This article is based on Pastor Adrian Rogers' message, How to Cultivate a Marriage.
You cannot function in any area if you do not understand authority.
Husbands, if you do not exercise the Kingdom authority God has given to you, your home and marriage will not be wonderful. Wives, if you do not understand your proper biblical place, God’s assigned responsibility in the home, you will miss an incredible blessing.
For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body.
When God’s Word speaks of the husband’s headship, that is not speaking of his rights, but of his responsibilities.
The husband’s role is to be the head of the wife as Christ is the Head of the Church. Has Christ ever forced you to do anything? Not once. But if your heart is Christ’s, you would die for Him. This is what a husband needs to be.
Headship means assuming responsibility.
Your wife, who is to be submissive to you, has every right to look to you to meet the needs she has as a wife in the home.
This is not a chain of command; it is a line of responsibility. “But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God” (1 Corinthians 11:3).
God the Father and God the Son are equal. Yet the Bible says, “The head of Christ is God.” The submission of Jesus to the Father is not out of fear, but is based in love, because of love.
So it is in the home.
To those who want authority, Jesus said:
…He who is greatest among you, let him be as the younger, and he who governs as he who serves.
That is the way to be the head of the home. Jesus, the Master, set the example. “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14).
This does not mean the wife is inferior to the husband. A woman is superior at being a woman. A man is superior at being a man. In Christ, we are equal. (See Galatians 3:28.) But equality does not mean sameness. God made male and female different, so that He might make us one.
A home needs a head, and the Bible says that head is the husband. There must be authority. “Mutual submission” is not submission at all. In the home, the responsibility is on the husband. You cannot dodge it.
No man can be the head of his home until he is under the headship of Christ. If he is not willing to be under Christ, what right does he have to the anointing power of God, to be the godly husband God wants him to be?
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her…
That is sacrificial love. Christ died for the Church.
A man owes his wife passionate love. Sexual passion is part of married love, but this means something deeper than that. By passion, we mean emotion and commitment that comes from the deepest part of your being.
There should be nothing too precious for you to give up for your wife—except your relationship with God. She should be your highest love on Earth, apart from Jesus.
Why did Christ die for the Church?
…That He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.
He died for her sanctification.
As Christ is pastor, priest and prophet to the Church, the Christian husband is to be prophet, priest and pastor to his wife. He is to intercede for her, teach her, and protect her spiritually.
If there are things about the Bible that a woman doesn’t understand, what does the Bible say she is to do? “If they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for women to speak in church” (1 Corinthians 14:35).
Why did God say this? Imagine what would happen if a woman kept asking her husband, “Darling, what does this mean? Teach me this.” He would have to learn!
The husband has a responsibility to make his wife a more radiantly beautiful Christian.
So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself.
A home is sick when the husband does not protect his wife.
The wife is the weaker vessel. (See 1 Peter 3:7.) Silk is weaker than denim, but not inferior. It is more refined, more fragile, more intrinsically beautiful. God made you, husbands, to be a man of steel. He made her to be an ornament of gold.
So protect your wife—physically, but also emotionally and spiritually. Satan cannot get your family unless he comes through you. You are the head, the doorkeeper. Stand at your place, where God has put you.
“I don’t have what it takes.” It’s good that you recognize that. As you assume your responsibility, you have to be under the One who has assumed His responsibility to take care of you.
For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church.
Love your wife as you love your own body, because she is a part of you.
Provide for her needs, including her emotional needs. Praise and admire her. It is your duty, and your joy, to tell her you appreciate her.
Appreciate more than her physical traits. Find her spiritual traits—like the ornament of a meek and a quiet spirit, which God says makes her radiantly beautiful—and praise that.
“Sweetheart, thank you for your patience, for your prayers, for the way you love our children. Thank you for making our home beautiful.”
For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.
Just as the Church is taken out of the wounded side of Christ, woman was taken out of the wounded side of man. (See Genesis 2:20-22.)
“For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
When is Jesus going to walk out on the Church? He will not! “For He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you’” (Hebrews 13:5b).
Today, we have men who stand at the marriage altar and make a holy vow, a covenant, and then they walk out. God have mercy on them.
You owe it to God to keep your promise. You owe it to your wife and your children. Do not walk out on your wife. Love her as Christ loved the Church.
Ephesians 5:23-33; 1 Corinthians 11:3, 14:35; Luke 22:26; John 13:14; Galatians 3:28; 1 Peter 3:7; Genesis 2:20-22; Hebrews 13:5
Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be bitter toward them. Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.
Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.
