To Encourage You

Titus 2:3-4 “Older women likewise are to . . . train the young women to love their husbands and children . . .”

Ephesians 6:25 “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”

One of the truths about what God has told us in His Word is that all of it consists of things we need to hear.  In other words, if God hadn’t told us these things, we would be ignorant of them and worse off as a result.  That includes things that we may take for granted, i.e., things that we might think are “common knowledge” but which actually are not.  For example, in the verses above from Paul’s letter to Titus,  older women are commanded to train younger women in the church to love their husbands and their children.  Then, in Ephesians 6 men are commanded to love their wives.  One of the immediate questions that comes to mind here is “Aren’t such things just natural?  Aren’t these just things that anyone almost instinctively does?” Apparently, the answer is “No,” otherwise God wouldn’t have wasted His time to tell us and there would be far fewer broken homes in this world. 

Perhaps one of the keys to understanding these commands is that they tell us how women are to love their husbands and children, and how men are to love their wives.  You see, so often we can think of love in purely emotional terms.  We can think of love as a warm feeling, and such feelings do come naturally for spouses.  There is a naturally warm emotional response when we consider that another person cares about us enough to have committed their life to us in the form of a marriage vow. In the enduring words of wise old owl from the movie Bambi, it’s called being “twitterpated.”  As for children, who are literally a part of us, warm emotions can fill our hearts as we observe our own physical characteristics and mannerisms replicated in these little lives. However, it is not such feelings of fondness that the Scriptures are talking about. In each case the Bible tells us how to love, for love involves certain actions of self-sacrificial service. 

For women, the words following those of Titus 2:3-4 above are these: “to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.”   They are commands to be self-controlled in attitudes and actions.  Self-control includes such things as putting others above ourself. It involves controlling our natural passions and emotions, things that when they are not controlled can so often lead to broken families and domestic strife.    Young women are to be morally pure in their behavior, for as 1 Corinthians 13 tells us, true love finds no pleasure in sinful and immoral behavior. 

Another way that women are to love their husbands and children is to be those who are “working at home,” for in the very mundane thing of daily housework a person demonstrates practical love to those who live under that roof. 

As for men, the “how to love,” is to be based on the standard set for us in Christ’s love for the church. He gave His whole life for it in selfless sacrifice.  It is by such daily acts of self-sacrifice that a husband truly loves his wife in the way God has called him to.  Obviously, this is a very high standard, one that doesn’t come naturally, and thus the need to be reminded of it by God through His Word. 

May the Lord help us to pay heed to the things He has told us, and obey His commands to love those in our family in the ways He has said, for as we do this, as we obey His Word, we are actually loving the One Who gave us such commands, for didn’t He also tell us, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15).