Hello, and welcome to Husbands Love Your Wives. Hey, thanks for joining us again tonight. And hey, Sam, here we go. This is going to be a neat session on a husband's kindness. I really appreciate you joining me.

Oh, it's great to be here, Scott. Thank you for asking me. I'm looking forward to discussing it. Yeah, so, Goosh, all the way through, you know, all the chapters we've done so far, he's pounding away at a really common theme. And it's really about how a husband, you know, manages his authority.

God gives authority to husbands. That's indisputable. Of course a lot of people hate that and they say bad things about that but this is God's design. But the problem with authority is it's either wielded well or poorly. So, Gouge is just continuing to help husbands understand how to take that authority and and use it properly in a way that's consistent with Scripture.

And there are few things that are as easy to distort as authority. And so, you know, Guge, he just works from one issue after another. And of course, authority is not an unqualified authority. It's a governed authority. It's defined by the Lord Jesus Christ and his authority over the church, and not in every way, but in many ways.

So there it is. Any comments, Sam, just before we jump into the text on this whole matter of this governed authority and learning how to manage it. Well I think that's that's the real trick in our day isn't it because on the one hand there are people all over the place completely denying that husbands have authority over wives in any real sense whatsoever. On the other hand, you have, then you have the tendency to become defensive about it. When we become defensive, then we tend not to manage our authority well, and to be harsh and lacking in gentleness in the way we manifest our authority and use our authority.

Yeah. And he, I mean, he starts the discussion here right at the top on the whole matter of genuineness. If you look there at the top of 225 and he's talking about this authority that operates both inwardly and outwardly in the same way he's talking about kind of the danger you know of living a double life And so he says a husband's conduct toward his wife must match his speech. And, you know, it really brings out the whole problem that a husband, you know, bumps into when his wife says, you know, honey, I know you tell me that you love me, but how come you don't act like it? Yeah, absolutely.

That is the issue. And of course, what Christian man in his right mind is not going to say, I love my wife. But that statement commits him to a life that will back it up. And that commits him to a force of conduct and cultivation of the things that may not be natural to them. Certainly aren't natural to them, but...

Yeah. I know, I tell my wife that I love her a lot more than I do things for her to show her that I love her. And hey, I'll be really honest, We've talked about that. My wife has talked to me about that. But that's what he begins this whole thing with.

And it's the danger of a husband, men, the husband that is in when his wife says, you're all talk and no action. Right. And we hear that we've got to step back and say, okay, what am I doing wrong here? Yeah. I just assumed that our wife is being over sensitive or keeping that thing effective.

Yeah. And then he gets really practical in the middle of the page there in 225 about, you know, how a husband does it. He talks about his facial expressions and this, I mean, this is really interesting. He talks about the head, the brow, the eyes, the lips, and such other parts, you know. And so he's just talking about friendliness, basically.

I thought that this is why you asked me to read this chapter, because I needed to hear that stuff. No, I have been told that my countenance, my friends of mine, is not naturally friendly and inviting. I'm told that. I didn't know that. I really don't recognize that.

But so when I was reading this, I was thinking to myself, yes, I understand that a lot and I understand that I really need to think about when I talk to my wife actively trying to express love, gentleness and kindness because my countenance, my face doesn't do that naturally. Oh my. Yeah. You know, so he's talking about this friendly, cheerful disposition. In a way, it's like what happened, you know, when you were first noticing each other and you lit up, you know, whenever she was in the room.

And she lit up whenever you were in the room. And it's easy to sort of lose that in the midst of children and troubles and all kinds of stuff like that. But I think he's really saying, you know, a husband ought to love his wife by really lighting up with his head, his brow, his eyes, you know, his lips, the whole thing. But here's a question. So He lists all these things.

So is God really as detailed as this? Is this just an overactive Puritan mind, adding to scripture, all these things? I don't think so. I was convinced and somewhat convicted by this because I realized that how I appear, what I look like is going to be very, very significant in terms of how my wife responds to me. All we can – we can't see the heart.

All we can do is see the face that reflects the heart. I think Lou says something like as a mirror, as in a mirror, the face reflects the heart. And I think I said to myself, you know, look, I've got to remember not to – I've got to remember to smile and to actively express gentleness and love and the way I look at my wife and talk with her and and not allow Myself just to be the normal somber solemn fellow that I am You know, so, you know guys coming home from work and he walks in the door, hey this is what you guys just talking about, setting the tone of love. Remember this is all about husbands love your wives as Christ also loved the church and so he's detail on all these practical applications. You know I love the way the Puritans walk through their practical applications.

Hey this whole book is one big practical application on that one statement in scripture and so they bring it right down to really fundamental practical areas there. And he says here that It helps a man not to forget the intimacy that he has with her, that his authority is not absent of intimacy and friendliness. Exactly. And I just think it's really important for a wife to have that. I mean, she should submit and respect and obey regardless, as that rest of the book says.

But it's going to be a whole lot easier and a whole lot happier if she realized the man that she's having to treat this way really loves her and is expressing that. And of course, as men, we're distracted. We have our own problems, and we tend to let them get in the way of expressing this to our wife. Even if the problem isn't our own sinfulness, it can be our distractedness or our heaviness with our own problems, but they don't know that unless we tell them because they have a problem with that as well. Yeah.

And is there something you said tripped something in my mind? A couple times here and in this chapter too, in some ways he's kind of saying, hey, help the girl out with her submission. Love her. Be friendly to her in face and head and all this kind of stuff, and be a blessing to her in that way. I was struck at the bottom of this page in 225 where he talks about the face of God is a kind face and he's really arguing for you know husbands being reflecting of the glory of God and so but it's a kind face that the Lord has there.

And then he talks about, you know, a frowning face or a lowering faces on top of 226, hanging the head down, putting out the lips and so on. Anger, malice, grief, and other similar affections of the heart are manifested. And so, you know, how do you love your wife? Well, you use your eyes and your countenance. You look at her and You don't avoid looking at her.

Of course, yeah, this is, I think, isn't this part of what's in your face, is the face of God? God looks at us. He looks straight at us, expresses love, and kindness to us by looking at us. He doesn't turn away from us. And that's the natural response if we've got a problem with somebody is to turn away from them, not look at them, and not look into their eyes and their face.

And I think, so that's one of the reasons I said before, yeah, I don't have a problem with this at all. I don't think this is, you know, too much spirit and detail. I think it's expressive of a very important biblical truth in terms of the connection of soul and body and face and art. Yeah. He uses a really brilliant and beautiful image here.

He talks about a looking glass. He says, she beholds it as the face of God and as in a looking glass, beholds the kindness and love of his heart and so has her heart more firmly knit to him and is moved to respect him more. So those two images, the looking glass, she's looking into really a looking glass of the kindness of God, and it knits her heart to him. It's a beautiful image. It really is.

And you know, I think it expresses a profound insight into a woman's psychology, doesn't it? Because what a woman wants most of all is to be loved. Right. I mean, everybody wants to be loved. I think that's particularly dominant in a woman's life.

Yeah. And it's expressed with her, it's powerful. Yeah. You know, and he moves on, he talks about physical affection. So not just your eyes and your, you know, position of your head, but then he talks about affectionate gestures there at the bottom of 226.

And so he's talking about, you know, touching and that type of thing. And he says that it stirs his wife up to be affectionate with him as well. But then he talks about too extreme of affection. You see that? You know, where, you know, like, you know, a couple that's first married, they're sort of like all over each other Well that you know that can't last right but right So what are you?

Apparently, yeah So what's the golden mean here? He he doesn't really he talks about being overheated, you know, in 227. But what's kind of the golden mean, do you think, in this whole thing? Yeah, what is the golden mean? Well, I think he wants, I think it's clear that he wants and we should express publicly perfection to our wife physically, but it has to be in a restrained fashion.

That's appropriate. It isn't embarrassing to her Because most women, at least after they've been married more than three weeks or a month, don't want their husband all over them like that in public. And so it's better, I think it's clear that, But I think it's clear there should be some expression if a husband and wife meet in public to hug, kiss. When I come home from a trip and my wife meets me at the airport, well, I expect to be hugged and kissed. And I don't care who's looking right then.

Yeah. But I mean, again, it's got to be restrained and we have to be sensitive to other people and to our wife who may be very sensitive about those things, maybe more sensitive than we are. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, he moves from this whole thing of affection to sort of the opposite end, and that is a husband's coldness.

That's dead center in page 227. And he's talking about, you know, treating your wife kind of like she's a stranger. And you know, you walk into a room, maybe might be an example, and you notice everybody else but you don't notice her. You don't go to her. You're ignoring her.

And it's kind of a coldness. Yeah. I once talked to someone whose father was a pastor, And one of his complaints about his father was that he could be kind to all the other women in the church at much more time than he was to his mother. That's a very striking thing. Now I'm not saying he was right or he perceived it correctly.

I don't know. But if it's true, it's really not the way it should be. And I know that we, as one of the things I think he's saying here as well is, we really have to be sensitive to our wives' feelings. And if any sensitive wife is going to feel that if you're very expressive of kindness, love, and not necessarily in any inappropriate way, but if you're expressive of kindness and love to other women, but not to your wife in that context, well, why is she not going to be jealous? And should not, even if we think, well, that's kind of silly, we should not provoke them to that.

Right. Yeah. You know, what's so striking to me about Gooj and all the things we've discussed so far is that the tenderness of headship is so remarkably and really beautifully communicated. I mean we live in an era where headship is, it equals abuse and there's a lot of literature there are all kinds of articles written about it. In fact, I think both of us have been taken to task for promoting abusive husbandry.

And I think, you know, we really recoil, we're repulsed by that because we really do believe that this kind of headship is the kind that the Lord Jesus Christ spoke of in Ephesians 5. What would you say about that? Yeah, well, yes, we both have been taken to task. I was surprised because when I wrote A Man Is Free from His Home, I did it, in fact, to, at Modern Parlors, put a certain spin on male headship, and a spin that was more kinder, gentler male headship, because I was saying, look, Christ central, central office, not his only office, not his only essential office, but his central office is his priestly office. If he wasn't priest to us, he couldn't be prophet or king.

So I was trying to say, we have to have a gentle priestly manner in the exercise of membership. And I was still criticized for endorsing or promoting some sort of idea that would promote abuse. When the reason for my writing the book was exactly the opposite. Remarkable. That's amazing.

Hey, so I brought this book with me because I wanted to talk about it. Man is a priest in his home. This is a great book, man. I would really encourage you to get this book. And one of the things that you say in here about a priest is that he's compassionate.

Well, we understand that from the book of Hebrews and other places. But, you know, compassion is one of those defining qualities of a priest. There's tenderness and mercy and compassion. It's just so loaded with the opposite of this hyper patriarchal jerk who's pushing everybody around. He's a compassionate high priest.

That's right. And the whole image of a priest is so telling and powerful to me because in the Hebrews 5 passage, it's clear that he has to act with gentleness, a word that means measured passion, I think conveys the idea of a careful restraint of even indignation for sin. And it's also clear that a priest has to be, in the exercise of his office, selfless. The priest is about God and the sinner. It's about the priest is not about himself.

You know, he says, oh, it's about God and the sinner and trying to bring them together. That's what a priest is. And so I just think that image of priestliness is so important to keep us from reacting into an austere or harsh exercise of our head shift. Yeah, no, that's so good. You know, he talks about another application of this headship and love and that is a husband giving gifts to his wife that's at the bottom of 227.

So he gets really practical and he's saying you know actions are the most real demonstrations of true kindness in which a husband must not fail as he would have his kind speech, facial expression and gesture to be received in the best way. And then he says, and it means that you should be giving gifts to your wife. So what have you given to her lately? I think that's the big question for the night. Maybe there's going to be this big rash of gifts given you know to the you know to the well There are a whole lot of people listening.

We think there might be a couple thousand people listening to this right now and You know so maybe you know gifts will be bought the economy will approve you know and and wives will be happier Well, it's good big isn't it When was the last time I gave myself, my wife a gift? Now, I think I can think of that time, but the problem is, one of the things I think about is, I give my wife a lot of gifts. I do a lot of things for her, but I enjoy them too. In some sense, we're doing something together and I enjoy being with her and I enjoy having the evening with her. It's fun for me as well.

So what's convicting to me is to ask myself, when was the last time I really gave her a gift that wasn't just as much fun for me as it was for her? I can think that gets more to the distant past, I'm afraid. So, you know, all those weed whackers and books that you gave her, you know, you're going to have to upgrade a little bit. Like I did clean the garage today, Scott, and you said you're going to do that before your wife comes home, right? My wife loves it when I clean the garage.

I guess you could say that's a gift to her. That is a that would be a glorious gift to her I can tell you that right now. So then you know he talks about I'm really amazed that he brings this up Husbands beating their wives in the middle of 228 there. So husbands were beating their wives. And it seems like we kind of get a sense of this later on.

The laws of the land seem to allow it more than it allowed even, you know, cruel treatment to servants and employees, that type of thing. But, you know, so he's saying the husband shouldn't beat their wives. That sounds so obvious to us. But he's talking about violence in the home. Well, you know, I was trying to get my head around this too.

Obviously, in our day and age, it needs to be sad. But what was striking, I was trying to think myself back into it. And you know what I thought of, Scott? I thought of Shakespeare's play, The Taming of the Shrew, and the scene where the guy is spanking his wife. My wife and I, that's one of the things we enjoy doing.

If we can see the original kind of Shakespeare's play, we'll do that. We enjoy that. I remember once going to a Taming of the Shrew play and some English professor was trying in her introduction to the taming of the shoe to do something with it that was politically correct. Of course, it was impossible. It was very funny trying to read what she was saying to bring taming of the shoe into the 21st century.

Of course, it was impossible. But the point is, yeah, so I guess taming of the shoe, you're just saying, no, the guy shouldn't have been spanking his wife, you know? Yeah. It's funny you used to say that. I was just talking to R.C.

Sproul, Jr. A couple days ago, and he was telling me that somebody on the internet started this rumor that he promotes the spanking of a wife. You know. I bet you lavish a compliment to say that. That's right.

Yeah, here's sort of the summary. Don't spank your wives. I think that's what he's saying. Right. And I mean, he uses some pretty, you know, pretty demonstrative language, you know, to to really talk about this.

But he gives biblical reasons for it. You know, I remember when I was a young man, there was a real fiery black preacher in LA. I grew up in Southern California. His name was E.V. Hill.

And he had this classic sermon. He starts it out by saying, the men don't meet their wives in Sweet Home, Texas. And it's really it was a message about eldership. The elders protect the flock. And one of the ways that they protect the flock is that the men don't beat their wives in sweet home because if you do the elders are gonna come after you that was his whole message it was great.

I performed this couple married and she was the daughter of an African Methodist Episcopal minister, and he was a lovely young couple, and I actually went to South Bend to the AME Church to marry them, But the young man told me that in his first two hour conversation with this pastor father, this girl, one of the things the man said to him is, Melvin, in this family, we don't beat our women. And of course, he was about six foot four, weighed about 360, and listened to what he said, you know. He must have been reading Gouge. It must have been, yeah. You know, he talks about, you know, arguments against it, loving your wife like yourself.

You don't beat yourself is one of the arguments he uses in uh on page 230 there in the middle but then he says that those those who would do this are they're they're nothing of any higher level than idolaters and demoniacs. And they're blinded and they're possessed, he says they're possessed with the devil. So he takes no prisoners. I was impressed by, this sounds strange because it seems obvious to us, don't beat your wife. Okay.

But I was impressed by his arguments. Right. Right. The fact that we're one flesh and you don't beat yourself. The fact that our relationship with our wife is much more a delicate form of authority than with children who are using things or servants.

And that relationship is just entirely wronged by the promotion, even though it could be your wife and things like that. Because there's a lot of insight in those arguments and a lot of understanding and penetrating look at what male-to-male relationships in marriage are like, you know? Yeah. And what he's really doing, he's arguing for closeness. He's arguing for the intimacy between a husband and wife, and that type of thing destroys the intimacy.

So the dear wives are, the dear they ought to be to the husband. More horrible must be striking when it comes by a husband's hand than by a master's. I just thought, yeah, that's what a good statement. Yeah. Yeah.

So, you know, it's I was just I was really struck by how much space he gave to this issue. And, you know, you hear domestic abuse is a real thing. And maybe we're here for the purpose of encouraging a husband to love his wife and stop hurting her. He should be turned over to the civil magistrate. I mean, one of the things that wives need to understand is they do have recourse.

And if they are being beaten, they should go to the elders. They may ought to go straight to the civil government for protection. But wives often feel like, because their husbands are an authority, the supreme authority in their life, they don't have any recourse. And that's completely false. And wives should recognize God has given them other authorities other than their husband for their protection.

You have these three authorities that are there, a husband and the civil realm and elders. God's given her protection on three levels at least. Absolutely. Yeah, I just want to say I agree with you that it's monstrous to touch your wife like that. Unless and until it's going the Be unusual and vastly worth it the way we have to defend yourself, right?

Against your wife, but it's monster. Yeah Harshly handler in any way and a man should be ashamed of himself. And it's also direct contradiction of loving your wife. Because as he says, There's no good come of it. No way of keeping your wife is going to promote love.

It's only going to promote good things and everything goes the opposite of love. Yeah. It's just remarkable. He does talk about self-defense. He talks about it if she becomes, you know, so forceful, what should he do?

He says that he should, first of all, you know, call the civil magistrate so that it's the civil magistrate's hand that touches her and not his own hand. Right, so I mean here and what we were saying before, God has said, thou shalt not kill. And I think part of the exposition of that, or even other period writers, is that you can't kill yourself. And that means you have a right to protect yourself from unlawful kind of harm that's being done to you. And that means a wife has a right to seek the protection, and a man has a right, therefore, to seek the protection of the civil authorities, if necessary, from that kind of abuse and the possible harming of one's life.

Right, right. You know, so men, your wife may be violent toward you. And if she is, I think what Guge is saying is that if she is violent and engages in harmful behavior, then it might be better for you to call the police on her so that you don't have to defend yourself. And if you do have to defend yourself, that may be a lawful response to try to deal with her insanity. But anyway, Gucci...

Only to get yourself to the phone to call the police. Yeah, right, right. Well, so, hey, the section that is really compelling to me in this whole chapter deals with a husband bearing with his wife's weakness. And I'd really like to spend some time talking about this. The top of page 233, he sort of makes a transition.

He says, to this point we've covered the husband's avoiding of offense. Now I will speak a word concerning his bearing with offense." So he turns the tables and acknowledges that husbands have to bear offenses from their wives And then he gives a lot more information about that. It's not just offenses. And then he quotes Galatians 6 2 that there's a general duty that's common to all men, but husbands are required to carry it out, and that is to bear one another's burdens. Just kind of an exegetical or exegetically oriented comment here.

Gooch is constantly going to general commands of scripture and applying them to the husband and wife relationship. It's legitimate to do that. Just because a section of scripture is not directly addressing a husband or a wife in that specific context doesn't mean that the principles and the commands don't apply. Any comments about this? It's really an interpretive matter.

Well, I think it's one of the things that is so attractive about the Puritans is their ability to draw from the broad teaching of scripture and say, don't you see that there's an application right here to the home? And yeah, I just, one of the things you're impressed with when you read Gooch and other Puritans is the tradition of biblical interpretation. The wealth and wealthy and rich tradition of biblical interpretation that underpins all that they say. And in fact, I think we have to be wary of that. Some things that we may read and some of the old writers may seem at first, that's weird, I don't see that.

But the problem is we're not working with and don't have under us that wealth of the riches of biblical interpretation that they had and were familiar with. And did lead to some of the conclusions, even though we look at the text and say, that sounds like proof texting, actually, When the text is examined in its broader biblical context, it has everything to do with the situation. Right. And I think part of the problem is we don't know our Bibles well enough, and our people don't know their Bibles well enough, so they don't see the connections across the landscape of Scripture, and they can't see how it fits together. So they think it sounds odd when actually it does fit very well.

By the way, just another plug for your book. Sam, I really liked the way that you explained how you use the Old Testament to connect with New Testament categories for husbands. It's just very simple, very well done. I think it's an excellent example of the continuity of the Old and the New Testament, and what is a lawful use of the law, as Paul talked about with Timothy? Thank you, brother.

Of course, there are a few things that are more important in the interpretation of the Bible than rightly understanding the relationship of the older New Testament. A few things that a lot of evangelicals, especially from the influence of this traditionalism, have got more to learn than rightly to connect the older new customer. Right, right. Well, this whole matter of a husband bearing with his wife's weaknesses, he identifies this matter and that there is a weaker vessel. He says in this point number one in the middle of page 233, of the two, he is more obligated than his wife because in relation to his wife he is the stronger for she is the weaker vessel 1st Peter 3 7 but the strong are most obligated to bear the infirmities of the weak so gooch lays a greater responsibility on the husband for bearing with his wife's weaknesses.

Now, remember he started talking about bearing with your wife's offenses. And what he's saying is because she's weaker, you have a greater responsibility. What are your thoughts about that? Well, first of all, of course, there are few texts of the Bible that are more offensive than in our day and age to the feminist of the idea of wives being a weaker vessel. Even so, in many respects, it ought to be obvious for everybody with eyes.

On the other hand, and we ought to remember that this is not necessarily demeaning to women to call them the Luther vessel. I have a friend who illustrates it this way in preaching on 1 Peter 3, he says, so which would you rather be, the strong vessel, the old iron pot, or would you rather be the fragile china vase, which is more valuable, which is more beautiful, and the stronger or the weaker vessel. I think that's probably true. We need to remember that we're old iron pots and our wives are fragile, beautiful China vases and we need to be careful how we treat them. So I think that I've always been struck by that illustration because it so addresses some of the – what is it?

The envy of strength, the wrong envy of strength that so much implicates on women. So another thing that strikes me though, Scott, is this. I think men forget this principle. We don't look at ourselves as these giants riding across the land with the earth thundering at our feet. I mean, that's kind of a dramatic image, isn't it?

We come into our homes and We have to remember that our deeds and our words and what we do, our giant life is through our wives and through our children. And when we forget that, we tend to become literally like bulls in the Chinese. And I think, I know something that I forget. You know, my wife may respond to me in a certain way. It may even be simple.

But if I respond back, and I might think I'm just responding tit for tat, but it's not tit for tat because everything I do and say is amplified by the fact that I'm the man, I'm the husband, I'm the authority. And if a man forgets that, he's liable to sin grievously and also to place and at least be really insensitive to his wife and grandma. Right. I mean, and everybody knows it's a wife's basic inclination to follow. She does want to follow.

And when there is someone there who loves her it's really, really easy for her to follow. And maybe that's part of the weaker vessel element as well. He mentions two things. He says that, you know, Like we just read, he's more obligated because he's stronger. And then he says he's obligated to bear patiently with his wife more than any other because of that close relationship which is between them.

He that cannot bear with his wife, his flesh, can bear with nobody. And so he's obligated because of the closeness that God has called him to. What page is that Scott? I just wanted to know. Yeah, that's in page 233 And you'll see in the middle of the page, number one and number two, I was reading each of those successively.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah, I think, and of course, it's so true. I mean, we are really patient with ourselves, aren't we? Yeah.

Most of us have ourselves a lot of sin. Uh-huh, yeah. We can explain why even things that we do that are sinful, that We have all sorts of reasons to indicate the simpleness of them. Well, I mean, they're our flesh. We have to love them as our own flesh, as our own body.

Well, then, certainly, the measure with which we measure to ourselves Ought to be the measure with which we measure to them. In terms of being patient with imperfections and weaknesses that tend to irritate the both of them. Yeah. Hey, you know, one of the men who's been listening to this asked me today, said, how do you know the difference between the situation where she really is the weaker vessel? How do you distinguish between that and when she might just be sinful and dealing with those two things differently.

How does a man know that? Well, I mean, most obviously, sin is the transgression. You're locking him fully onto a transgression of the law of God. So if what she's doing is that, then yeah, it's sin. Even there, there's room for, as he's going to say, isn't it, there's room for turning a blind eye to it occasionally and not taking every word to heart.

But I think what we have to say is sin is the transgression of the law of God. And unless I can identify something that she's done as a clear transgression of the law of God, just because I don't like it, just because it irritates me, doesn't mean necessarily that it's a transgression of the law of God, does it? Yeah, yeah. So that's the first thing I would say. There's probably more that could be said to it.

Even if it is sin, there's room for bearing with the weaker vessel, and that's probably the best. Yeah. You know, he keeps talking about this matter of the weaker vessel, And if you go to the top of page 234, he dissects different kinds of weaknesses that a wife might have. And of course, when you read the list of weaknesses, you know that all wives don't have the same weaknesses, but you might have them on one wife or another. And he talks about there are these natural imperfections, slowness of mind there.

It's near the top of page 234. Slowness of mind, dullness of understanding, shortness of memory, and quickness in strong emotions. And he's labeling those natural imperfections and recognizing those in your life. Yeah. I'm just looking at slowness in mind and telling myself that it's 7 o'clock, 7 o'clock in the morning before I've had my second cup of coffee.

There is my soul that's in my wife. But, alas, that's good to know that's a natural imperfection. Yeah. That's a natural imperfection to walk by. Yeah.

But, you know, it's easier for husbands to get angry. I'm sorry. I missed what you just said. What was that? Well, these are the kinds of things we have to learn about our wives and kind of be ready for.

And I think he's going to say not provoke them, not necessarily, but also not be provoked too quickly if we know our wives have a tendency in any one of these ways. We have to train ourselves to say, that's her personality, that's her kind of emotional response to things, and we have to be ready to be patient with that. And remind ourselves that those are natural imperfections possibly and not real transgressions of the long gone. Yeah. You think of the things that he's listing here, the slowness of mind and dullness of understanding.

Well, there are different ways that we can respond to that. We can respond in anger. We can respond by chiding. We can respond by saying, well, why did I marry you anyway? You know, you can't remember a thing.

And of course, Guj, you know, his whole argument is really based on this passage in Galatians 6, 2, bear ye one another's burdens. So he's really he's calling husbands out of a harsh evaluation of their wives even even in things that will surface for the rest of their lives. You know if you have slowness of mind you're going to live with that your whole life. If you have shortness of memory, the people around us are going to have to live with it. I'm thinking about the people have to live with that around me right now, you know.

Yes, that's right. Our people have to bear with pasties that way, don't they? Or quickness and strong emotions, the tendency of some people, women, to respond really strongly and emotionally, to be real sensitive of feeling and therefore to respond strongly. And maybe a woman like that's married to a man who tends to be really contemplative and the water doesn't boil too quickly. So, and he can really be irritating to him.

He's gotta remember, That's what she's like. I'm not like that but she doesn't have to be like me. Yeah. Yeah. And he he drills down even deeper.

He talks about, you know, outward imperfections. Not just things like memory and emotions but he mentions specifically lameness, blindness, deafness. And then he says there in 234, these infirmities should cause pity, compassion, and sympathy, and even greater tenderness and respect, but no offense. Amen. Amen.

That's a wonderful statement. Yeah. Wow. And because it's exactly the opposite of the way we tend to respond. And we say, well, that irritated me.

No, it should have irritated me. It should have made you compassionate. Weakness draws forth our compassion, not our irritation. Yeah. Well, you know, we're back, are we back to this matter of the compassionate high priest who knows our weaknesses and who carries us, you know, through our infirmities like that?

I think Zolbicki and the book that he published on romantic love, what's the name of that? What's done in one of your conferences? Yes, yes. I forget the exact name of it, but yeah, It's friendship and marriage. That was something like that.

My wife and I really enjoyed reading that book. I think it's a wonderful book. But one of the things he says in there, I think someplace, is that even in terms of the way we think about our lives, we just have to train ourselves not to focus on certain things. If there's something about them physically that over time has been less appealing to us, over time and age, we just can't focus on that. It's foolish to focus on that.

And there's a God-given ability to focus on other things that are more critical. Well then, he turns from these natural imperfections and that, and then he turns to actual transgressions and violations of the law of God. And this is really interesting here, you know, because he gives really specific advice here. He gives you five ways to deal with this. And they're really practical.

But right there in the middle of page 234 he says actual transgressions are violations of the of God's law such as are met here which most directly tend to his own disturbance and disadvantage as argumentativeness, insisting on her own way, being picky, stubbornness. In bearing these must a husband especially show his wisdom in various ways." So now we're talking about stubbornness, pickiness. Hey, the difficulty here is when you have a wife who really is rebellious and she hasn't fully grasped that the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church. She doesn't understand the peace that comes from submission and the help that it is to her soul. So now he takes on, what do you do with these things that are in the realm of sin.

And I really like the way that he plays this out. And he says, first of all, what do you do? He says, by using the best and gentlest means he can to cure them as meek admonition, seasonable advice, gentle appeal, and compassionate affection. So he's not saying ignore it, but he's saying use these methods of wisdom. This is an application of Jesus' words of counsel and command about intercultural relations.

Father, sin against you will be reduced if you repent for giving. I'm glad he begins with this because there's just no solution and no longevity in any marriage where people can't talk to each other about their sins and don't follow Jesus' commands to deal with one another. But what he's saying is do it in the most meek, gentle fashion as you can, especially through the name. Yeah. Yeah.

But, you know, I mean, again, I'm just struck at the specificity of the advice, meek admonition on seasonable service, you know, just doing it in the most possible, most gentle possible way you can. And then the second thing that he recommends is here, by removing the stone over which she stumbles by taking away the cause so far as conveniently he can, which makes her to do wrong. What might be some of those stones that a husband could remove? Oh, good question. Well, let's see, the sins are being picky.

All right, he may have clothes that she hates. She shouldn't perhaps be picky, but he might stop wearing the tie, and assure him that he despises, and makes her argumentative and bossy, telling him, you can't go out of the house wearing that. That would be probably sinful at some degree for her to do that, but he could cut all that off at the cast just by saying, even though it's my favorite shirt, my favorite tie, for my life's sake, I won't wear it. Yeah. Yeah.

There's so, we could probably make a really long list. It could be a tone of voice. It could be a mannerism. It could be a thing that you do, being late for dinner. I mean there are a hundred things that could probably be listed, but he's saying remove the stone.

You love her, remove the stone of stumbling. And then the third thing, which is really surprising to me, by turning his eyes away, if the matter be not great, but may be tolerated, and taking no notice of the offense. Of course, he's not talking about serious sin here. He's talking about matters that can be overlooked. And then, and then fourthly, by forgiving and forgetting, forgiving it if notice is taken of it.

So those are four really practical things. But then he ends it up by this In the first main paragraph on page 235, he says, the best test of a man's affection to his wife and of his wisdom in ordering the same is in this point of bearing with offenses. And again, he's dealing with a weaker vessel, so he should bear with the offense. He says that's the very best test of love, that you're able to bear an offense and respond not in kind. Yeah, yeah, it's the best guest of love and it's the hardest thing to do, isn't it?

To not be provoked and to work things that are really sinful and offensive, to not be provoked and respond gently, kindly, and not have a raised voice when you're not with a raised voice. Yeah. And just really, my wife often tells women that submission is invested until you disagree with your husband. Right. And I think what you're saying here is love is invested until there's something beneficial.

Right. And it's at that point that you see the degree of comfort. Yeah. He says, for if you love them which love you, what reward have you? Of course, he's quoting Matthew 5 46.

And then he says, gently bear with and wisely pass over offenses when they are given. Not to be provoked when there is a cause of provocation given, is a true Christian virtue, a virtue fitting husbands better than any other kind of men." So that's the best test, is when you are provoked but you don't return in kind. And then he ends this whole chapter with another image. He talks about gunpowder. And The idea is don't have gunpowder in your house.

Get it out of your house. We're kind of remove the gunpowder. And he speaks of this in terms of quickness to anger, irritability, and at the least provocation, he says there in the first part of it in the lower middle of page 235. But he says this, I thought this was brilliant, it is not safe to have the devil too near. And he's talking about the gunpowder of a flash point of irritability.

So there it is. It's about the kindness of a husband and his ability to recognize who he is. He is a head, but he also is the stronger of the two, and it obligates him to more gentleness even than his wife. Well, this is a really striking image, isn't it? I think I can say this is my own testimony.

I didn't realize how much gunpowder was in my head when I got married. I was a tolerant, patient, bubbled kind of guy. Oh my, did the first three months of marriage teach me the opposite of that? Right. And showed me how much gunpowder was in my heart.

And the trick, the key, what we need the grace of God for is to take the gunpowder out of our hearts without giving up the headship and authority. Right. Very, very well said. That's beautiful. And when he spoke of the gunpowder, getting it out of the house, I was reminded of the getting of the leaven out of the house.

The Hebrews would scatter leaven in their houses and sweep it up, the sin in the house, and they would take it out and they would burn the leaven. And So it is for a husband to clear the house of the leaven, of the gunpowder. So brothers, hey, let's consider what kind of gunpowder is still left in our house. Let's remove it from the house. Let's be very clear.

We are the heads of our houses, But there are obligations and there is a way that God has designed that we manage our headship. And it's defined in all these things that we've just read. And perhaps, you know, Gooch is right, the supreme way, the best way to manage your headship is tested when you're provoked. And anyway, what a beautiful chapter. I'm so grateful for it.

I appreciate the opportunity to read it and talk with you about it. Thanks, Sam. Hey, God bless you. And hey, thanks for writing that book about the priesthood and Job and all that great stuff. God bless you and hey, I'd love to do something like this again.

This was really fun. This has been great, brother. Thank you. Thanks. God bless.

Bye bye. Bye bye.