verses later.

Genesis 2:24 (NKJV)

²⁴ Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Isn’t this a crazy place for this verse? Adam and Eve had no earthly father and mother. This is immediately after God presented Eve to Adam. This is the first marriage. This is the model. This is the example. This sets up what all of humanity is to copy and emulate for the rest of time.

There’s another model we are supposed to emulate for the rest of time. It’s the key verse of this topic series. Does “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,“ sound familiar? In light of this, I believe God gave us this verse, at this time, to show us a deeper truth. Remember that the physical marriage of a man and a woman is also the model of Christ and the Church. So if the Church is the wife and Christ is the husband, re-read Genesis 2:24. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”

Jesus left heaven. He left his Godship. He came to earth to be “joined to” his wife – the church. The Hebrew word used for “joined to” (or “cleave” as the King James puts it) is dabaq.

1815 דָּבַק (dā∙ḇǎq): 1. cling to, i.e., fasten oneself to an object (Ru 1:14; 2Sa 23:10; Job 29:10); stick to (Eze 3:26; 29:4b); joined fast, be stuck together (Job 38:38; 41:9); be made to cleave, stick to (Ps 22:16); 2. stay close, formally, cling, i.e., be in close proximity to another object (Ru 2:8); 3. catch up, overtake, engage, i.e., make linear motion to come to the same place as another person or party, for either favorable or hostile intent (Ge 31:23; Jdg 18:22; 20:42, 45; 1Sa 14:22; 31:2; 2Sa 1:6; 1Ch 10:2); 4. be united, joined, i.e., be in a close association, implying a normal continuing relationship (Ge 2:24); be associated, formally, bind, i.e., be in a close association as a figurative extension of a belt fastening objects together (Jer 13:11);

Jesus left Heaven to dabaq with us, his wife. This is the model he has demonstrated for us as husbands.

So you could rewrite Gen 2:24 as: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and fasten himself, unite with, and be associated and bound to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”

Dr. Benjamin B. Phillips of Southwestern Theological Seminary wrote this in his Practical Theology class of Fall 2007:

Jesus Christ loves the church so much that he caused himself to identify with it. To love our wives as Christ loves the church means to identify with them.

That’s the essence of “cleaving” or being “joined to” your wife – to identify with her. We’ll discuss this more in another study.

Recapping today’s thoughts:

1. How we husband (regardless of if we are married or not) directly reflects our maturity in Christ. “Husbanding” is manhood.

2. Our wives are our “helper meet” – specifically created to complement and supply what we need for us to do what God has for us to do.

3. Jesus left Heaven to dabaq with us. This is the model we are to follow.\

Running After Papa…

“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,” (Ephesians 5:25, ESV)

This passage has, well, haunted me for the last 12 months or so. Haunted may not be the exact word I’m looking for, but it certainly paints the kind of picture I mean. This passage has taken a prominent place in my grey matter, in the forefront of my brain as I have chewed on, tasted, pondered and prayed about what it really means to love my wife as Christ loved the church.

And that’s where all roads lead for me. That’s where it starts. How did Christ love the church? What is the model he established in his life on earth? I believe the essence of it can be said in one word. Christ loved the church sacrificially. I know that conjures up pictures of the cross, and while that was certainly the final and ultimate sacrifice that he gave, I want to dig deeper and go farther in exploring it. You see, I believe that’s the way Christ lived for the church. His thirty-three years on this planet in the form of a man, although we really only have the details of his last three years, were spent spending himself, emptying himself, giving himself for the church in both the current form he lived in and the “new” church we see birthed in the book of Acts.

But we will get to all that. I’ve got lots of verses and thoughts rattling around in my head that are seemingly unrelated at first, but the more I chew on them, the more I meditate on them, the more I look at them, the more I dig into them, the more related I find them to be. (Isn’t that the way the Bible is anyway? It’s all related. It all tells one story from beginning to end, from Genesis to Revelation. Sheesh! Sometimes I’m a little slow…)

I don’t know how many parts there will be to this blog series. I don’t know if they will come sequentially. There may be other blogs sprinkled in along the way as the Lord lays it on my heart. But this topic is a burden on my heart and something I feel compelled to write about.

I see friends and family hurting. I see their spouses hurting. I see husbands and wives hurting each other by their own actions, or by their own inactions. I see them living in these ruts of complacency and resigning themselves to an attitude of “this is just how it is.” They have no clue how to get out of the rut and acknowledge that it’s possible to have a marriage that is exciting, alive, and vibrant. I see with them empathy and compassion and my heart breaks for them. I am burdened for them. I so want to go over, grab their shoulders, shake, and yell “Wake UP! This is NOT what God had in mind! You don’t want to go where this road (rut) leads you!”

A friend of mine once said that every relationship needs a redeemer. Someone who will stand up and choose to redeem the relationship in spite of all the past and all the crap and move forward regardless of the response to of the other person. I like that. That’s what Jesus did. He redeemed us regardless of our response to him. The marriage relationship is a physical picture of that spiritual relationship with Jesus. In our spiritual relationship, Jesus is the redeemer. In spite of our sin and regardless of whether or not we ever respond to him, Jesus came to redeem us and restore our relationship with God.

Relationships struggle. A “struggling” relationship, mind you, is a subjective measurement. It might mean something totally different to you than it does to your neighbor, to me, to your spouse, or to anyone else for that matter. While it takes two to tango, while lack luster or struggling relationships are not the fault of only one person, I do believe most of the time it is the husband’s responsibility and opportunity to step up and be the man God created him to be. I believe so many men have just given up and become the lazy, selfish, buffoons our society and Hollywood have depicted the “everyday husband” to be; the one who sits on the couch and expects his wife to do everything; the one whose basic attitude is “you are here to serve me.” Unfortunately, this attitude prevails all through our society. Husbands, wives, children, employees, employers, politicians, and preachers all fall prey to this insidious and pervasive attitude. Our I’ve just gotten to the place where I wonder how many men would make the changes if they could practically apply how Christ loved the church to their own lives of loving their wives.

So… stay tuned. Provide feedback. This is a road we will walk together. Forward this to those you think might be interested. Seriously, provide comments and feeback through the blogsite. Provide thoughts, ideas, topics that go in this general vein. It should be a fun journey.

Running After Papa…

Everyone needs to go see this movie – “Fireproof”. It was made by the Kendrick boys, the ones who brought us “Facing the Giants.”

If you care at all about good, wholesome movies, then go support this movie in the theater.

The website is http://www.FireproofTheMovie.com.

Dawn and I saw it last week and it is phenomenal. The story is relevant and moving. It’s a great date movie.

GO SUPPORT THESE GUYS! They are 2 for 2!

Running after Papa…