• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

41

As sanctifying friends, a married couple needs to lovingly, humbly, graciously, and kindly speak the truth in love so they may grow to be more like Jesus Christ. This kind of truth telling that calls us out of our sin rather than pushing us deeper into shame is what Proverbs 27:6 means: “Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.” A spouse who only showers you with praise, never disagrees with you, and avoids conflict at all costs, is an enabling rather than a sanctifying friend.

A godly friend loves God and loves us enough to hate our sin and speak truthfully about it with us. This is why Proverbs 27:9 says, “Ointment and perfume delight the heart, and the sweetness of a man’s friend gives delight by hearty counsel.” The word hearty simply means “to be honest.” This means that one of the God-given duties of our spouses as friends is to be honest with us for God’s glory and our good. Sometimes this requires that they sting us with a rebuke—what some people affectionately call “stabbing us in the front.” And if we are wise, we will love our spouses all the more for loving us enough to risk our friendship for the sake of our good. Proverbs 9:8 says, “Rebuke a wise man, and he will love you.”

In closing, the earnest pursuit of a good marriage can quickly become overwhelming because there are so many things to work on. We, too, have felt this anxiety: Where do we start? How can we possibly work on spirituality, communication, scheduling, sex, spirituality, finances, family-of-origin issues, and so forth, all at once? But we’ve also found that by always working on our friendship, the rest of marriage seems to sort itself out in time. So we would commend to you the goal of devoting the rest of your life to being a better friend to your spouse.

* * *

a John 15:15.

a Prov. 4:23 NIV; Jer. 17:9.

b 1 John 4:7–21.

c Eph. 5:25.

d Titus 2:4.

e Matt. 5:43–47.

a 1 Tim. 2–3; Titus 1.

a Gen. 1:26–27.

b Gen. 2:18.

a Gen. 2:18.

42

3

MEN AND MARRIAGE

When I became a man, I put away childish things.

—1 CORINTHIANS 13:11

This chapter is primarily for men.

My tone will be as a man to men.

Were I writing to women, my tone would be considerably different. So, while women are welcome to read this chapter, they are also forewarned that it may get a little rough. To be fair, not every man is the caricature I critique throughout this chapter. And I invite you men not to take offense, but rather pray for and speak to the men you know who are guilty of not manning up to their responsibilities.

For most of human history, a male would go through two life phases: boy, then man. The transition from boy to man was comprised of five events that happened almost simultaneously or in very close succession. As a man you were to

1. leave your parents’ home;

2. finish your education or vocational training;

3. start a career-track job, not a dead-end-Joe job;

4. meet a woman, love her, honor her, court her, and marry her;

5. parent children with her (Gen. 2:24).

But the fools’ parade hijacked the march to manhood. Rather than moving from boyhood to manhood by this succession of sociological transitions, we’ve created a third life stage in the middle called adolescence, or what I call “boys who can shave.” Today adolescence starts somewhere in the teen years and, in many cases, continues indefinitely. The problem with adolescence is we guys don’t know when we’re ever going to grow up and be men, and no pressure is exerted on us to do so.

43

Is it when we are old enough to legally drive, vote, join the military, or drink alcohol?

Is it when we graduate from college?

Is it when we get married? Is it when we have kids? Is it when we buy a house?

No one knows. We are left with indefinite adolescence and a Peter Pan syndrome epidemic where some men want to remain boys forever. If we do make the transition to manhood, many husbands and fathers revert back to adolescence with something called a midlife crisis. Even some old men revert