What Women Wished Men Knew About Women
Ephesians 5:25
This morning we begin a brand new series here at Living Faith called, Family Matters. Over the next few weeks we will look at the secrets to getting along, God’s plan for sex, What men wished women knew about men, and the importance of your family name.
But this morning we are going to ask another question.
Mel Gibson played a character in a movie a few years ago that embodied the dream of every man. From the smallest boy who has just discovered that girls and not all uchy, to the patriarchal grandfather rocking away his retirement years on the front porch, we all daydream of some day knowing what women what.
Mel Gibson’s character was an advertising executive. He was trying to write ads for women’s produces. To better understand women, he in his bathroom where he has put on a pair of pantyhose and smeared hair removal wax on his legs. When he rips the dried wax off, hair and all, he losses his balance and falls into a tub of water along with the hair dryer he is using. He is electrocuted. The result of his electrifying experience is the supernatural ability to hear the thoughts of the opposite sex.
Now, I have not been electrocuted and I do not have the supernatural ability to read women’s minds so I stand before fearfully attempting to suggest a few things I have heard from women over the years as their pastor.
In case you women did not know it, you are hard for us men to read. The best we can do is guess at what you want, and hope and pray we hit it half the time.
It seems at times as if you are speaking a foreign language. I can understand why John Gray would conclude Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus. So you can see why it is a fearful prospect to stand up here, a man, and presume to know what Women what.
But presumptuous as it is, here goes, this morning I would to (Swallow hard) suggest what women wish men knew about women.
If we could read women’s thoughts what would they be thinking.
First I would suggest women would say to men, Don’t be too busy to listen.
James 1:19
19 My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry
William Barclay said, There are few wise men who have not been impressed by the dangers of being too quick to speak and too unwilling to listen.
Men do not get so busy you fail to listen. Often all you wife needs is a listening ear. I heard a young lady say recently, “We don’t need for you to fix all our problems; we just want you to listen.”
The classical writer Zeno said, “We have two ears but only one mouth, that we may hear more and speak less.” When Demonax was asked how a man might rule best, he answered, “Without anger, speaking little, and listening much.” The tribute was once paid to a great linguist that he could be silent in seven different languages. Many of us would do well to listen more and to speak less.
Men, listening is hard work. To listen you must focus on the person speaking. Too often our mind are so filled with the cares of the day we do not really listen to our wives.
But John Gray said, “As a marriage counselor the number one complaint he hears from women who come to his office is, ‘My husband does not listen to me.’”
The first thing women would want men to know is always take the time to listen.
Second. I would suggest women would say to men, “Don’t be too arrogant to learn.”
Solomon warns us.
Proverbs 13:10
10 Pride only breeds quarrels, but wisdom is found in those who take advice.
How easy it is to think we know everything just because we know some things. Have you ever been around someone who thinks he or she knows it all? You begin to resent them and dread the next time you have to meet them.
I was in a board with such a fellow in a former church. At the meeting we had to make a decision about an outreach event. This man and his wife were at the meeting. The wife began to explain some facts about the planned event we did not know. Her hubby dismissed what she was saying with a wave of his hand, and said, “I have already made up my mind about this, don’t go confusing the issue with more facts.”
The person sitting next to me whispered, “I would hate to be his wife.”
When we are filled with pride and arrogance people hate to be around us. We need to be humble enough to learn from others especially our wives and children. Our wives and children see things in way we will never see them without their help and direction.
Max Lucado suggested this scenario..
You came home cranky because a deadline got moved up. She came home grumpy because the day-care forgot to give your five-year-old her throat medicine. Each of you was wanting a little sympathy from the other, but neither got any. So there you sit at the dinner table—cranky and grumpy—with little Emily, your daughter. Emily folds her hands to pray (as she has been taught), and the two of you bow your heads (but not your hearts) and listen. From where this prayer comes, God only knows.
“God, it’s Emily. How are you? I’m fine, thank you. Mom and Dad are mad. I don’t know why. We’ve got birds and toys and mashed potatoes and each other. Maybe you can get them to stop being mad? Please do, or it’s just gonna be you and me having any fun tonight. Amen.”
The prayer is answered before it’s finished, you both look up in the middle and laugh at the end and shake your heads and say you’re sorry. And you both thank God for the little voice who reminded you about what really matters.
You have once again opened yourself to learn.
I think women would want us to say to us.
Don’t be too busy to listen
Don’t be too arrogant to learn.
Third I think women would say to us, “Don’t be too stoic to show love.”
Hosea admonitions us in 3:1 niv
“Go, show your love to your wife.”
And Paul challenges all of us to:
21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,” He goes on to say, each husband is to love his his wife as he loves himself.
There is no place for a stoic attitude of indifference in these words. Paul is calling us to show our love for our wives.
I remember hearing about a couple that went to marriage counseling. She told the counseling through her tears, my husband does not love me any more. Her husband bristled up and said in his defense, “I told you I love you thirty years ago, I don’t see why I have to say it now, if I change my mind, I will let you know.”
I believe many men really love their wives, but they do not show it. They aren’t good at expressing their love. How can we show our love to our spouse?
1. Time. Plan for more time together, just the two of you.
2. Trips. Have a get-away with your wife.
3. Thoughtfulness. Do things for your wife around the house with no thought of reward.
4. Thankfulness. Have a good attitude at home.
6. Touching. Be affectionate.
7. Togethering. Find a hobby to do together.
8. Trustworthiness. Can your spouse trust you completely?
9. Tenderness. Be sensitive to her needs and she’ll be available to meet yours.
A man who was afraid that he loved his wife too much was asked if he loved her as much as Christ loved the church. When he answered no, he was told, “Then you must love her more.”
If you are taking notes this morning I have suggested that women would want us to say to us.
1. Don’t be too busy to listen
2. Don’t be too arrogant to learn.
3. Don’t be too stoic to show love.
Finally I suggest women would say to us; Don’t be too afraid to lead.
Colossians 3:18
Wives, be in subjection to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 19Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.
Ephesians 5:21-22
21subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ. 22Wives, be in subjection unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
Before we can begin to understand these texts we have to understand the context is which this was written.
Throughout the years the Christian view of marriage has come to be widely accepted. It still is recognized as the ideal by the majority even in these permissive days. Even where practice has fallen short of that ideal, it has always been in the minds and hearts of all who call themselves Christian. Marriage is regarded as the perfect union of body, mind and spirit between a man and a woman. But things were very different when Paul wrote.
The Jews to whom Paul writes held a very low value of women and of marriage. In his morning prayer there was a sentence in which a Jewish man gave thanks that God had not made him “a Gentile, a slave or a woman.” In Jewish law a woman was not a person, but a thing. She had no legal rights whatsoever; she was absolutely her husband’s possession to do with as he willed.
The law of divorce for Jews is summarized in Deuteronomy 24:1. “When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favour in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, he writes her a bill of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house.” Obviously everything turns on the interpretation of some indecency. The more liberal Rabbis, headed by the famous Hillel, interpreted the phrase in the widest possible way. They said that it meant that a man might divorce his wife if she spoiled his dinner by putting too much salt in his food, if she walked in public with her head uncovered, if she talked with men in the streets, if she spoke disrespectfully of her husband’s parents in her husband’s hearing, if she was a brawling woman, if she was troublesome or quarrelsome. A certain Rabbi Akiba interpreted the phrase if she finds no favour in his eyes to mean that a husband might divorce his wife if he found a woman whom he considered more attractive. It is easy to see which school of thought would prevail.
At the time of Paul’s writing the marriage bond was in peril among the Jews, so much so that the very institution of marriage was threatened since Jewish girls were refusing to marry because their position as wife was so uncertain.
In the Roman world things were not much better. But at the time of Paul, Roman family life was wrecked. Seneca writes that women were married to be divorced and divorced to be married. In Rome the Romans did not commonly date their years by numbers; they called them by the names of the spouses; Seneca says that women dated the years by the names of their husbands. Jerome declares it to be true that in Rome there was a woman who was married to her twenty-third husband and she herself was his twenty-first wife.
Marriage was a joke and women objected to be passed around for men’s pleasure.
So when Paul told the Ephesians to love your wife as Christ love the church and gave himself for it, what he was saying was counter culture. He was giving to women great honor and he was placing marriage above reproach, this was counter culture. But the church has never been called to run with culture but to stand firm on the world of God, to take a counter cultural stand, which is what we see Paul doing here.
Today part of loving your wife is stepping up to the plate and taking the spiritual leadership in the home.
I hear it all the time from women. I wish my husband would take the spiritual leadership in our home. I wish he would study his bible. I wish he would lead our children read their Bible and pray. I wish he would be excited about going to church. I wish he would take up his spiritual responsibility. I am tired to trying to be mother, wife, and spiritual leader; I need his help and support.
She would say to you today don’t be too afraid to lead.
So there you have it, what I believe Christian women are thinking.
1. Don’t be too busy to listen
2. Don’t be too arrogant to learn.
3. Don’t be too stoic to show love.
Finally I suggest they would say to us; Don’t be too afraid to lead.
So this Mother’s Day will you the men of Living Faith Step up to the plate and give the women what they want.
Amen.
