Eph 5: 25-33
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself
This is
agape love, which is defined variously as...
to love, to be full of good-will and exhibit the same
with the accusative of the person, to have a preference for, wish well to, regard the welfare of
of the love which led Christ, in procuring human salvation, to undergo sufferings and death
to welcome with desire, long for:
The Christian husband dedicates himself to his wife and family. This doesn't mean he is their servant, to wait upon them and fulfill their every desire. It means he is no longer an independent person only concerned for his own wants and desires. That doesn't mean his wants are wrong or prohibited. It means he orients his life towards family and makes sacrifices for their sake.
It means he is no longer a solitary figure, but the leader of a family. Leadership has its burdens to be born. Decisions made for the good of the whole and not the individual; whether that be the husband, wife or kid whose individual desires may go wanting.
It means he is the spiritual leader. He takes upon himself the priestly responsibilities to pray for, teach (discipline), and chasten his family. His goal: to deliver unto his Lord a sanctified wife and children raised in the teachings of Christ. A wife and daughters who bring glory to their husbands. Sons who work to the glory of God. A family that walks in the ways of the Lord.
He loves them as he loves his own body: teaching, caring, mending, strengthening.
Now the false teachers of our day would turn this husband into a servant, and make love into never causing feelbads, into fulfilling the every desire of his wife and children. Little more than a pack mule to be used and discarded. A walking wallet.
But that is not how a body is grown. You have care for and treat your body well. You grow a strong body through discipline and hard work. You must eat regularly foods that are good for you, avoiding foods that are bad for you no matter how good they taste. You must work hard, chastening your body. You get stronger through pain and the successive process of pushing your body to the limit, resting, and then do it again. Which is to say, love sometimes requires doing things you or they will not like.
The man doesn't lead by serving, he serves by leading. The difference between a tyrant and a leader is the former serves himself only whereas the later loves his people and has them as his mission.
All this will all be a lot easier if he is a true follower of Christ. Luke 9:23
And He was saying to all, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and let him take up his cross every day, and let him follow Me.
It means he has to set the example, dieing to self in his service to Christ that they may follow his example. His example being to follow the example of Christ: that Christ held nothing back from God obeying Him even unto death. That Christ, for the sake of those who hated Him, gave up everything in self sacrifice. And not the mere sacrifice of one man's life. But rather that of a god, full of all might and power; perfect and pure and holy. He gave up more than we could ever realize.
Thus when a man's family see's him sacrificing himself for his vision in service to God he earns the loyalty of his family and they will follow him to hell and back in understanding and love.
Make no mistake, I'm not talking about the your best life now, boyfriend Jesus, magic prayer Gospel of American Christianity. I'm talking radical, counter-cultural, selfless service and obedience to Christ. The kind that's more likely to get you persecuted than praised.
While there is ongoing talk here and everywhere about punishing men who don't provide, even amoung the world that is not generally a problem (save when globalism makes them obsolete).. Men intuitively understand the need to provide. There is a reason that married men 'benefit' from the so called marriage premium (godly or ungodly, all married men on average, and no other classes, do this). They naturally work harder and make more money to provide for their families. The problems are elsewhere.
Like a shallow understanding of love that is more often than not too doting, too lax, too supplicating.
Or in replicating Adam's struggle: when faced with the choice between heeding the words of his wife and avoiding controversy and standing with God and dealing with her sins they too often follow in Adam's footsteps.
The other great area of struggle is to unthinkingly fallow the paths of the world: to let the schools teach his children, relegate spiritual instruction to the shallowness of the sunday school, and with his wife is less of a leader and more of a roommate.
Those are problems going back a hundred years in our culture. The most recent problem is fathers and mothers alike seem to have lost the word 'no' from their vocabulary. Truly our day is one where women and children rule. We ruined an entire generation of children by never telling them no, never disciplining them, never denying them their every want. And they became a terror, first as children in the grocery store and later as children on the college campuses and finally as children in the workplace. Ya, they never grew up, and they're still getting what they want via tantrums.
