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Husbands with Rebellious Wives
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“Be considerate as you live with your wife, with respect” 1 Peter 3:7
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The other day, I read a Facebook status from a friend whose wife had gone overseas for a week and left him with three young children. His words were so sweet as he made notes of what it was like for him as a temporary stay-at-home dad. Here were some of his key points:
- there is no privacy (he repeated this phrase a handful of times during the list – I think he really missed his privacy)
- there are always more dishes to do
- he could not keep up with the house cleaning before a destruction-minded toddler came through a room again
- there is no time for exercise
- nothing gets finished because of constant interruptions
- getting someplace on time with kids in tow is practically a miracle
This sweet dad/husband publicly praised his wife for what he didn’t realize she had been doing each and every day. Of course he likely had an idea, but to actually do her job and do it well was a huge challenge to him.
Their marriage reflects mutual respect and sacrificial love. He does not lord over her, he values her. They both work hard at their jobs. They take time for each other and their relationship and it’s beautiful.
Right around the same time I read my friend’s Facebook status, I also read a blog article by Ken Alexander entitled, Wimpy Husbands with Rebellious Wives. The “rebellious” word in the title sent shivers down my spine. What would cause someone to use such a harsh word when talking about wives?
The article starts off very negatively against women, “how to best deal with the antics and emotions of a difficult wife.” Right off the bat, I am reading control. It’s like he is assuming the worst in women. Ken believes husbands must have complete control over their wives and in this article, he challenges “wimpy” husbands who don’t control their wives and their rebellious behavior. Patriarchy, much? Check this out:
I have personally heard from far too many Christian husbands how frustrated they are with a wife who can’t discipline herself enough to get some of the basics of the home, family and marriage completed in any normal way, yet the wife wants nothing to do with their husband’s attempts at correcting a bad situation. The husband can beg a wife to please try to have the house picked up and dishes done by the time he gets home, yet she is just far too busy to be able to get these basics of life completed. In her mind, he just does not understand and now she has her girlfriends agreeing with her, so he must be a jerk. After all, how can ten women with half the facts not come up with the right answers?
If he questions her lack of discipline, her inability to get to the gym, to have a home cooked meal on the table every evening, or have the laundry done once a week, she calls him not understanding or unloving. And when the claws come out and tears start, the husband is put back into his corner as the “unloving jerk who is way too picky and demanding!”
He talks about how he picks up the slack in the home with meals, taking care of kids and helping with homework but asks:
I am curious what the readers of this blog would counsel a husband to do when he is married to just such a wife. Accept as a premise that she lacks any modicum of self-discipline; she is a stay at home Mom with plenty of time spent relaxing and being online each day. [JA note: and he knows this how?]
And he continues:
Does love demand that he seek his wife’s best interest in training his rebellious wife in self discipline, even if she cannot see how this is indeed true love in meeting her needs?
Ok, what a contrast between two husbands, huh? Ken’s article really concerns me because we are seeing him use the word “love” as a means of control. Love is not about controlling someone. I am very concerned about women living in these environments where their husbands must control them. I’m also concerned about the children in these homes who think it’s normal for dads to control their wives. Ugh. We can do better than this as Christians.
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Spiritual Sounding Board 
Elementary principles = love. Anything that goes against that is garbage.
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@ Paul said, “Nowhere is it explicitly stated that ‘the bride of Christ’ is the Church, whereas the symbol of husband-wife standing for Christ-Church is explicitly mentioned in Eph 5, multiple times. To call it short-sighted is denying the authority of scripture.”
In Eph 5, the relationship between Christ and the church is used as an analogy for the relationship between husbands and wives. That’s FIGURATIVE, and there’s no denying it.
However, that is only 1 aspect of marriage. The Bible (throughout) also teaches and illustrates that marrage is a relationship between 2 fallible, sinful human beings. To deny that marriage is a LITERAL relationship between a fallible, sinful man and woman is to deny the authority of scripture.
The authority of scripture, Bible (1 Samuel 25) records the account of Abigail and her foolish husband Nabal. The Bible tells us that it is possible for a wise woman to be married (bound) to a foolish husband who does not LEAD or LOVE like Christ leads, loves and died for his church.
@ Paul said, “2. Your example of the bride of Christ versus the Church does not add anything significant, men and women are part of the Church, and part of the bride.”
That’s your opinion, and you are entitled to it.
@ Paul said, “3. You’re still confused about the significance of a symbol and its application by analogy. That men and women are part of the Church is irrelevant to the symbol of Christ and His Church being analog to a husband and his wife.”
No, I’m not confused about the application of the analogy at all. There are some figurative aspects of marriage, and there are some literal aspects of marriage. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that the figurative aspects of marriage SUPERCEDE or OUTWEIGH the LITERAL, everyday aspects of marriage. Everyday marriage is literally a relationship between a fallible, sinful husband and wife. No two marriages are the same, some husbands (and wives) are even more fallible, sinful than others as was the case with the foolish Nabal in the Bible.
@ Paul said, “4. A subclass being part of a larger class does NOT mean the subclass represents that class. In this case, the arbitrarily chosen “men and women are part of the church”, no more represents the church, as “younger and elder” or “Jews and gentiles” or “children and parents” represent the church.”
The relationship between Christ and the church is used as an analogy for the relationship between husbands and wives in Eph 5.
The phrase “the Body of Christ” is a common New Testament metaphor for the Church; the church is made up of men and women. Some of those men and women are also husbands and wives.
We have two interconnected metaphors.
One is in Eph 5 the relationship between Christ and the church as an analogy for the relationship between husbands and wives.
The other is the Body of Christ – Church metaphor. Both metaphors are important and interconnected. Nowhere in scripture does is say that men stop being part of the Body of Christ – Church when they marry and become husbands.
@ Paul said, “5. Eph 5 even explicitly mentions how to apply the symbol of Christ-Church to the relationship of husband and wife. You cannot discard that, certainly not with a bad analogy.”
Eph 5, the relationship between a perfect Christ and his imperfect church is a beautiful analogy. It absolutely shouldn’t be discarded.
On the same token, you can’t use the analogy between a perfect Christ and imperfect church to promote earthly husbands to a godlike status and ignore their capacity to sin, err, misuse and abuse their power.
@ Paul said “6. You use “men and women” as categories to reason these “represent the Church”, whereas Eph 5 is talking about husbands and wives, NOT men and women in general.”
Eph 5 is indeed talking about men and women. Last time, I checked husbands ARE men who got married, and wives ARE women who got married, and all the basic tenets of Christianity still apply. Contray to what some groups promote, men don’t become God when the get married. They are still just as fallible and sinful as ever. Some more than others.
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@ Paul said, “As warning for husbands we have the examples of Eve and of Sarai”
As a warning to husbands who refuse to obediently listen to wisdom from their wives we have Nabal’s example.
Nabal was foolish. What does Proverbs tell us about a fool? Fools despise the wisest advice. Pr 23:9
Fools despise wisdom. Pr 1:7
As a result, his servant went behind his back and informed his wise wife about his foolish decision to withhold bread, water and meat from David and his men. The servant obeyed Abigail rather than Nabal and took David and his men food and wine. Nabal almost got himself and all the men in his house killed, but David spared Nabal’s life and the lives of the men in his house because of what Abigail said and did (1 Sam 25).
The Bible tells us that Nabal was “such a worthless fool nobody [could] talk to him.” 1 Sam 25:17
Unlike, Nabal, a wise husband will listen to WISDOM from his wife.
A wise man will hear, and will increase learning. Pro 1:5A
A wise man listens to advice. Pro 12:15B
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@ Paul said, “As a warning for husbands we have the examples of Eve and of Sarai.”
As a warning to husbands with a God complex with have the examples of the men who accused Daniel, Nabal, Achan, Haman, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram:
Some husbands made accusations against Daniel. However, after God showed his power by delivering Daniel from the lion’s den, those husbands were thrown into the lion’s den along with their WIVES and kids. Their sin and poor judgement caused them and their families
to be destroyed (Dan 6:24).
ACHAN disobeyed God thereby bringing trouble on the Israeli camp. Because of Achan’s sin, he and his kids weres stoned to death and burned. Josh 7:25
Nabal, 1 Samuel 25
HAMAN plotted to annihilate the Jews. But when the plot came to the king’s attention, he issued written orders that the evil scheme Haman had devised against the Jews should come back onto his own head, and that he and his sons should be impaled on poles.Es 9:25
Korah, Dathan and Abiram were wicked husbands who rose up against Moses and Aaron. Because of Korah, Dathan and Abiram’s sin, the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them and their households – wives, children and little ones. Nu 16:27-33
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Thanks Julie Anne for rescuing my comments from the spam box!
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@AR: “I could post all kinds of answers and totally shred all your arguments.”
Well, you obviously haven’t been able to respond to some of my simple questions to you, and you don’t have any problem misrepresenting and distorting my comments, so you lack credibility for such a sweeping statement.
@AR: “So I’m going to leave you now and go back to my reading.”
That will benefit the most of us.
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@Kim M: thanks for your extensive feedback, it will take some time to work through it.
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@Mark: “So, the prooftexting you are doing makes no sense.”
How ironic that you start “prooftexting” to formulate a rebuttal.
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Hi Paul,
Pull your Strong’s Concordance off the shelf and look at the NT in the original Greek. Both Jesus and the Apostle Paul NEVER told wives to obey. Paul told children to obey and BOTH husbands and wives to “Hupotasso.”
Yet you keep trying to put your words in God’s mouth because you feel entitled to disciplining your wife if she doesn’t do everything you want exactly when and how you want it. That’s why no matter how much evidence we present of how the Bible actually supports women’s rights, you will deny the truth.
There’s a reason that the Bible describes people “who hold the truth in unrighteousness.” The truth is that you are too stubborn to obey God’s command to submit so you throw out the window all the Scriptures that don’t prove your point of getting your way whenever you want.
Now go ahead and throw a temper trantrum like a two year old! When you’re done with the temper tantrums, it’s time for you to learn how to obey God’s command for you to submit too.
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The writer is probably a boy, teenager and not a Man. If a man, the mot a married man. If a married man, then this writer has absolutely no idea of what a rebellious , disrespectful, ungrateful wife is!!! You know, when one is crazily perching at one side of the world where milk and honey flow, having everything at one’s disposal a laptop in front with a chilled glass beside, s/he has no idea what it is to have such a wife under a roof!!! Do you read the scriptures at all? Would there be spoken of a nagging wife several times in the book of proverb is there is no such thing? Who says women are not hard working??? No one says so! But, but, but, the day you will have such a wife as describe above, you will know what it feels to rub salt in your wound.
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Hi, I really liked the inclusion of the scripture, “Be considerate as you live with your wife, with respect” 1 Peter 3:7, but I couldn’t find the balancing scripture, “As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything.” Did I miss that or are you just using selective scripture to present your opinions/arguments/philosophies, rather than the true scriptural and Godly way a marriage should work. I’ve heard way too much heresy on this subject, including that what Ephesians 5 really means is that husbands must love and care for their wives, but that the word submit, in relation to wives, really doesn’t mean submit (this was actually preached in a church i was a part of, by a woman whose marriage is now an absolute mess). This is pure human reason and we need not look any further than what’s happening in the world today to see that human reason doesn’t lead us to a good place. Please, please, please stop disrespecting Christ and his witness to the world (Godly marriage) by cherry-picking scriptures that suit your ungodly agenda, because by doing so, you are destroying the witness of true Christian marriage and therefore, very likely, stopping people coming to Christ’s table.
1Peter 3, where you took your scripture quote from, also says that Sarah obeyed and respected her husband to the point of calling him her Lord/Master (depending on the version you read). This was after he gave her to other men to save his own life.
It is imperative on all of us as followers of Christ to present a balanced view of the scripture, even if we don’t like it
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