(1 Peter 3:7-8) Husbands, likewise, dwell with [your wives] with understanding, giving honor to [her], as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered. Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous;
As I noted last week, our Lord’s Day worship is an extended conversation with the Lord of heaven and earth. It is a prolonged and multifaceted exercise in prayer. Having ascended before His throne by faith and encouraged by the “blood of sprinkling” all around us, we present our confessions, our praises, our thanksgivings and our supplications to the Lord Most High. And He, because He is so perfectly filled with love and mercy, is pleased to hear the lisping mutterings of His people, and to receive our simple supplications. And we are glad that it is so.
But here, Peter, like the psalmist in last week’s meditation, warns us of something that stops the ears of Almighty God; something that causes Him to grow deaf to our pleadings and insensible to our cries: neglect of husbandly duties.
As Paul taught elsewhere in scripture, in the covenant of marriage the husband is a picture of Christ. And therefore he must relate to his wife as Christ relates to his bride, the Church. When husbands fail in this seminal duty, their prayers are, as Peter warned, “hindered.”
Not to overstate it, women are complicated beings. And this is precisely why Peter requires husbands to dwell with their wives “with understanding.” The Word of God does not permit a man to throw up in hands in exasperation and say “Women, who can understand them!” Men must study their wives according to what God has revealed about them in scripture, but they must also study the particular wife that God has given them, until they understand her unique complexities, proclivities and idiosyncrasies.
Ironically, men who do this well are immediately confronted with a companion temptation: To despise this creature that is so very different than himself; whose feelings and fears, thought processes and priorities are so radically dissimilar to his own. And therefore does Peter follow the command to understand, with a command to honor the wife. Husbands are to speak honor to their wives (especially in front of the children) and about their wives to others. Husbands are to guard and promote the reputation of their wives, delighting in the dissimilarities that make her the true helper-completer that God intends for her to be.
Finally, Peter commands husbands to be courteous to their wives. But note here that Peter does not command husbands to have courteous thoughts about their wives in the deep recesses of their hearts. Rather he commanded a husband to display courtesy for his wife; to demonstrate with his deference towards her (including, but not limited to, opening doors and such) that he regards her as a “fellow heir together of the grace of life”, one for whom Christ was pleased to die, and to receive as part of his bride.
When husbands neglect these duties towards their wives, their prayers are hindered because they are telling gross lies about the Lord Jesus Christ.
So, husbands take care to understand and honor your wives and to display genuine courtesy towards them, lest your prayers and consequently the prayers of this assembly be hindered. Speak the truth about our husband, the Lord Jesus Christ so that we may worship Jehovah-God together in spirit and in truth…
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