Today, we're diving deep into the vital responsibilities of husbands as outlined in Ephesians 5, particularly focusing on the concepts of nourishing and cherishing one’s wife. It’s not just about providing the essentials; we explore how a husband’s love should reflect the tender care that Christ has for His people. We’ll unpack how the terms “nourish” and “cherish” go hand in hand, with “nourishing” addressing the necessities of growth, while “cherishing” provides the warmth and environment for that growth to flourish. This episode challenges us to consider the deeper implications of our actions and words within marriage, urging us to treat our wives with the honor and gentleness they deserve. After all, as we discuss, love is not merely a claim but is proven through the consistent, thoughtful treatment of our partners—so let’s get into it! The dynamics of a marital relationship, particularly the role of husbands, is a rich topic that invites both serious reflection and light-hearted banter. In our latest episode, we delve into Ephesians 5, where Paul outlines a husband’s duties, particularly focusing on the importance of nourishing and cherishing one’s wife. This isn’t merely a checklist of responsibilities; it’s about embodying a profound love that mirrors Christ’s relationship with the church. We share a chuckle or two over the common misconception that providing a roof and a paycheck is all it takes to fulfill one’s role as a husband, while neglecting the emotional and spiritual dimensions that truly matter. As we explore the meanings behind the terms 'nourish' and 'cherish,' we see that nourishing is about meeting the needs of our wives, while cherishing is about treating them with the respect and tenderness they deserve. We bring in the Greek word 'thalpo,' which conveys warmth and care, to illustrate how husbands can create an environment where love and respect flourish. Listeners are treated to real-life examples that highlight both the successes and failures of husbands in practicing this kind of love, reminding us that the journey of marriage requires both humor and humility. Towards the conclusion, we tackle the notion of the 'weaker vessel' as mentioned by Peter, shedding light on its true intent. Rather than suggesting a lack of value, it calls for husbands to recognize the unique vulnerabilities of their wives and treat them with extra care and gentleness. Through relatable analogies—like how one would handle a cherished family heirloom—we emphasize that the treatment of one’s spouse reflects their inherent worth. This episode serves as a heartfelt reminder that love in marriage is not just a feeling but an active commitment to understanding, honoring, and cherishing one another every single day.

Takeaways:

• In Ephesians 5, Paul emphasizes that a husband's love must nourish and cherish his wife, reflecting the love Christ has for the church.
• The difference between nourishing and cherishing is crucial; nourishing provides for needs, while cherishing creates an environment for emotional growth.
• A husband's treatment of his wife should be a visible proof of her inherent value, reflecting not only affection but also respect and honor.
• Understanding a wife's unique needs requires ongoing effort and attention, making it a lifetime commitment for husbands to cherish and honor their spouses.

Thank you for studying with us today and returning to look further in what the Bible says about the husband and the.

The responsibility that he has in the home, especially as it pertains to his wife.

We have left it for just a little while and.

And talked about our attitude toward truth and our desire for truth.

And now we've returned to look further into the.

What Paul has to say in Ephesians 5 with regard to the husband's role in his treatment of his wife.

Today I want to talk with you more about the love that cherishes.

If you'll notice, it says in Ephesians 5 that he does nourish and cherishes her.

Those two words are used to describe his treatment of her, his.

His.

How he values her.

And so today we want to look at that pattern.

Notice in verse 29 that Paul establishes a fact that he bases the pattern on and that is, no man yet hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it.

And even as the Lord, the Ecclesia, the called out, so the standard of love is far higher than just, you know, merely refraining from harming or being cruel.

He's explaining that he that loves his wife, loves himself.

Ephesians chapter 5, verse 28 says that.

And so a husband is to nourish and cherish his wife as instinctively and carefully and continually as he cares for his own body.

It is just sort of second nature.

More importantly, he is to do so even as the Lord, the ecclesia.

In other words, that he is the pattern.

The husband's pattern is not some other example of a Casanova husband or the custom of his culture or even his wife's treatment of him.

It's not dependent on any of that.

His pattern is already fixed, and that's based on the love that Christ had for his people.

Now let's look at this word cherish a little closer.

As we tried to define our terms here this morning, the word is unusually tender.

It's the Greek word thalpo.

It carries the idea of warming, comforting, and caring for something with gentle attention.

Paul uses the same word in First Thessalonians 2, where he compares his treatment of the believers to the tenderness of a nurse that cherishes her children.

The picture is not one of some responsibility that's detached, but it's a very personal thing, very personal tenderness, like a nurse that cherishes her children.

To cherish, then, is to draw to another or draw near to another to provide the warmth in which they can flourish and to guard them from the coldness that would cause them to withdraw.

And these terms, nourish and cherish, are belonging together.

They usually are, but they're not identical.

The difference between the two is when you think about nourishing, nourish is to supply what's necessary for that growth, but to cherish is to provide the tender care in which that growth becomes possible.

You're providing the.

The right environment, the right.

Setting.

You're trying to set the correct, I guess you'd say, environment for that growth to flourish.

And so to cherish is to provide that key care in which that growth can be possible.

So nourishment says, what does she need?

While cherishing asks, how.

How must she be treated?

See, one concerns the idea of provision nourishing.

The other concerns the manner she's to be treated gently.

And so a man can provide a house, he can provide food and transportation and financial security and all of that, and yet leave his wife emotionally exposed and inwardly cold.

He may meet expenses without cherishing the woman for whom those expenses are paid.

So you know, you.

You have to have them both.

One without the other is of no value.

So he meets those needs.

That's what she needs.

But he does it in a manner that expresses his opinion of her value and her worth.

Now, Christ does more than just maintain his people and give them what they need.

He loves them in a manner that's calculated to bring them to the intended purpose.

And this purpose is expressed in the text, and that is that she, he might present it to, to himself, a glorious church without spot.

You see, his love sees what grace intends his people to become.

He doesn't despise them because they work imperfectly or because they're unfinished and flaw full of flaws.

He doesn't use their imperfections to deny their intended glory.

He gives himself to the work of bringing that glory forth.

He wants to display her.

He wants to present her to the Father, as First Corinthians 15 says.

He's proud of the work that's been accomplished, and he wants to show the glory, her glory.

Now, this is where cherishing becomes inseparable from the desire to reveal another person's value.

You know, a husband who loves as Christ loved, he doesn't just recognize that his wife has value in some abstract sense, but he treats her in ways to demonstrate it.

His conduct becomes evidence of his estimation of her.

And so his patience would say that she's worth understanding.

He gives attention.

He listens to her, and his attention says that her thoughts are worth hearing.

His faithfulness says that she's not interchangeable.

As he protects her and gives her these provisions, it communicates to her that if she has any wounds or needs, they matter to him.

He wants to know about it.

And so his sacrifice says that her welfare is precious enough and valuable enough to cost him something.

And whatever that cost is, he's willing to pay.

And so we may claim to value something, and yet we handle it very carelessly.

Well, you can say that all you'd like.

You can even say how much you love someone.

But the real proof in the pudding is how you treat them.

And so our manner of handling it eventually exposes our true estimate of its worth.

Our treatment doesn't lie.

See, it's the visible proof of the value that we've assigned to another person.

And that's the force of Peter's instruction here to husbands.

Likewise, he says, ye husbands dwell with them according to knowledge.

First Peter 3, 7, giving honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life.

Now, I think it's important for us to spend a little time on this expression.

Weaker vessel has often been separated from the rest of the verse and is kind of used as if Peter intended to diminish women.

But his conclusion makes that interpretation an impossibility.

Peter is describing the manner in which a husband must live with his wife.

The emphasis is not upon attaching the label.

Weaker has nothing to do with that.

It's upon requiring the husband to treat her as carefully as he would handle some delicate vessel.

And so the recognition of vulnerability becomes a reason for greater care.

And certainly in that world, she was vulnerable.

Consider how a person would treat something of value but yet fragile.

It's because it's fragile, it doesn't make it worthless.

In fact, it's just the opposite.

An ordinary container, you can toss it into a cabinet without any thought about it being hurt or damaged.

But a treasured vessel is lifted very carefully and very deliberately and placed where it will not be damaged because we know it's susceptible to harm.

And so it calls forth the need to be attentive from we understand its worth and we're going to care for it gently.

Gentleness is.

Is not an insult to the vessel.

It is an acknowledgment of that.

What has been entrusted to our care is too valuable to be handled recklessly.

We can think about a number of possibilities or illustrations to.

To make this point, I think, clearer.

But we must not force Peter's purpose here or beyond Peter's purpose.

He's not really trying to get at the idea that a wife is just a decorated object or that the husband is her owner.

Please don't go that far with it.

But Peter calls both the husband and the wife vessels, indicating that they're both human instruments whose lives belong to God.

And while it's certainly within reason to think that physical strength may be part of Peter's meaning, I don't think it's the principal part of it.

In the world in which Peter wrote, a woman commonly occupied a more vulnerable social and economic position than her husband.

She could be wounded not only by his physical power, but by the misuse of his authority.

His words could be neglect and abuse, his neglect or maybe his public treatment of her.

He could use the advantages granted to him by society to make her life secure, or he could use them to make her afraid.

So Peter places the responsibility squarely upon the husband.

He says, dwell with her according to knowledge and giving her honor.

Now, a person who has carefully constructed a model airplane.

And I've.

I used to construct these model cars when I was a kid.

I don't know if I did how many I did, but I did a few.

And interestingly enough, when one of the younger kids would come over to the house, I was so concerned because one time one of them got a hold of it and just tore it all to pieces.

Well, that.

That just upset me.

I was young enough that I thought that was a lot of attention given to it, A lot of time spent on it.

And it meant a lot to me to keep it protected.

Well, that's kind of the same kind of feeling that we should receive and are similar when our wives are mistreated or when they're hurting or when we see something in them of great value and they're not either treated fairly or they're not perceived with the same value as we see them.

That model could possess a great design or some remarkable detail, and yet it has to be handled according to the nature of its construction.

I mean, it's just held by a little glue, and it can be broken easily.

The point being is that the weakness of some particular part of that model doesn't define the worth of the entire creation.

You see, we're only governing the manner in which a knowledgeable person handles it.

We're not describing the fact that it's weak is not saying that it's of no value.

Now, that's how a lot of people are seeing this.

And as they construct Peter's meaning, they're all together wrong with their application.

Peter's not telling us that she's of no value, he's doing the very opposite.

And he's trying to get the man to recognize that that value will be perceived and communicated by the manner in which he treats her.

And so it just governs the manner in which a knowledgeable person will handle.

The same principle can be seen in a way one handles maybe an old picture frame or a valued heirloom of some sort.

Maybe you have an expensive piece of jewelry that has diamonds and maybe a three prong necklace and.

Or something like that that you can perceive could be easily broken.

Or the piece of diamond may be coming out of position and losing it.

An old frame may have survived for generations.

And yet age has made certain joints very delicate.

Well the same way with anything of value, a valuable necklace, precious metals or costly stones, and all those will be carefully handled.

Its delicacy doesn't diminish the value.

So the value of a piece gives the owner and a greater reason to handle it with gentleness.

No sensible person is going to throw a valuable piece of jewelry in a drawer with a bunch of tools, or drag an antique frame carelessly across the floor, or test the strength of a model airplane by gripping it by its most delicate point.

He adjusts his touch to the nature of the object that he's handling, whatever that is.

And knowledge then governs the manner in which he treats this thing of value.

So value produces the care.

You know, there are listened to arguments pursued in Bible classes over the years where someone was discussing this phrase weaker vessel.

And some of the women might get offended by the fact that they're just as strong as some men they know.

And I'm sure that's the case.

They're women who are physically stronger than I am, but it's just not.

That's not the point.

He's not talking about who's physically stronger.

His point is stressing the manner of his treatment of her.

He treats her as a weaker vessel.

She may be an Amazon woman, but he still treats her as a weaker vessel.

He's to know her well enough to understand where care is required.

It may not be in picking up a bag of groceries that looks a little too heavy, but it may be something else.

So dwelling with them according to knowledge means that his conduct is informed by what he has learned about the woman with whom he lives.

And we're all different and they're all needs.

Now there are some general needs that I think are relatively similar with other women.

But the point is he needs to get, he needs to know his woman, he needs to he dwell with her according to knowledge.

He needs to know her and her needs.

And so as he is informed about that, his conduct will be adjusted based upon that need.

And his manner may also need to be adjusted because love has taught him to handle her according to her need and to do it with gentleness.

Furthermore, this comparison has never been intended to reduce a wife to an object.

Peter immediately identifies her as an heir standing beside her husband.

They're heirs together of the grace of life.

Which tells me that Peter is not suggesting that she's some possession or an ornament that has great value, that he treats her with value as if she were an object.

So please don't misunderstand that I'm just using these as illustrations to express or make the point of the manner in which we treat our wives.

So no, she's not inferior and she's not some possession.

She belongs to God, and she shares with her husband the same gracious inheritance.

But the illustration of the vessel explains the care with which she is to be treated.

Now, without that knowledge, even the well intentioned actions of a husband can become very careless.

In other words, he may insist that he loves his wife, yet he repeatedly dismisses the things that matter to her.

These are things that she needs, that she depends on and desires, things that make her maybe feel better.

And so to dismiss them as not being important certainly is not revealing that you understand her.

And it may come or appear that you're not very careful.

And so he may determine that what she ought to need and what she should want, and then resent her when his chosen form of care doesn't reach out to her.

You see, you've got to understand what makes her tick.

You have to understand her and her unique ways.

Christlike love doesn't merely act.

It wants to understand so that its actions truly serve the beloved.

And the same way friends, husbands should treat their wives.

And so Peter then commands the husband to give her honor as this vessel.

Honor is value that's expressed.

It's the outward treatment that corresponds to this value, this estimation of value.

So to honor another is to assign some weight to that person, to regard her presence, to listen to her words because they're valuable, and to know her needs and the welfare, all that as being consequential.

And so honor refuses to treat her, let's say, as just ordinary.

You're not going to treat her as common, as if she's just some, some disposable thing that's of no value, or that she's insignificant.

Her words, the things that concern her, her worries.

These are things that ought to.

The husband ought to give some very serious attention to.

He needs to listen carefully.

And so Peter then commands then her to then be treated with honor.

That's a value that's expressed.

So this honor, obviously it can't be.

Well, honey, you.

You ought to know how I feel about you.

I married you 20.

20 Years ago, and I feel the same way today as I did then.

It's.

It's not.

It's not something that you say or that you just tell her that you ought to know that I. I still love you.

And.

But it's always visible.

Honor has to be visible in the ordinary life of the marriage.

So husband honors his wife when he refuses, for example, to embarrass her.

So many times I see this happen when a man may.

In mixed company, or maybe he's at some business, some meal, or, I don't know, some meeting.

Business meeting where they're having a meal in honor of someone, maybe even himself, himself.

And the husband may embarrass her for the amusement of others.

He doesn't expose her private struggles to win an argument, and when he does, doesn't make an important decision, is through.

In other words, she's not just something for his amusement.

And he certainly shouldn't be looking at an opportunity to make a joke for her embarrassment.

So he honors her when he speaks with.

Of her with respect in her absence, or when he receives her concerns without any kind of resentfulness or contempt, he protects the trust that she's placed in him.

And so he honors her when his conduct in private agrees with the affection that he displays in public.

They are consistent.

And so a lot of times what happens is he's not consistent in the way he treats her in.

In public.

And this becomes a problem.

Well, this is how love proves value.

It's not by proving that the wife deserves love through fallless, you know, performances, but by making the husband's estimation of her unmistakable.

See, love doesn't create the value, but I mean, she's valuable because she bears the image of God.

If she finds.

If she's in Christ, most definitely she stands with him as an heir of grace.

But love recognizes that value and then gives it some practical expression.

In other words, it brings the hidden worth into visible treatment.

Now, there's an important difference here between displaying a wife and revealing her glory.

You remember when Ahasiris, the Persian king, wanted to parade his wife Vashti before the people?

Well, that's a Case where a husband was wanting to show off his wife to the world in public.

So we're not looking at.

When it says that he might present her to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle.

He.

He's not suggesting that we do what Ash Harris did to Vashti.

This isn't, this isn't a display of something that the man owns or possesses that expresses his success or what people might think of him because of the beautiful wife that he has.

Her appearance or her ability or any accomplishment that she may have had in life may become another means by which he seeks admiration for himself.

That's not cherishing friends.

That's not the meaning here.

And that's certainly not, not another, not love, it's another form of abuse.

Christ does not prepare his people for glory so that he can then in turn exploit her or show her off for his own glory.

His glory is revealed in giving Himself to make her what grace intended her to be.

And a husband who loves in that way.

He doesn't compete.

He's not trying to use her as an, as an opportunity to advance himself.

He doesn't compete with her strength or resent her because she has maybe more gifts or more gifted in certain areas or in any way feel diminished when others recognize her excellence and praise her for it.

In fact, he takes joy in seeing her abilities mature.

He encourages what's good in her.

And he helps remove what unnecessarily restrains her, gives her room to exercise the gifts that God's given her, so he doesn't need to keep her small in order to feel large.

Some men do that.

That's how they treat their wives.

But his love seeks to present her in all her glory, not to diminisher, not as a trophy of his possession, but as a person whose God given worth he is faithfully recognized and supported.

Now Peter, therefore, he's joins gentleness and honor in the same breath.

Gentleness was without honor, may become more patronizing.

It's as if the husband were merely tolerating someone beneath him.

But honor without gentleness may remain nothing more than just respectful language that doesn't govern his behavior at all.

So Peter requires both honor and gentleness.

The husband must recognize his wife's God given worth and then handle her in a manner that's consistent with that worth.

And so to dwell according to knowledge is certainly much more than just knowing general truths about women.

It requires a husband to know the particular woman with whom he lives.

Cherishing cannot remain generic, you know, and why?

Because every Wife is not comforted or encouraged or wounded in precisely the same way.

They're different.

A husband has to learn her fears and her burdens and her sensitivities.

He has to understand and know her aspirations.

He must know what silences her and what strengthens her and what permits her to feel safe.

Safe enough to speak and to be honest.

Knowledge makes this love particular.

It teaches him how to handle the heart that has been entrusted to him.

And so this knowledge doesn't arise automatically from just the fact that you share a house together.

A man can live beside his wife for years without learning to dwell with her according to knowledge.

He may know her schedule when she goes to work, maybe even what she wears.

Probably not that.

But while he's entirely ignorant of her burdens and what she's concerned about, how she's feeling, he may know what she does without understanding why it matters to her.

He may recognize all the signs of her hurt and still refuse to examine what produced them.

Well, to know her requires being attentive.

It requires making it your goal to find out why, what makes her tick.

It requires the humility to listen without immediately correcting her account of her own experiences.

And it requires the discipline to remember what she's already explained rather than forcing her to plead the same case over again.

It requires enough love to notice when his manner has caused her to retreat and to be silent.

My friends, this is an ongoing responsibility.

And it's ongoing because wives change, just like men change.

I mean, we're always changing, aren't we?

It's either for the better or for the good.

And so it's a lifetime commitment to understand and to treat them with gentleness and with honor.

Well, I thank you so much for listening to these things this morning.

We have a lot upon us.

A big responsibility, man.

And I trust that you will give this some serious consideration in the way you treat your wife.

Have a good day and a pleasant week.