Sunday, July 18, 2010

Characteristics of a Godly Wife



This is a blog for every women who is married or who wants to get married someday. I have noticed a severe change in the way people view household roles. And it is not a good change. It seems that a lot of Christian women have forgotten the rules God has given us to be good wives. First off let me say that I'm only 20. I'm not married yet, but hopefully will be next summer. Also I believe that everything God's Word says is true and that every Christian should take into account what it says and follow God's Word even if they don't like what it says. My Sunday school class at church recently did a lesson on godly wives. So some of the information I have is from that, but also from personal study.

1) Ephesians 5:22-24(ESV)
"Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands."

First I'm going to define the word submit.
Submit: Willing to give yourself up for your spouse, sacrifice, voluntarily placing yourself under another's authority. In other words when you chose to marry your husband you are also choosing to place yourself under his authority. No questions asked. Even if you think your husband is completely wrong you are to follow him and support him.
God placed the husband in authority over his whole household, and his wife is supposed to submit to him just like the church is to submit to Christ.

2) I Peter 3:1-6(NIV)
"Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear."

Now one of the main themes I got from this passage is inward beauty. This means that a godly wive will have good character, a good heart (one that possesses the Fruit of the Spirit). Now these verses are not saying that every woman needs to give up on her outward appearance and start looking hideous. These verses are saying that it's what's inside that should draw the attention of your future husband, while outward appearance is a plus, but not the main focus. Another section of this scripture is at the beginning. When we were doing the lesson in Sunday school, my instructor brought up a very good point. It seems that if there is a couple where one is saved and the other is not (or they both start out unsaved and one comes to Christ during their relationship), usually the female has a relationship with Christ. And we are supposed to win them over(show them God) not by words but by the purity and reverence of our lives, through our gentle and quiet spirits. Now how do you define a woman who has a gentle and quiet spirit? How about this? How do you NOT define a woman with a gentle and quiet spirit? This woman (the one who is not gentle and quiet) is the aggressive, domineering woman. The woman who always has to be in control and is always telling her husband what to do and how to live his life. This is NOT the way a Christian household should be run. God put the husband in charge of the household and gave him the authority to make the household decisions. And wives are supposed to trust God through every decision that is made even if it sounds like a bad decision. We can't be supportive of him one minute and the in total disagreement with him the next. All of these things are the things that God looks for in a godly woman/wife. And these are the things that are pleasing to him.

3) Titus 2:3-5(NASB)
"Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored."

This scripture is focusing on how older women need to be examples to younger women. And by older women I don't mean 40's and up. Every one is older than someone. Everyone is going to go through similar things that you've gone through and they are going to want advice. And the reason we are able to give advice is because we have experience. But, to be able to give sound advice you need to be a firm believer in the Word of the Lord and follow it's instructions. We can't be focusing on the things of the world, like gossiping or getting drunk(only a couple things of the world that women become enslaved too). As older women we need to be good, GODLY examples to the younger women in our lives. Notice that one of the characteristics is to be workers at home. God placed women in the home because we are naturally nurturers. We are naturally able to take care of our home and care for our children. Not to mention women are incredible multi-taskers. We are able to comfort a child that's hurt while cooking dinner(there are probably better examples out there, I just couldn't think of one off the top of my head because it's something we just do and don't really think about). If my boyfriend tried to multi-task he would either get a head ache or forget about one thing completely while focusing on the other.

Now why are we supposed to be good examples to younger women and teaching them what's right while doing what's right? Because if we don't we give others a reason to revile God's word and are dishonoring and blaspheming it ourselves.

4) Last Scripture: I Corinthians 7:3-5(NIV)
"The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control."

Now it's kind of obvious what these verses are saying, yet there are so many people who don't understand what this is actually saying and that they really do NEED to do what these verses say. Well here it is: Once you get married, your body is no longer yours. It is your husband's and you (as his wife) are to fulfill his needs whether you want to or not. And it's the same for your husband's body. That belongs to you once you marry him. "I'm not in the mood" is not a good excuse. Now if you are ill, or if you are exhausted, or need to study God's Word, your spouse should understand. But, other than that you need to fulfill his needs. It's another one of your duties as his wife.

Once again I'm going to inform you that 1) I'm only 20 and 2) I'm not married nor have I ever been (will be soon hopefully). I was extremely excited to learn about this through Sunday school and personal studying though. And I believe every word of the Bible. So this is my opinion on what a godly wife should look like.

9 comments:

  1. I enjoyed reading this. It is wonderful that you are studying God's Word with eager anticipation of your 'Godly Marriage' in your near future. I am a 35 year old woman with 11 years of marriage and I can testify that all that you have shared here is true. My relationship has flourished and gotten stronger as my husband and I have learned to apply these truths to our marriage!

    Thank you for sharing!

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  2. Wow..such an inspirin piece..m 22yrs single lady..God bless

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  3. This was perfect.. Im turning 20 in December. I've been married since last may and have an 8th old son. I lost my way and I want to get cloer to God, but I don't know how. I'm trying to be a good wife and mom and sometimes it's so hard alot of the time I don't feel like I'm actually worth anything. This really hit home. It made me feel alot better about it. I never really understood why it was easier for me to as you said hold an upset baby & cook, I do that alot since he's teething. Thank you for posting this :) I feel like a huge weight has been lifted.. not really sure why but thank you. :) Annie

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  4. A lot of women these days, especiallay from my generation, really struggle with the idea of 'submission'. I am 34 years old, have been married for 6 years and my marriage is a true testimony to the fact that this is exactly what God intended for wives and the rewards have been so much more than I ever thought possible. At first, marriage wasn't anything I ever thought it would be and to top it off, it was a lot of work. Not getting what I wanted out of it, I conceded to concentrate on being a Godly wife. There are so many examples I could give in ways I did this, but the bottom line is really that I CHOSE to love him unconditionally. I made a choice to embrace him and all him imperfections. I 'submitted' to being the best wife I could not only through my good deeds, but through the love I gave to him. I 'submitted' to the definition of marriage that God gives us. This didn't mean being walked all over or being taken advantage of. I just became the example of love in our marriage. Today, God has delivered to me in my husband, a loving husband and father, a provider, a true example of a man of God. Thanks for refreshing my heart and renewing my spirit and committment to this approach in my marriage. God bless.

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  5. This is a wonderful piece. I want to say hear that being submissive is like having a hold on your marriage and getting all the love of your husband. my husband and i have been together for five years and i ve been really submissive as a christain wife should be and it has been great. I came to realise that apart from the fact that my husband became a better christain with the peace he has found, he also has come to see me as a pillar. a pillar in the sense that even though i dont work, he takes care of financial issues he still looks at me like ''i wouldnt ve been able to live this happy without you taking charge of every aspect of our home'' When a woman takes charge by totaly loving, caring and dedicating all to the home she gets the best out of the husband. I believe all women should be submissive as the bible says and God will surely keep peace and love in the marriage.

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  6. I really enjoyed reading this and it makes me even happier that you have such a grasp of God's word at your age. This is what I hope for my children. I want them not only to ready God's word I want them to understand it and apply to their lives. Thanks for sharing.

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  7. Thanks for all the comments guys. And I just want to let you know that I didn't come to this understanding of God's Word on my own. I've had both of my parents raise me to have an understanding of the Bible (and not a superficial one), I've had the rest of my family to help my parents and to support my spiritual growth, and most importantly I've had God, who chose me to be one of his sheep.

    Thanks again to everyone. As you can probably tell from looking at the rest of my site, I'm not very good at keeping up with my blog. Tel your friends and family though and maybe I'll be encouraged to keep it up.

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  8. So young and so insightful. Most young people don't understand any of this. They take submission to mean "enslaved". While you touched on some very good points and I agree with you whole heartedly there are some instances where a wife must take control. In the case I'm referring to, and I'm in my 2nd marriage, my first marriage it was about handing over my paycheck to a man who would hand you $20.00 back and expect you to drive 35 miles per day then have money for a cold drink or sandwich if you didn't have anything to pack for lunch. This was to last you all week. Now we all know that won't happen then you come home from work one day to find you have no lights and no water because the bill was never paid. When you ask him what he did with the money, well we can imagine how that went. My paycheck every week was more than $300.00 and his was more than $400.00. I finally split the bills down the middle, opened my own account and told him how this would work. Well my share was being paid for and I had extra cash in the bank but we had the same problem with his share. Nothing was paid. I had to take the bull by the horns and take care of finances myself. Now this makes you wonder a little. If he was bringing home $1500.00 a month and his share of the bills were $700.00, where did all his money go? What did he do with all his money? I've never figured that out either but after 17 years of mental, verbal and sometimes physical abuse I walked out.I remarried 5 years ago and my husband tells me to handle the finances because I handle money alot better than he does or can. I tell him what bills we have and when all is said and done if there is any extra we split it or keep it in the bank to cover the next month. My husband was raised in a Christian home so we discuss things that need to be talked about. It was never that way in my 1st marriage. Money should never be the thing you fight about. Granted we all enjoy having money and it's nice to have things now and then but it's not something worth fighting over and I think too many households...........saved and unsaved, have this problem. In my home we discuss the issue then he knows I'll go pray about it. The Lord always supplies "enough" of what we need and that's enough for me.

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  9. wow it is great love this one thanks for sharing :-)

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