What submission is not

Simply or singularly a marriage issue Degrading Silent Fearful Joyless Stifling Dumb Weak Automatic Self-Focused Read the entire post and the brief explanations at The Resurgence. A number of years ago John Piper put together a similar list in his sermon, “Women of Valor for Non-Promise Keepers.” He defined submission in these ways in that […]

Reflections on “the wedding”

I did not get up earlier than usual on Friday morning to watch the Royal Wedding. I had a full schedule for the day and wanted to prepare myself for it with a full night of sleep. And further, I was uninterested in the whole hoopla in general (though certain female teen-aged members of my […]

The Most Royal Wedding of All

A prayer from Scotty Smith — Dear heavenly Father, on a day on which many in our world set clocks and arranged schedules to view a wedding of total strangers—a wedding to which we were not invited, how can we not think about and long for our coming wedding day to Jesus? Like John, when […]

Question of the day (for husbands)

Why does a husband love his wife? A man might answer that in many ways — I love my wife because I can’t resist her — I’m attracted to her… I love my wife because I have to love my wife — the Bible commands my love I love my wife because it is the […]

The biggest problem in your marriage

While talking with my NANC supervisor yesterday about a couple with marital problems that I am counseling, he said I should remind them, “you think the biggest problem in your marriage is your spouse and you; the biggest problem in your marriage is you and God.” And isn’t that always one of the root issues […]

If you love your wife like Christ loves you…

If you love your wife like Christ loves you (Eph. 5:25ff), then your marriage will be wonderful, right? Ummm. No. And that is the tension for some men. They believe that the end of loving their wives is that they get what they want — a happy, peaceable marriage. But that’s not the point of […]

Grab bag

Items of interest with biblical implications from around the internet in the past week: Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the death of Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Justin Taylor has compiled short biographical videos and a number of other resources of interest concerning the great preacher’s life. Paul Tripp talks about the grace of confession — “no […]

Learning to Love…All Over Again | RPM Ministries

If you have been married any significant length of time, both you and your mate have changed significantly. The husband or wife is significantly different from the man or woman you married ___ years ago. But that does not mean love has ended. Those changes mean opportunities for the constant rekindling of a biblically distinctive […]

A way out of marriage

What is a way out of a bad marriage without getting a divorce? Here is Mike Mason’s answer: One thing that is very important to know in marriage is that there is always a way out. And the way out is not divorce! No, the way out in marriage (no matter how bad things may […]

Sunday Leftovers (2/20/11)

Having spent five sermons on the topic of marriage from Ephesians 5:22-33, here are a number of principles that I found particularly important and compelling as we made our way through these verses: The commands for a wife to submit (v. 22) and a husband to love (v. 25) are a choice. They are not […]

Grab Bag

Believers live in a place that is not their home. It is often all-to-clear that this is not our permanent abode. And yet there are also so many manifestations of God’s grace and kindness even while living amidst fallenness: Wrestling is to Iowa as football is to Texas. So when high school student Joel Northrup […]

Sunday Leftovers(2/13/11)

Blogger Ian Vaillancourt recently wrote: Give us men! This is what our world needs. Men who follow Christ and lead in the home and in the church…by laying down their lives for the men and women they lead. Give us men! Give us churches filled with these kinds of men who show the beauty of […]

Are you sure about what you want your spouse to be?

Over at the Pyromaniacs blog a couple of weeks ago, Dan Phillips first asked wives, Are you sure you want a husband who…?, and then he asked husbands, Are you sure you want a wife who…? The questions centered on the motivation a wife has for her husband to lead and the husband has for […]

Sermon leftovers (1/30/11)

To answer the question “How does a man love his wife?” the question “How has Christ loved the church?” must be answered first. What follows is a list of some of the ways in which Christ has loved His church to accomplish her purity and sanctification (please note that this list is not exhaustive). He […]

How a man loves his wife

Paul tells us that to love his wife, a man gives himself to his wife. Peter tells us that he knows her exceedingly well. He knows her dreams, fears, desires, hopes, longings, strengths, and weaknesses. He knows how to serve her and minister to her and how to lead her spiritually. This does not happen […]