Men Run On Respect, Women On Love

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her . . . and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

–Ephesians 5:25, 33

The commands to husbands and wives in Ephesians 5 reveal something about the needs of the recipient. In other words, if the Bible said that shepherds should feed the sheep, a reasonable inference would be that sheep need food. When husbands are told to love their wives, we can infer from this that wives need to be loved. When wives are told to respect their husbands, we can infer from this that husbands need to be respected. Think of it as two kinds of car that run on different kinds of fuel—diesel and regular, say. Men run on respect, and wives run on love.

In saying this, remember that we are talking about emphasis. On a basic level, everyone needs to be loved and everyone needs to be respected. But when Scripture singles out husbands and wives living together, the men are told to love and the women are told to respect. Flip this around, and you see that men should remember that their wives need to be loved, and their wives should remember that their husbands need to be respected.

Remembering this keeps us from giving what we would like to be getting. I once knew a husband who got his wife a nice shotgun for Christmas. She was a shrewd Christian woman, and so the following Christmas, she got him a nice string of pearls. And as she told my wife, “They were very nice pearls.”

Often when a marriage is in a tough spot, both spouses tend to give what they feel they need—love and respect, respectively. Wives reach out to their husbands with love, when respect is what would really help. Hus- bands can back away, thinking of this as a form of respect, “giving space,” when what they need to do is close in with love.

Now—here is where it gets glorious—love and respect are both potent. The Bible teaches that this kind of love is efficacious. This kind of respect is powerful. This sort of love bestows loveliness. This kind of respect bestows respectability.

Husbands cannot duplicate the love of Christ, which efficaciously made his bride lovely. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8). But while we cannot duplicate this kind of love, husbands are told to imitate it. And in imitating it, we see some of the comparable effects. A woman who is loved by her husband is a woman who will grow in loveliness. He washes her with the water of God’s word (Eph. 5:26). The entire passage assumes that this kind of love bestows loveliness. And the same kind of potency can be found in a godly woman’s respect. Peter tells us that reverent and chaste behavior can break down a man’s disobedient spirit (1 Pet. 3:1–2).

So then, men and women should love and respect each other. They should do so with all their hearts. But when they are concentrating on their marriages, the men should lean into love. The women should lean into respect. The results can be astonishing.

TALK ABOUT IT

Think back in your relationship about an instance, per- haps even this week, when you sought to give your spouse what you wanted to get, rather than what they needed to receive. Talk through the details with your spouse, and plan ahead for how you might do better.

Specifically, how can a husband help make his wife more lovable by loving her?

How can a wife help make her husband more worthy of respect by respecting him?