In this webinar, Dr. Joel Beeke and Scott Brown discuss another chapter of William Gouge's book, Building a Godly Home. This chapter focuses on a husband's gentleness towards his wife. Husbands need to be humble and tender towards their wives.

1 Peter 3:7 (NKJV) - "Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered."

Well, hey guys, welcome. So grateful that you're back again to talk through this great volume on marriage. And our objective is to try to accurately represent who was the most popular, maybe important Puritan writer on family life. And so we're quoting him here in this webinar. There are many voices in our generation that try to define merit, headship, and sometimes it's really important to step out of our current era into another era.

The assumptions were different, the practices were different, and sometimes even more biblical. And I think Joel and I would both agree with J.I. Packer, who stated that the Puritan era was perhaps one of those eras where people thought more biblically in relation to other eras. So in the previous chapter, the focus was on affectionate husbands and the way that they treat their wives. Now in this chapter, the focus is on a husband's gentleness in dealing with his wife.

And I've divided this up into three sections. First of all, from pages 196 to 199, encouraging your wife and being a blessing to her and avoiding harshness with her. Then in pages 200 to 206, the focus is on about strictness, too much strictness, making life hard for your wife in suspicion and withholding praise and in bitterness. And then Finally, the third section, which is really a fascinating section here, from pages 207 to 214, how a husband instructs his wife. He talks about what kinds of things Is it legitimate to even correct the wife?

Or how do you deal with her conscience when it's sensitive or if she's being wrongfully scrupulous? What about forcing a wife to do things? I mean, he brings up some pretty critical matters. Joe, what are some of your sort of top level comments about this chapter before we dive in? Well, I think it's an interesting subject, Scott, and I think every man needs to be humbly gentle with his wife.

But it's just intriguing, isn't it, that the image we have of Puritans and our forefathers centuries ago is one of authoritarianism, one of demeaning one's wife and here's this Puritan whose book is more popular than any other having a whole chapter devoted to being humbly gentle with your wife. I think it's great. I think it's a great topic. I'm looking forward to it. You know, I got a phone call from one of my friends and he said, hey Scott, I just read this chapter and I'm on my way to repent to my wife.

That's great. It doesn't need to listen to us then tonight. Yeah, I mean, hey, I pray that our conversation will stir up love in marriages. Guj is so good at stirring up tenderness and compassion. Yeah, I think he's a good mentor.

I think most men need a mentor in marriage, and now we've got one right here. He's an English Puritan. That's right. My book people here said that after last week's talk that we had together, the sales of this book just surged immensely so they are definitely reaching people and they're ordering the book so that's great. Oh that is really great we think there might be 2, 000 people listening right now.

That's great. Yeah and we're gonna continue to try to encourage people to sign up because you can see the sessions any time. And we want to continue to encourage people to get on board if they'd like to. Well, OK, so in paragraph one, right at the top of page one, ninety six is really the foundation of everything that this discussion is about. And he quotes 1 Peter 3 verse 7, that a husband would live with his wife according to knowledge.

So that's the primary issue here. How do you live with your wife according to knowledge? And the first thing that he speaks about is really this result. It's in the second paragraph. He says something really fascinating here.

He says first that a husband give no just offense, and second, that he respond wisely, and get this, to the offenses that she brings. So there are these two things. One is that a husband doesn't arouse sin in his wife by his own behavior. That's the first thing. And then, when his wife is sinning, he responds with wisdom when his wife is sinning.

So Again, as he always does, he lays the responsibility on the husband. It's interesting too that these two things will result in what he says at the end of the first paragraph, that when you do this according to knowledge, she may have good reason to bless God that ever she was joined to such a husband." I just think that's such a beautiful, beautiful phrase there, a beautiful fragment of a sentence, because this is what I want in my marriage, I'm sure you do too, Scott, that your wife says, I'm just so blessed to be married to such a husband. And what Guj is saying right off the bat is, your wife can't say that of you if you don't know what it means to be wise and humbly, gentle with her. And I was thinking today that David has this wonderful text, I forget what Psalms is in, but thy gentleness hath made me great. And I think in Christ Jesus, when we look at Christ's gentleness, and then we learn to be more conformed to his image by the sheer grace of God and we drink in some of that gentleness and reflected in our marriages our wives since that Christlike spirit and they then look at us and say wow it's a blessing to be married to such a husband.

That's just so beautiful, isn't it? Oh, that really is such a beautiful statement. And so here you have Gujja's advocating that we try to protect our wives by our not sinning against them so that our bad treatment doesn't incite her to respond. And if she does respond poorly, that we respond wisely, so that we're caring for her in that way. It's really a beautiful thing.

And then he launches out at the bottom of page 196. There are two things that he identifies here about the love of a husband toward his wife. And it has to do with accepting of her inclinations and her abilities. In other words, he encourages husbands to make peace with what a wife is able to be and also what a wife is willing to be. Those are two different things, but he's urging husbands to be very careful with both of those things.

You might say, well, I could be patient with my wife because she has these abilities by virtue of her background or whatever, but she's not willing to do that. So I'm going to take her task of that. Lou says, no, be patient with your wife, with both her abilities and her willingness to do things and to accept what she is willing and able. And that's a key thought, isn't it? Because you start putting expectations on your wife and expecting her to produce things that she's not naturally gifted in.

You make a mess of your marriage and then she feels like she's not living up to your expectations, she feels resentful, and you get in this kind of quagmire where you're just going around and around and around and disappointment with each other. And so, a wise man, I think that's what Gudja is saying, a wise, humble, gentle man, recognizes, alright, I'm not fundamentally going to change my wife, and these are gifts she doesn't have, and so I accepted that she doesn't have those, And I don't point out to her that some other woman has what she doesn't have, which is a disaster. But I just accept that's the way my wife is, and she's never going to have these gifts. And so I love her for the gifts she has, and I almost even love her for the gifts she doesn't have because I love her so much I want her just the way she is. Amen.

That's just making peace with the sovereignty of God. I mean, brothers, I think we should ask ourselves, have we really understood that it was God in His sovereignty that brought us into these marriages? And He did it for a reason. And we shouldn't be pining away, you know, unhappy about what God has given us. It's sin of covetousness, wanting something that God has not given you, all wells up in a man, and he can't say, well, I am willing to praise and reward.

In fact, that's what Goog says, praise her and reward her for what she is able and what she is willing to do. You know, I remember when Deborah and I were first married, she would regularly ask me, are you happy with me? Are you disappointed in me? It was so hard for her to think that I would be disappointed in her. And so from time to time, she would ask me that question.

And I thought it was very cute that she would do that. But the thing is that she She didn't want to disappoint me, but she all I think she was aware too that she only had certain abilities to please me and you know, you're just married and you're just getting to know each other and Your expectations are being adjusted and things like that. My wife would put me in an even a little hotter seat than you, Scott, because she'd pick out one of her faults and she'd say, does it bother you that I don't have this? From day one, I just was so crazy in love with her that I just said, look, You know, you put all your faults together in a pile, they are so small, and your assets are so great. If I were to type up a list of a hundred things I want the woman to spit it out on the computer, you more than surpass those hundred things, and so I'll just take you with any little faults you have, I just love you so much.

That helped her. Oh, that's great. So, we get up to the middle of page 197 and he raises the issue of despising and rejecting a wife's goodness. And by not noticing her good works and by not taking notice of her good works he says, this often makes a wife even regret the good she has done. If you're not appreciating it she may grow to care less because of that.

Yeah, yeah. I think goodness, gentleness, and appreciation. He's saying here they all go together and actually on the bottom of 196 he makes a complimentary thought where he says every single good duty she performed, I'm that strong, every single good duty she performs she should have a kind and thoughtful acceptance of it. So you can hardly thank your wife too much and just be grateful for everything she does. Yeah.

He also says at the bottom of that paragraph, under husbands despising and rejecting the right goodness that if a husband doesn't praise her then it will make her weary of doing good so he's just bringing up this whole matter of how you encourage your wife, how you ensure that she doesn't get weary. The other thing he talks about here is, he does say that a wife should rest all of her hope in the praises of her husband, but if a husband despises and rejects his wife's goodness, how is she supposed to respond? We know she should look to God for her acceptance rather than to her husband, but that's a difficult thing to ask a wife to do. I think that's what she was just saying. Yeah, he is.

It is possible, however. We have a wonderful example of that in Leah in the Bible. Jacob kept favoring Rachel, and so the big thing that she thought she could do is give birth to a baby and Jacob would love her. She goes through all these children and says, now my husband will love me, now my husband will love me. He doesn't.

And then finally she has Judah, and Judah means praise the Lord, and she says, now I will praise the Lord, she ends in the Lord. So God sanctified it to her, but I'm sure she was still heartbroken with the lack of Jacob's love. So I think I think Gudgeon and this story in the Bible are both trying to teach us that as men, we have to be very, very careful not to fall into that pit where we don't appreciate our wives immensely so that they feel they're in some kind of second-rate humdrum marriage and they start doing things because well that's a wife's duty and The fizz is out of the coke when you have to do things like that. So we want to kick the fizz in the coke and be very grateful. My wife, and I'm sure your wife, is the same way, man.

When I really thank her a lot for things, you can just see on her face. She may not even say anything back, but this deep appreciation. It's hard for me to understand why men don't do that more because it's like a win-win situation you get the joy of thanking your wife and you get the joy of her being grateful and that makes your whole marriage better. Yeah, no that's so great and of course Joel has just announced that his next new book on marriage is Putting the Fizz Back in Your Coke. I did not announce that.

Okay, so, Joel, let me ask you about this. On page 199, He talks about the prioritization of a wife and he speaks about the very best treatment being given to a wife over and above all others. What are your thoughts about this idea of prioritization and actually a more highly exalted treatment of a wife over everybody else in your life? Well, I think it's biblical. It's a good question.

These two shall be one and a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh. Ephesians 5 is really speaking of leaving, cleaving, and oneness. And godly parents should be grateful. My daughter is in a very healthy relationship now with a young man, and we're hoping that she'll get married before long. It looks like it's heading that way.

But she told me the other day, she said, "'Dad, I love you very much, but I wanna let you know "'you're the number two man in my life now.'" And I said, that's great. I said, honey, that's just exactly the way it's supposed to be, and praise God. And I said, you know what? You got such a good young man there, I think he's better than your dad anyway, so he's a very special guy. So I think the Bible says forward, this is the normal, healthy, happy way to go, and I even think that children need to know that, that mom and dad's relationship is even above our relationship with them and I think that gives them a sense of security I know some people think what you kids got to feel like you love them the very most but then the home seems rather insecure to them so I think children need to know mom and dad are madly in love with each other deeply appreciate each other and out of that overflow of mutual love they love us like crazy too yeah he says it like this at the bottom of 199 much more autumn man due to his wife's request than any others, whether friend, child, or parent, much more free, eager, and cheerful should he be to shop himself his wife's request than any others, assuming that her desire be of that which may be lawfully granted.

So this happens, men often, they'll do anything for a friend but they'll do nothing for their wife. They'll go help a friend fix this and that, but he won't fix anything at home. Yes, yeah. Well, in premarital counseling, I tried to tell the couple, try to set up a kind of pattern and then you can tweak it when you get married. But the guy goes out with his friends once a week and the woman once a week, you know, with their friends and so on.

But set up a system where you give the most time to each other in the second amount of time to your family. Your family is very important. And try to give fairly equal treatment to both families. So that doesn't become a bone of contention. Yeah.

And then a little left over time for friends. But do remember that as you have children and your family grows, more and more time will be centered upon your family and your children. And friends will be marginalized a bit more. And that's natural. I mean, you still need friends, but don't ever let your wife feel that there's someone who's as important to you as she is.

Right. Yeah he really speaks of that so beautifully. There's a really wonderful statement in the middle of 199. I really like this about granting a wife's desire. He says that a wife would humbly make known her desire to her husband and he ought to show so much courtesy as willingly to grant her her desire.

This is so characteristic of Gogue, isn't it? He's constantly encouraging husbands to be a blessing to his wife, but I just love the way he said that. He ought to willingly grant her desire. Yeah, it's like both in marriage and with our children, almost all that we say and do and the way we look should be positive in character. And I think sometimes as married people we forget that, or as parents we forget that.

I made the comment before in a talk that 85% of our conversation to our children should be positive. And then if the 15% is corrective in nature, it will accept it much more. Of a wife, I think it's 98 percent. It's very unusual for you to have to lovingly gently express something to your wife that's not positive. She'll accept it much more if the whole general tenor of your conversation and your attitude and your demeanor is always positive.

He talks, if you go to page 200 at the top there, I think the focus here in the next six pages is really about how a husband does exactly the opposite, Joel, of what you're talking about. He's too strict, he's too harsh, and he begins this with a wife who's having to beg and ask again and again, right in the middle of that first paragraph. The wife must ask and beg again and again, even be forced to use the mediation of others to persuade their husband to yield to their request before they will yield, if at all they will yield. What is this but to proclaim to all the world that there is no affection in them for their wife. So it's a picture of a wife who's frustrated.

She actually would go to another party. He uses the word mediation. And I know there are various degrees of severity. If a husband is really sinning against a wife, she should go to an elder in order to deal with her husband. But here's just a picture of a really frustrated woman.

She has to beg and her husband won't give her what she desires. Yeah, now there are some women, of course, and hopefully there are not very many, but there are some women who use the begging technique constantly to try to just pester their husbands and become nags and Proverbs speaks of the leaking roof and so on. So there is a place here for carefulness that not everything a wife comes in and begs for, particularly if this is her character, to always want more things and more stuff. I was working with a couple recently where this woman had no conception, no conception of how much things cost. And she just keeps begging and begging and begging her husband to buy this and buy that.

And they're going in debt. So he gently needs to say, look, we just can't do this. Right. And so then she complains to others, he won't get me this. And she's trying to twist his arm.

But that's abnormal. I think what he's dealing here with is a man who just gets harsh by nature. Instead of having a tendency to say yes to your wife, he has a tendency to say no to his wife. Right, yeah he's talking about that that harsh kind of a man. Interestingly enough, Gush contends that if a husband is harsh to his wife and he lacks courtesy like this and he's overly demanding that he's actually laying a foundation to quote set his heart on strange women or to commit adultery.

Did you think those two dots can be connected? You have a harsh husband and Goosh is connecting that to his tendency to get involved in a strange woman. Well I think what he's saying is that if you tend to say no to your wife, you start to build up an inward hostility against her. And he mentions the text, doesn't he, of Job that your breath is strange to her, which is a strange comment in Job. But that was an old Hebraic expression, it's a wordplay with the Hebrew, that his heart is turning hostile and he doesn't come closer anymore and the affection is disappearing.

And so, yeah, you know, when that happens and he starts looking around and starts having lustful thoughts and lustful thoughts can easily lead to lustful actions if he's not careful. Yeah, and on the contrary, he's really urging husbands, you know, not to be demanding of their wives. You look at the lower third of page 200 under the heading, husbands refraining to demand all that they may. Here he's encouraging husbands to moderate their demands to actually be sparing in the demands that they make. And then he gives these two examples, which I thought were fascinating.

The first example is where a husband would move his wife just from place to place and to carry her from a place where she's settled. In other words, be demanding of her in the places that she lives. And then the second one is about hospitality. There on page 201, this is in the first half of that page, where he says, though she should cheerfully show hospitality to whoever guest he brings into the house, he should not be painful and burdensome to her. The greatest care and labors for serving guests lay on the wife.

She should therefore be treated tenderly here. So let's talk about these two examples. Joe, what are your thoughts about the first one that he gives? Yes, yes, interesting he uses this expression in that first paragraph That you don't move your wife and settle in a new place without her glad Consent. Mm-hmm.

And that's again not the image you'd expect of a Puritan several centuries ago You say maybe without her consent without her glad consent, right? You know, that's really pretty powerful So a move is a big thing. I think we need to say, when we make major decisions like that in life, we need our wife's heart with us, because if she's resentful and you make a move like that, that can really be disruptive of the whole marriage. So a wise man, I think Gudge is saying, doesn't say right away, okay, we won't make the move, but he talks with his wife about it, and he considers it, and he gives it time, and nurtures her, keeps loving her, And sometimes it takes a matter of time before a woman responds positively to something like this. So he shouldn't rush it, he shouldn't run ahead of the Lord or lag far behind the Lord, but if he feels the Lord's guiding him to another place, he should win his wife's glide consent.

Yeah, yeah, that's really interesting. I've tried to teach my daughters that the very best thing they can do is get themselves in a in a place when they get married where they're willing to follow their husband to the ends of the earth. They'll help him get there, They won't make it a drudge for him. They won't complain and whine and make it really hard when it's laid upon his soul to move. But at the same time here, Goosh really encouraged his sensitivity and to get her glad consent.

Yeah. I just had a case today where a brother wanted to go out for lunch with me and he's struggling about two potential calls he has in different places as a pastor and feels that God may be calling him, but he's struggling with which one. I asked him several questions, but one of the questions I asked him was, you know, in terms of your wife's convictions and her feelings, where is she in all of this? And I think that's a very legitimate question to ask. The wife doesn't have the internal calling necessarily like her husband does, but her role is a major one nonetheless, and that may be part of settling on God's internal calling for you.

Right. So, let's talk about this example on hospitality. I think we all know we can wear our wives out. We can, you know, we can just invite anybody over whenever we want without warning or preparation, it can be really hard. I think that's kind of what he's talking about here.

What are your thoughts here? You know, obviously he was commanded to practice hospitality. Yeah, Well, my wife and I get in this situation all the time. So we have a lot of professors come to our seminary. Most of them would prefer to stay in our home.

My wife is a very good cook and just a pleasant atmosphere, I trust. So But I say to my wife always, you know, they come for about a week and teach a course. I say, how do you feel about having so and so come? Are you up to it? Would you rather not?

I don't at all try to force her. I leave it completely with her. I said, you know, you're the one doing the work. And if you prefer not, it's perfectly OK with me. And we will we'll find someone else to take him in or put them in a motel.

But if I were to push her and she feels obligated, feels a little resentment, I think that's what Guj is saying. Measure it out according to what she can handle. Some women can only handle a little bit of hospitality. Some get all panicky. I'm blessed with a wife who's just her natural self, even if other people are around.

So it doesn't take such a great strain on her. Most of the time she says to me, yeah, I'd love to have them. So you have to know your own life that way. Yeah, it is true. Wives have different capacities and inclinations.

And of course, that's what Gucci's been arguing for. You know, wives have particular inclinations. They're willing to do some things and they're able to do so much. Husband just needs to be gracious to his wife according to those things. It's also good to try to coalesce as husband and wife around this thought.

It's endless how much hospitality we can give as ministers, but let's try to be intentional in our hospitality. We've got two major purposes. One purpose is to house people who are very God-fearing. It can be a real blessing to the whole family. I mean, my children have been so blessed by our hospitality.

The other purpose is to really evangelize people who aren't Christians and bring them in for family worship and things. So let's be intentional in our hospitality. And if your wife is on board with that, then you're not just thinking selfishly, you're thinking about what good can this hospitality do? And I find that helpful. You know, he just keeps on talking about this whole matter of, you know, caring for your wife's inclinations.

He talks about giving a wife a general consent so that she doesn't have to ask about everything. And he talks about household affairs. He talks about decorating, organizing, food, bringing up children. He's really arguing for a wife having an enormous amount of freedom. And every once in a while, I run across a husband who his wife has to ask him about everything and He's really warning against that danger.

Yeah, I think a Micromanaging husband is is the is the synonym of a nagging wife. I mean, both are unpleasant. A woman needs her space, just like a man needs his space. So then, I think he shifts gears here now and starts talking about too much strictness with a wife in page 203. And he starts talking about what it looks like when a husband is too strict or harsh or domineering really.

And what happens to her when she's having to labor under that. And so he says this at the top of 203, against this, in other words too much strictness, is the rigor and austerity of many husbands who stand upon the uppermost step of their authority." I thought that was an interesting use of words. The uppermost step of their authority, and yield no more to a wife than to any other subordinate. And then he just speaks that they're, you know, they're never content with anything as a result. Interesting, Scott.

Number two, he has, near the end, he's got this statement that these strict husbands demand things with poor timing. And that also shows to me a sense of immaturity on a man's part when he can't wait for the right time. He says when the wife maybe is a little bit sick or she's in the midst of child bearing, so she's pregnant, she's nursing and other problems or other burdens she's carrying is not the time to approach her. You need to use your head and say, OK, if I really want my wife to do X, when's the best time to approach her? That it won't be so overwhelming for her, you know, especially if you think she might have some reservations.

So we men, part of gentleness is humbly being other person centered and learning to approach your wife at the right time. Yeah, and he's wrapping this up around the whole matter of authority, because he says there's a way a husband can kind of stand on the uppermost step of his authority. And then he says this third point, he talks about when you have this wrong view of authority, you treat her like a child. You treat her like a servant, and he's really saying that's anathema. One of the things that I really love about this book here, this section on husbands, is that Gogue, he's really moderating the matter of headship.

He's trying to explain what headship looks like. And of course, the backdrop of it is the love of Jesus Christ for his church. Christ doesn't abuse his church. Christ is the head of the church, but he is also the savior of the body. But anyway, then he talks about this husband that is so relentless, the fourth point, men who are too busy prying into every business of the house and will have their hand in them all.

You use the word micromanagement. I think that's a really good word for what it's talking about there. And then the next one is really good too, number five on the top of 204. I think this is really true, don't you, that when you're too strict you tend to dominate so much that you actually get suspicious of your wife because she starts getting a little bit rebellious and she's chafing under this and she's not spontaneous in her love back. So you're getting suspicious about her and see it's just everything degenerates.

Right, yeah. And then he kind of goes back to this thing about encouraging her wife. And then he uses two words in the middle of page 204 that a husband would wisely praise and reward her for the good she's done. And he quotes Proverbs 31, you know, give her the fruit of her hands. I mean, Joe, what might that praise and reward look like?

Well, I think actually the praise is even more important, at least for my wife. The complimenting, the enjoyment, sometimes praise would just be to wrap my arms around her and hold her tight and say, I'm just so proud you're my wife. I just love to show you off. I love to just think of you. My heart still beats wildly for you when I see you walk in a room.

You're just so special to me. Thank you so much for what you've done. You've just shown one more time What a great wife you are. Well, she just bathes in that. Sometimes she says I praise her too much.

I'll say, Okay, I'll pull back a little bit to say, No, I did say that. And reward her. I think rewards deal more with concrete actions. And I think there are places for rewards where you say okay you've done this and you know I want you now to do that but you don't want to get into a system of if you do A then you can do B You got to be careful with rewards as well, I think. Yeah, you know, he over on the next page, 205, he quotes this poem of the wife who never hears anything good from her husband.

I'll read it often. Did I well and that I hear never. Once did I ill and that I hear ever. This is nitpicking. Yeah, just ignoring the positives and that.

So, you know, this is this is all about this problem of over-harshness. And, you know, brothers, we just ought to ask ourselves, you know, have we been over-harsh? Have we been too picky? Have we tried to micromanage them? Have we praised them for what they are able and willing to do.

The Lord Jesus Christ does this for his children. You think of all the things that you're not able or willing to do, but Jesus Christ continues to shed his love abroad on you. I think too, Scott, that part of genuine praise, realizing even as you praise your wife for certain things All of the things that could go wrong in a marriage all the things she could be that are negative that she isn't. So often we forget that. We forget that with our children too.

The child does something wrong or you say, now wait a minute, the child's not on drugs, the child's not drinking, drinking every night. Let's remember all the things that are going right. And then you can praise your child more genuinely, and a marriage that's even more true. He quotes 2 Timothy 2.24, the servant of the Lord must be gentle. So that kind of brings us to the end of this section and then in page 207 he begins to talk about something that I really never read a modern author write about And it's the whole issue of how a husband instructs his wife or even corrects his wife.

And that's on pages 207 to the end of this chapter. And he starts out talking about how a husband should instruct his wife with these words, "...the gentleness of a husband must be manifested in his speech and conduct. For as far as reverence extends itself in the duties of wives, gentleness must be extended in the duties of husbands. Whether a husband's speech be to his wife before her face or behind her back, it must be sweetened with gentleness. So Joel, this idea of a husband instructing his wife, maybe it's relatively unknown.

I think I spent many years, even in my marriage, and I didn't really realize that God had appointed me to instruct my wife, to teach her. This whole matter of watching her with the water of the water, that means that I'm teaching her things. I was, in the first decade of my marriage, I was really unaware that I was supposed to teach her in that way and I know you know in the feminist culture we live in the idea of a man teaching a woman is really unsettling. What are your thoughts about this thing, about a husband teaching wife? Well, I see it as a two-sided thing.

I learn a lot from my wife as well, from her example, her kindness, particularly. I've learned so much from her. And so she knows a lot about a lot of areas of things in life that I don't know, so I let her teach me too. But I think I probably do most, most of the teaching that I do do is teaching that's biblical because I'm a minister, and so I use family worship, I think, is my key platform for teaching my wife. I really enjoy it because she's so receptive and she wants to learn.

And she'll ask questions. And so it's not a teaching where I'm looking down on her in any way, but it's a back and forth teaching. It's a non-threatening teaching, a gentle teaching. That's what I try to do. And I would be discouraged, actually, from doing it if she would show any resistance to it I think would be hard on me but uh...

Because she's so cooperative and she enjoys learning about the local things And I enjoy learning about secular things, I don't know about that she knows about, because she's read about things I haven't read about. So we do kind of teach each other that way. And I think that's a beautiful relationship when you can teach each other a variety of things and appreciate that each other has gifts in areas that the one doesn't have and my dad used to say the older we get the more your mother and I need each other I think the older we get in marriage the more we we teach each other right and and that keeps also fizz in the coke you know because if you're just sitting there not saying anything to each other, you're just saying mundane things and you're not learning, you're not living on the growing edge, your marriage can just kind of plateau. But if you're learning things and you're sitting down, another thing we do is we just sit and read together. We both read our own books and then we'll say, hey, listen to this honey, and you read something to her and then you talk about it a little while.

She does the same thing to you. You're really teaching each other there through other writers and You're both learning and that's exciting. And he talks about the the disposition about if you look at 208 at the beginning of the first main paragraph there under point number four, he says, against this is a harsh, rough manner of instructing when husbands go about to thrust into their wives heads as it were by violence, deep mysteries which they are not able, he says, not able to understand. I kind of think he's talking about the mysteries are so deep that the man doesn't understand. He's so mad that nobody can understand it.

And then he says, I thought this was really helpful. He said, this harshness, this is at the end of that paragraph, is ordinarily so fruitless and additionally so exasperates a woman's spirit. I think he would be better off to completely omit the duty than do it after such a man. In other words, if you do it harshly, you might as well not do it. I think that's what I'm saying.

Can be counterproductive, yeah? Yeah. Yeah, that's quite possible. Because then the wife feel, your wife feels like you're just, you're out to teach her to prove a point. You're turning the screws on her as it were, just making things difficult for her.

And You've got an ulterior motive. Yeah. And if you teach gently, I think your wife feels that, hey, you're just sharing information and you want to learn from her and it's a mutual thing. Sure, maybe there's some aspect of headship here in play, particularly in teaching religious truth, but it's a parallel thing where you're both learning from each other, I think. And it can be difficult for couples to be able to be instructed by one another.

One of the things that I'll do fairly regularly in our church after the preaching is done and we're sending everybody home, I'll quote 1 Corinthians 14 34, which says, And if a woman has a question, let her ask her husband at home. And I say, Hey, you wives go home and ask your your husband's questions think up the hardest questions you can possibly imagine you know help them explain to you things that maybe maybe you you don't you know you don't quite understand or or what their perspective is and you know it's it's always a challenge when you do that because it's often hard for couples to talk like that many couples have never learned how to talk and so if like if a husband is asked a hard question and he doesn't know the answer he gets mad. So it's a well Paul said you know ask your husband's at home I think it's an incredibly sanctifying command because it drives a husband and wife together to talk about important matters. Yeah, yeah. And then of course she must ask the question gently too.

Sure, absolutely. And if she knows the answer She should also gently give him the answer and not try to show that she's one up on him Yeah, and don't don't play games. I guess that's the point. I'm trying to make yeah, you're teaching each other So then he of course he's talking about Instructing a wife and he uses different words, you know, commanding wives and dealing with their consciences and things like that. And One of the things that he says is that it's wrong for a husband to command his wife to do something that's forbidden by the Word of God.

That should be very obvious to Paul. But he says, to command an unlawful thing or forbid a thing which ought to be done is to bring his own authority into opposition with God's. And I think he's talking about that authority that's just always slashing, always just demanding one thing after another without any gentleman. And then he also speaks, doesn't he, about the conscience being subject to God, and so a husband shouldn't force a conscience, even when the husband feels that there's something legitimate, that his wife really shouldn't be necessarily against, because it's not forbidden the Word of God, But he should respect her conscience. And so, I mean, I think this applies from mundane daily things all the way over to sexual things and the intimacy of marriage.

You don't force your wife to do things that she doesn't feel comfortable with. It really is remarkable how careful he is to help husbands not violate the conscience of their wives. He advocates a great sensitivity and respect to the conscience of the wife. He qualifies it, we can get to that in a minute, but I think the first thing that really jumps out at me is this kind of headship that Guge is advocating is very careful with the one's conscience, even if it's over scrupulous like he talks about later on in this chapter. How does he deal with her conscience?

Well, he says that he must first labor to resolve her conscience by plain discovery of her error, which is a true and great sign of love. If, despite all that, he can do it in a way she cannot be brought to yield to what he would have, then he must carefully observe these two things. Whether her refusing to yield is obstinacy or weakness, and whether it be above a small or important matter. So he's asking husbands to consider things more deeply like she might have a conscience problem and it might it it may be because of just some inability to understand something. When we hear something the first time, it might take us a while to really understand it and grasp it, and that would be weakness.

But then there's rebellion. Those are two totally different things. What are your comments about the distinction he makes there? Well, he's setting up, isn't he, like a four-checkered thing where you've got obstinacy, weakness, small, important. Right.

So there's four combinations. Sure. And I would think if something is, if your wife is weak and it's small, she has a weak conscience of something and it's a small thing, I just ignore it completely. If your wife has a weak conscience and it's a very important thing, and you feel it's obstructing something important, Then you need to be very gentle, have patience and work at it over a period of time and see if her conscience can't be more in line with God's Word on that particular issue. If she's being obstinate and it's a small thing, I guess I would probably just overlook it because I think you can make mountains out of molehills.

But I think this is his point, if it's an important matter, and he senses a spirit of rebellion in her, and obstinacy, then Goude is pretty strong, that he needs to exercise his his headship. You can't just look the other way on something like that. But even there, it's still under the title of humble gentleness. So he doesn't go out and lambast things and and come up against her with a similar spirit of rebellion and obstinacy, but he tries to still win her over it. I love this statement.

He says, the love and gentleness required of a husband should make him so tender towards her as to let go of some of his rights. And when he sees her conscience troubled about his command, to relieve her conscience by refraining to press that which seems so burdensome to her. That's really understanding and compassionate. Yeah. And then he talks about on page 210 at the top, when a wife is wrongly scrupulous, She's actually misapplying the Word of God.

And then what should a husband do? And of course he says he should take time, you know, to help her understand if she is in error. How would you explain this to a husband, you know, as far as what's the best way for a husband to approach, you know, this kind of situation without offending her yet still standing firm on an orthodoxy. Yeah, I think there can come a time that he says, you know, he says in the middle of 213, the times that a husband really needs to command his wife to go in a certain direction that she doesn't really want to go and must be rare. Rare, rare is very rare.

So he says, authority is like a sword, which with too much use will be blunted and so failed to do that service, which otherwise it might when there is most need. So in other words, he's saying, just like we say with our kids, pick your battles. You don't make mountains, animals, hills. There are times you need to be firm with your children, say the line is in the sand here. And he's saying, with your wife, there may be a rare occasion now and then but you just really need to say honey I love you so much and you're such a wonderful wife I just love the way we get along so well but here we have a difference of opinion I've wrestled with this And I really believe we need to go.

We need to go this way, but don't get me wrong, I really cherish you and so on, and I hope that you can accept this and that we can move forward. So I think a gentle yet firm exercise of headship in rare occasions, when it will be needed, actually gets the respect of a God-fearing woman, as long as the husband doesn't do this all the time, because most of the time they should be able to work things out between them in a very satisfactory way. He uses this illustration of the sword, and he talks about this overactive sense of authority. He uses some really interesting images to speak about authority that's gone bad. But one of these illustrations is the sword and how overuse of the sword makes it really unable to have any effect.

If he's always pulling a sword out of the scabbard, it won't have any effect. That's kind of the idea that he brings to bear here. But, and he also, at the bottom of 2.12, he talks about a husband's pride in commanding too much. He said, again, this is the rough pride of husbands when they will have their own will done, and it does not matter whether the thing commanded is lawful or against God's law, or whether their wives' consciences can yield to it or not, whether it stands with the honor of their positions or not, and whether it is important or insignificant. And he says some think it a glory to command what they like.

But he traces this headship problem to pride. And you know he's talking about the man who thinks he can do anything he wants with his wife and Goose is dead set against that kind of husband. It's an abuse of headship and It's really an antonym of gentleness. And I think that's what the whole chapter is about, that here's the opposite, this is the ugly side of abusive headship. Yeah, and I really love the balance that Gugger brings.

He does make it very clear that the husband is the head of the wife, and then he spends the rest of his time defining what kind of head this is. And he is definitely identifying this domineering, you know, proud kind of a man who just does what he wants and he completely misunderstands headship. You know, we have men like that today and we had men like this in the 17th century. It's just part of our sin nature. Well look at the just the title, the chapter titles of the first three chapters, Affectionate Authority, Humble Gentleness, the next chapter for next week, Patient Correcting.

You just see this love running through everything. Yeah. Well, so Joel, you know, Goosh has been encouraging us to live with our wives in an understanding way, to care for them, to tenderly handle them, to instruct them, to actually give them lots of freedom. This is the kind of headship that Gooch understands is the headship of Jesus Christ. Joel, we're out of time now.

Any parting shots? What are the last? I just want to say to do all these things that we talked about in the last two weeks, Scott, you need to be with your wife. You need to be talking with her. You need to be sharing time together and have real talk, real talk time about spiritual things, be able to have real communication, bear your soul and be vulnerable.

And I think these kinds of things are only possible when there's a real open relationship. Amen. Well, hey, let's get back together again next week for chapter 15, a husband's patient correcting of his wife. Joel, thank you for joining me on these first two sessions. I'm really grateful for it.

Now we're going to bring in some other men to continue this discussion. But hey, thanks for the time. I'm sure they have more wisdom than me. Thank you very much. God bless you.