RESPECT IN MARRIAGE

To submit and to respect are two totally different concepts. You can have submission without respect, and respect without submission. Whenever I say “I respect someone “It’s usually for something. It may be a skill that they have or a character trait that we hold in high regard or a set of values by which they live. If you have not earned respect, you will not get it. You may get fear but you will not be respected. Respect and Submission are completely different things. When they submit to us it means they yield to our authority: they yield to our decisions. But they do not need to respect us in order to submit to us. The lives we live, the companion wives, the fathers we are to our children, the general agreement between are to our values and our lives is how we earn the respect of our wives. We must refrain from running to scripture to demand the respect that we have not earned.

The foundation of Wives submitting to their husbands is not about a man’s strength, it’s not about his skill, It’s not about his gender or his position. In Ephesians 5:22, wives are simply told to submit to their husbands and that the husband is head of the wife as Christ is head of the church. The wife submitting is not about what her husband has to offer but is premised on her relationship with God.

Husbands want to be respected. However, they should never demand it, directly or indirectly. Instead, they should seek to be worthy of their wives’ respect. God instructs wives to submit to their husbands and husband to make it easier for their wives to submit. To be happily married is why we got married in the first place. The easier it is for our wives to submit to us and respect, the happier we will be in our marriages.

From the book—Recharge Your Marriage.