“Husbands, Love Your Wives . . .” A Practical Suggestion and Tool for Husbands to Use in Leading their Marriages for the Glory of God -- By: Rob Lister

Journal: Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
Volume: JBMW 15:1 (Spring 2010)
Article: “Husbands, Love Your Wives . . .” A Practical Suggestion and Tool for Husbands to Use in Leading their Marriages for the Glory of God
Author: Rob Lister


“Husbands, Love Your Wives . . .”
A Practical Suggestion and Tool for Husbands to Use in Leading their Marriages for the Glory of God

Rob Lister

Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology
Talbot School of Theology, Biola University
La Mirada, California

Thanks to Jiffy Lube, most of us know the drill by now: either do it yourself, or take your car in for a regular tune-up and oil change every three months or three thousand miles. Fail to maintain your vehicle in this fashion, and you run the risk of your engine locking up and stranding you on the side of the road somewhere in the middle of rush hour traffic.

How odd, then, that many of us would be so committed to the routine maintenance of our vehicles, and yet so often overlook the necessity of giving similar routine attention to our marriages. Clearly, one of the main purposes of marriage is to function as a means of grace in the sanctification of Christian couples. But, in order for marriage to function this way, we must be strategic, pro-active, and intentional. If husbands, in particular, are fundamentally passive, we should expect that our marriages will dissipate, much as we would expect our car engines to wear down and eventually lock up in the absence of routine maintenance.

With that in mind, I offer the following as one practical suggestion of something that Christian husbands may wish to consider as a tool to use in a more routine and intentional effort to lead their marriages for the glory of God.

The Tool: A Spiritual Discipline, of Sorts, for Marriage

In the simplest terms, this “tool” is a manageable list of questions that I have attempted to consolidate over the years for regular use in our marriage.1 The goal of using this tool, in the context of a covenantal marriage relationship, is simply that we would routinely revisit these questions together with honesty, love, and encouragement, so that, over time, this marital spiritual discipline might serve as a means of grace in enabling us to become more and more like the husband and wife that God desires for us to be. As a tool, this list of questions is certainly not definitive, but I do believe that it can be useful. If you, as the reader, find it helpful, then I recommend adapting it for the best possible usage in your marriage.

The Mechanics: How to Put this Process in Motion and Avoid Viewing it as a Drudgery

As far as putting this procedure in motion, I recommend setting aside two occasions a year to do this sort of review and assessment of how things are going in your marriage. In our case, we alternate four times a year between doing this review of our marriage and a similar kind of as...

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