Divine Directive to Married Men Part 1

Introduction: The Divine Directive to Married Men

0:03 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday morning, June 6th, 1999, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now let us turn together to 1 Peter, 1 Peter, and I shall read just two verses from chapter 2, and then drop down to chapter 3 and verse 7.

0:33 1 Peter 2, verses 11 and 12. 1 Peter 2, verses 11 and 12. You husbands, in like manner, dwell with your wives according to knowledge, giving honor unto the woman as unto the weaker vessel, as being also joint heirs of the grace of life, to the end that your prayers be not hindered. Now I would like all of you this morning to imagine with me that you are in a room with a lot of people. You are in a large group of married men, and you need to know a little something about these men.

1:52 In years past, they lived unprincipled, lust-driven, hedonistic lives, the kind of lives that Peter describes in chapter 4 in the opening verses in this very epistle. But then the gospel came to them, and they were radically transformed into committed Christ-livers. Loving men, desirous of knowing and doing the will of God in every single area of their lives.

2:27 Now in the midst of getting acquainted with this group of men and making it evident that you are willing to entertain questions from them, questions particularly with reference to this passionate desire that they have to know and do the will of God in every area of their lives, one of them raises his hand. He raises his hand and asks this question. He says to you, sir or ma'am, I'm now a child of God, and as a child of God I desire to please Him. Could you give me, in a nutshell, in a very simple, succinct, summarized way, what is the heart of what I ought to know and do if I'm to please God as a husband? I've got so little to help me. I've got so little to help me. In my background, I took my marriage vows very lightly.

3:25 I come out of a society in which women are treated as chattel. I come from a background in which sensitivity and love and selflessness were no part of my experience, no part of the models of what a husband-wife relationship should be. Sir, can you help me? Can you give me something that in a very pithy, succinct, short compass will help me to begin in some substantive way to be the kind of husband God would have me be?

3:59 Well, if you had a question and a request like that, how would you respond?

4:06 Well, Peter has said it for us. And that by the special guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit unique to the biblical writers. For here in chapter 3, after a section that comprises, 6 verses in our Bibles, giving explicit directives to wives, when he turns to give directives to husbands, he condenses it all into one simple verse. Husbands, in like manner, dwell with your wives according to knowledge, giving honor unto the woman as unto the weaker vessel, as being also joint heirs of the grace of life, to the end that your prayers, be not hindered. Write that down, take it home, begin to ponder it, begin to work it out, and you, sir, will have in a nutshell what it is in God's perspective that will make you a husband well-pleasing unto Him. Now, as we come to this condensed, tightly-packed statement of the husband's duty, let me take just a moment to remind you of the overall, and larger setting of this passage. This is why I read chapter 2, verses 11 and 12.

The Larger Context and Audience of the Directive

5:27 At the end of the second series of setting forth the marvelous privileges of all the people of God, Peter gives this new appeal to practical Christian living, calling upon God's people to remember their identity as sojourners and pilgrims, negatively to abstain from fleshly lusts, positively, to have a pattern of life that is honorable and commends the gospel, so that an unbelieving world will see the reality of their Christian faith. And when he then moves to particular ways in which God's people can manifest such a lifestyle, as we have seen, he focuses on the issue of submission to constituted authority, the citizen to the state or to human government, the servant to the master, and then the wife to her husband. And here, Peter now turns and is going to address husbands, not in terms of a duty of submission, but in terms of their responsibility to their wives. And in this verse, we are given then the divine directive to married men. It is an answer to the question, how do I as a married man so live

6:50 as to commend the transforming power of the gospel? And Peter gives us that response in this text. Now, as with the divine directive to the wives, each of us ought to stretch out our ears and listen attentively. Obviously, you married men here ought to listen because God's speaking to you.

7:13 And in the Greek, it's very straightforward and simple, the husbands, and if you were sitting there, when this epistle was first read, you would know that if you're a married man, God, through the apostle Peter, has something very explicit to say to you. But then, for you single men, most of you have some hopes that someday you will become married men. Well, you ought to have the divine job description clearly before you. You ought to listen with great eagerness so that you may begin to prayerfully internalize, internalize God's job description for you as a potential husband.

7:55 You single women, what should you look for? Well, don't look for the girth of his shoulders and the size of his biceps as the first condition of whether you're going to take a second look. If you look at all, and you do, thankfully, most of you single gals look discreetly. You don't make it evident you're looking, but you know that you look, and I know that you look, and it's natural to look.

8:20 Well, what should you be looking for? Well, you should be looking for men, possible marriage partners, in whom some of these perspectives have begun to work themselves out because a trip down an aisle and the exchange of vows and a lovely, touching, tear-jerking wedding and a happy reception won't change the buzzard if he knows nothing about these things. He'll be exactly what he was when he stood there and said, I do. So get your eyes open and say here is God's job description of what a man ought to be and do as a husband, and I want to see some of the evidences of these character traits and attitudes and dispositions prior to allowing my heart to go out, let alone to commit myself to a lifelong relationship. And then what about the widows and the widowers? Why should you listen? Well, some of you may yet become married if God is pleased to give you another partner in life, but if not, according to Titus 2, the older people who have had marital experience have a responsibility to the younger people.

9:33 Paul speaks to the older men and what they are to do and the older women, so you ought to have an ever-growing understanding of what it is that you ought to be passing on to the younger generation. And then you children, why should you listen? Oh, marriage is way out there a long time from now. Remember Psalm 1.

9:53 Would you be the blessed man, the blessed woman? Would you grow from what you are now as a boy or a girl into a blessed man or woman? Psalm 1 says the way of blessedness is not to stand in the way of sinners. It is not to sit in the seat of scoffers.

10:09 It is not to allow the counsel of ungodliness to shape your thinking. And you ought from your earliest days to plead with God Lord, let me have a mind steeped in your ways as revealed in the Scriptures. Ah, but you say, Pastor, I'm unconverted and glad I am. What's this have to say to me?

10:30 Well, hopefully it will make you jealous when you see how suitable the Christian life is to everything we are as human beings, male and female. And how suitable are God's directives for husbands to the promotion of our highest application and happiness? That I hope it convinces you that you are in a course of taking something far less than your potential as an image bearer of God to remain unconverted. So it has something to say to all of us.

The Objects of the Divine Directive: Christian Husbands

11:02 Let us come then to our text, the divine directive to married men. And we begin first of all with the objects of this divine directive. To whom is this directive given? Well, it's obvious from the text.

11:16 You, husbands. The opening words would immediately alert every man in the congregation where the letter was read that something was being addressed to them in a very specific and concrete way. And the little connecting particle, you husbands, in like manner, points us to the larger context of the overarching concerns of the Apostle Peter. He has been telling citizens how they are to be and how they are to glorify God by a life consistent with their new relationship to Christ, in relationship to the state, servants in relation to masters, wives in relation to husbands. And this particle that has great flexibility in its use, sometimes just a transition word, in essence is used this way. Looking in the same way at the other side of the marital relationship, you husbands, if you would live out your calling as strangers and sojourners, abstaining from fleshly lusts that war against the soul, if you would so live in a commendable and honorable way that your lifestyle validates the power of the gospel, then you husbands listen, Peter says, to what I have to say to you.

12:43 But as we noted in the directive to wives, he is not simply writing to husbands as a secular marriage counselor, drawing upon the stuff of men's natural resources to try to raise the standard of marital bliss in Asia Minor. Peter is not only writing to husbands, to married men, but he is writing to Christian men, men who possess in Christ everything that is said of a Christian in chapters 1 and 2 of this epistle. He is writing to husbands who have in Christ everything that he has described in chapters 1 and 2. They too have been begotten again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. They too have that glorious inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, and that fades not away, but is preserved in heaven for them. They too are being kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.

13:54 They too are undergoing the purifying influence of suffering. They too love an unseen Christ. They too are...

14:04 You just go right through the epistle. And when Peter comes and says, you husbands, he has not forgotten all that he has said about them as Christians. What he says to them as husbands is predicated upon what he has already said about them as Christians. And we must not forget that, especially in this age that is obsessed with how-to schemes.

14:34 Everyone running off to seminars on how to this, how to that, how to the other, when at the end of the day the great issue that we must constantly reckon with, unless we have the life of a Christian, we cannot live the Christian life. And Peter assumes that these men have experienced and possess all that he has described in the first two chapters, and therefore, as with the women, he can assume on solid grounds that these men who would hear these words, the husbands, and then the word of divine directive would come, he could assume that this word would come to those in whom there would be found grace-produced motives inclining them to obey, and grace-produced power enabling them to obey. I hope you remember those two headings when we took up the directive to the wives. Peter could assume in the wives and in these husbands there would be grace-produced motives inclining them to receive the directive. Perhaps the most powerful of those motives, whom having not seen, you love.

15:48 In whom, believing, though you see him not, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Jesus said, If you love me, you will keep my commandments. He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me. He that loveth me not, keepeth not my sayings.

16:06 Peter can assume that he's not going to have to overcome some great barrier in the minds and in the affections of these men. He is convinced that their affections are already turned to Christ and there is a disposition and a desire to obey him out of love and gratitude. And then he can also assume that there is grace-produced power enabling them to obey. He described them in chapter 1 as those who had purified their souls in their obedience to the truth as those who had been begotten again by the word of God.

16:42 God had wrought in them that supernatural work of new birth, empowering them in union with Christ to a life of obedience. This directive comes not just to husbands, but it comes to Christian husbands with grace-produced motives inclining them to obey, grace-produced power enabling them to obey. And furthermore, it is evident that Peter not only assumes that they are Christians, but he assumes that they are Christians seeking at some level to give assertive, responsible leadership to their wives. How do we know that?

17:23 Well, look at the passage. Chapter 3 and verse 1. In like manner, you wives, be in subjection to your own husbands, assuming the wives are Christians. Most of their husbands would be Christians.

17:36 Then he addresses the exception that even if any obey not the word. You see, the assumption is if wives are to be in subjection to their husbands, that their husbands are taking a place worthy of being subjected to. That is, they are in the posture of taking responsible leadership. If later on in the passage he says that the pattern of these women is to be the holy women of Old Testament history who hoped in God being in subjection to their own husbands as Sarah obeyed Abraham, obviously Abraham was not sitting back letting Sarah make all the decisions. He was giving assertive leadership that would warrant her obedience. That's on the surface of the passage. Peter is assuming that these guys had not went out and relinquished the burden and the privilege of giving responsible, assertive leadership to their wives.

An Appeal to Unconverted Men and Encouragement to Christian Men

18:47 To whom does this directive come? It comes to just such men. And before I move off this head, I want to make an appeal to the unconverted men and boys among us, whether married, not married, someday hope to be married. You see, Peter can give this directive, you husbands in like manner dwell with your wives, give honor to your wives, knowing that grace has been operative in them and will continue to be operative in them, enabling them to be the kind of husbands that would please God.

19:26 But Jesus said, without me, you can do nothing. Without me, cut off from me, severed from me, you can do nothing. And you see, you who are unconverted, as much as you may think, well, in my own strength, I will be a good husband, I have no intentions of being harsh and to brutalize my wife, to be unfaithful to my wife, inconsiderate, etc., etc.

19:54 You do not know what you will be and do if left to the stuff of your own native heart. And I plead with you, my unconverted single man or unconverted husband, see in this very passage the desirability of being a Christian, that you might glorify God in that place of a husband, and to you, Christian men among us. I want to ask you something. As you have been anticipating coming to this passage, what has been your honest, internal, psychological response to the anticipation, I am going to hear what I have to do.

20:37 Has it been one of eagerness or has it been one of dread? Has it been the attitude, oh boy, I bet I am going to get zapped. I am going to hear more of my duty. And when I hear more of my duty, I am going to see my miserable performance.

20:54 And I am either going to run from the searching light of the Word, or I am going to be buried in a heap of guilt and despondency. Now only you can answer if that has been your internal, psychological complex coming to the passage. But let me encourage you, Christian men, it ought not to be that. It ought to be this, that whenever I understand more fully the demands of the Christian life, it is to the end that I may know more of the glory of the grace and the strength of Christ to meet that demand.

21:34 Paul could say in Philippians 4.13, I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. Work out your own salvation, Philippians 2.12, with fear and trembling.

21:48 Why? Verse 13, It is God who is at work in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure. The demands of the Christian life are ultimately demands not upon our pathetically weak and perverse humanity, but upon the grace of God towards us in Christ. So that when we anticipate understanding more fully our duty, we ought with hope and confidence anticipate more measures of grace from Christ to fulfill our duty.

22:23 And trying to illustrate this, and again I apologize for my silly illustrations, but I think the truth illustrated in a silly way is better than a truth not illustrated if it's a crucial truth. Here's a father that says to his son, now look, we're going to go outside and I'm going to hold a stick at a certain height and I want you to jump over it. And the boy jumps over it. He says, alright, I'm going to raise it six inches.

22:48 And he says, but dad, I can't jump the next six inches. He said, I've got wonderful news for you. I've got a special concoction called Jolly Jumping Juice. And son, every time I raise the bar, you drink a pint of Jolly Jumping Juice and it will give you the strength you need to jump six inches higher.

23:09 So he gives him the snort of Jolly Jumping Juice. And he raises the stick and lo and behold, the kid goes right over it. He says, oh, dad's kidding me. There's nothing in this Jolly Jumping Juice.

23:21 I just had a little adrenaline rush. So his dad says, we're going to raise it six inches more. He says, dad, that's too high. He says, take another six inches.

23:31 So he takes another six inches. And he raises the stick and lo and behold, after about three times, you know what happens? He says, you know, that Jolly Jumping Juice works. Dad, I'm not fearful of you to raise the bar because each time you raise the bar, I see that that Jolly Jumping Juice really works.

23:50 And I look forward to jumping higher, not in my own native jumping strength, but because of that wonderful Jolly Jumping Juice. Now you say, silly illustration. I know you come up with a better one. I'll use it.

24:03 Some of you have had a standard here for what it is to be a husband who pleases God. And up till now, you thought you could pretty well jump it in your own strength. But after we study this passage, you're going to see it up here. That's not a call to go down in a heap of despondency and run from the standard.

24:28 You go to the God who sets the stick at that height and say, you have promised that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. That you work in me to will and to work for your good pleasure, Lord. Work it in me so that I will know not only the sufficiency of your grace, but I'll have sense enough to know that the standard was far beyond anything I could attain in my own strength and all the glory belongs to you. Wouldn't it be a marvelous thing if three months from now we had a number of wives who said to their husbands, the way you are dwelling with me according to knowledge as the weaker vessel, the feminine one, and showing and giving and conferring honor to me as a joint heir of life, I can't believe it's you. Wouldn't it be wonderful for you to say, I can't either, dear? And it ain't me. I am what I am by the grace of God.

25:34 For some of you right now, there isn't much to cause your wife to hold her breath and wonder what makes you tick. She knows all too well what makes you tick. And you and I as husbands ought so to relate to our wives that they have no explanation for who and what we are, but the grace of God at work in us. And your background is no exception.

25:59 Read chapter four. When I described that bunch of men in the room in my introduction, I didn't pull that out of the stuff of my own head. I paraphrased what Peter describes as their pre-Christian experience. They were revelers.

26:13 They were carousers. They were idolaters. They were drunkards. They were rockers, as our English friends would say.

26:22 But the grace of God transformed them. And Peter says, here's the standard. But don't look to your own strength in your own spindly legs. You look to God in Christ for the grace to be that kind of a man.

The Substance of the Directive: Translation and Grammar

26:39 Well, so much then for the subjects of this divine directive. Now we come to the substance of this directive. You husbands, in like manner, dwell with your wives according to knowledge, giving honor unto the woman as unto the weaker vessel, as being also joint heirs of the grace of life, to the end that your prayers be not hindered. Now as I attempt to unpack the substance of this divine directive, I need to pause and address, first of all, one issue of translation, and then one issue of grammar.

27:20 And I must do it, or I can't preach with a good conscience the way I believe the text ought to be preached and expounded. The translation issue is this. The old American Standard, the new King James Version, the NIV, and a number of other translations would get the impression that when Peter wrote, what he did is he gave two basic directives. The two basic directives, back to back, are dwell and give honor.

27:51 You see that? In your translation, that's what you see. You husbands, in like manner, dwell, the new King James says, with them, the old American Standard, with your wives, in italics, according to knowledge, giving honor. So the two things are put back to back, dwell and give honor, and then they are buttressed by two reasons.

28:12 As unto the weaker vessel, and as being joint heirs of the grace of life, and then a capstone motivation goes over both directives with those two reasons attached, namely, that your prayers be not hindered. Now were I to preach the passage using that translation and that structure, I would not be teaching error. But I don't believe I would be as true to the mind of the Spirit of God as expressed in the way Peter wrote it. Rather, in the way that the new American Standard renders it, this is what Peter wrote.

28:54 I give you now the new American Standard translation. You husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with a weaker vessel, since she is a woman, semicolon, and grant her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life. Did you see the difference? There are two directives.

29:22 But after the first, a reason is given in the as clause. You husbands, in like manner, dwell with your wives according to knowledge, as unto the weaker vessel, giving honor unto the woman as also joint heir of the grace of life. So it's not as though we have two duties undergirded by two reasons, but we have a strand of duty buttressed by a reason or a peculiar focus of that duty, then a second duty buttressed by another rationale, a reason for that duty or a peculiar focus of the husband's thinking as he performs that duty and over it all this crowning motivation that your prayers be not hindered. So I'm going to preach the text that way and I want you to know why I was doing it and you Greek students will see that immediately if you have your testament on your laps or you consult it when you go home. Now, one issue of grammar. The Greek students will also discover that the two strands of the duty, dwelling with and giving honor, are not imperatives.

30:40 They are present participles yet all the translations translate them as imperatives. Why? Well, there are good and compelling reasons and I commend to you Selwyn's treatment of those reasons. Pages 467 to 488 for you exegetes and for you that have an interest in these things, but suffice it to say there are good reasons for regarding these present participles as having the weight and the thrust of imperatives.

31:05 Well, that takes care of itself. Now, I'm going to go back and I'm going to go back and I'm going to take care of the translational concern and the grammatical concern. Now we come to the substance of the directives and this morning we will only have time to take the first, the duty to dwell with one's wife. You husbands in like manner dwell with your wives according to knowledge as unto the weaker vessel the wifely one or the feminine one.

Duty 1: To Dwell with One's Wife

31:32 Now as I attempt to hit this blob space of higher gloom that goes towards elementification To unpack this directive, note with me first the nature of this duty. The verb to dwell together with, as so many of Peter's words, is found only here in the New Testament. And it comes from two words, oikeo, oikos, house, oikeo, to be housed, to be domiciled, and then a prefix, which means to be domiciled together. So the etymology of the word and its general use in the Greek translation of the Old Testament speaks of being domiciled together, people living together. Now sometimes it has the more restricted sense of a man and a woman cohabiting with the focus upon marital sexual intimacy. Some commentators say that is its precise significance here, and they interpret, expound, and apply the passage, in the light of that more restricted sense. But there are several usages of this word in the Greek translation of the Old Testament that indicate the word has a much broader significance, and unless context demands it, we ought to give it its broader significance.

32:57 It is speaking of the full spectrum of what's involved in a man and a woman being domiciled together as husband and as wife. It points to the close habitual associations of married people in all of its departments and in all of its aspects. So the nature of the duty, the first thing these men would hear when the epistle was read to them is, you husbands be dwelling together, it doesn't say, with your wives. That's assumed.

33:35 That's why it's in italics in the old American standard, and in the New Testament. King James, with them, in italics. It's understood. You are dwelling together with your wives.

33:47 Now, very interestingly, though that's the heart of the nature of the duty, to dwell together with them, John Brown, the Scottish commentator, underscores what he feels are some very strong secondary emphases in Peter's use of this text, of this word, that Peter is underscoring the fact that married men are supposed to dwell together with their wives and under ordinary circumstances, not with their in-laws. He says, if a man is to leave father and mother and cleave to his wife, then, under ordinary circumstances, he ought to leave and be domiciled with his wife. It makes the observation that common sense and certain biblical passages and observation underscore that, generally speaking, there will be tremendous, tremendous marital tensions unless the husband and the wife are dwelling together in a way that reflects the fact that the husband has left father and mother and, by implication, the wife has left her father and mother and they are establishing this new unit under God. And then he goes on to go after what was a real problem in his day. People who married and then never were with their wives, who had a business that they knew before they were married would take them away for months at a time, and John Brown makes the observation unless there is some unusual duty, that would include the military

35:15 and certain forms of shipping, employment, etc., that a man ought not to marry if he cannot dwell with his wife. And I think he has a point. But whether Peter had that in mind, I'm not sure, but I think it's worthy of being mentioned, particularly in the climate of our society with the dual career mentality, neither one of which should be, be disturbed by a marriage contract.

35:43 And that, to me, is part of the relevance of this passage. You think of marriage, you think in terms of the commitment that means you dwell together. There is meaningful marital intimacy being domiciled together.

36:03 And furthermore, for any husband who does not find being together his delight and his desire, who is more comfortable being off with the boys, being off pursuing this hobby or this particular recreation or sport, something is bad wrong in that marriage. The duty of husbands is to dwell together with them. That's the nature of the duty. Now, secondly, note the measure or the standard for this duty.

The Measure/Standard for Dwelling: According to Knowledge

36:37 Dwell with according to knowledge. And that preposition, kata, means, according to, the standard of. That's why I've used the word, the measure or standard, that which corresponds with something. And he says, you are to dwell with your wife according to, corresponding to, with reference to, knowledge.

37:09 Now, several modern translations render the passage, dwell with your wives in an understanding way. Well, that can't, capture some of it. But Peter used the word gnosis. Dwell with them according to knowledge.

37:26 In other words, he says to these husbands, you must have a mind enlightened by the truth. Now, knowledge of what? Peter doesn't tell us.

37:40 He points in the directions we shall see in the latter part of this phrase. But at this point, he doesn't give an explicit identification of the knowledge. But from the analogy of Scripture, surely we understand that it is knowledge that is true knowledge. That is, knowledge derived from the word of the living God.

38:01 Knowledge that would fit the directive of Romans 12, 2. Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Knowledge of God's design and purpose for the institution of marriage. Not the latest theories of marriage gleaned from the experts.

38:27 And certainly not the knowledge of marriage gleaned from your idolatrous pagan background. You husbands, dwell with your wives according to knowledge. True knowledge. Knowledge derived from God's revelation of His mind and of His will.

38:48 Whatever that means, it means that no man can be or begin to be a competent husband who is mentally lazy. He has got to be on a constant quest for knowledge. This is a present participle with imperatival pressure. And it is to be a constant dwelling according to knowledge.

39:15 So that the acquisition of the knowledge essential to my being, the husband I ought to be, is not static. I never get enough and can coast. But I am to be continually growing in that knowledge.

The Primary Focus of Knowledge: The Weaker Vessel, the Feminine One

39:33 And then, from this matter of the knowledge, he says, thirdly, the primary focus of concern in this duty. The duty, dwell with them. The measure or standard according to knowledge. And now here's where the translation comes in.

39:50 As, as unto the weaker vessel. A better rendering, as unto a weaker vessel, comma, the feminine one. That is, husbands must dwell with their wives with an ever-growing knowledge of who their wives are in their created identity as the weaker vessel. That is, in their distinct femininity.

40:19 Peter uses another word that I've translated femininity or the feminine one found only here in the New Testament. Now let's unpack this for a few moments. The word vessel. That may be offensive to some of you.

40:34 I don't like being called a vessel. I'm a woman. Well, don't be offended. It's not a pejorative term.

40:41 It's not demeaning. It's used of all people in general. We read it in Romans 9 this morning. God makes some vessels of mercy, some are vessels of destruction.

40:55 So there it refers to all human beings. They are vessels. It is used of the male gender. Acts 9, 15 of Paul, the Lord says to Ananias, you can go ahead and go in there and take care of things.

41:10 You don't need to be afraid of him. He is a chosen, here's our word, chosen vessel unto me. Now certainly that was not demeaning, degrading of Paul. He's a chosen vessel.

41:20 I've set my love upon him. I've just subdued his proud pharisaic heart. I've conferred my grace upon him. I'm going to make him my servant to carry my name to the Gentiles.

41:30 Nothing demeaning. He's a chosen vessel unto me. So it points to our existence as created and as created dependent and made of fragile fabric. This is the word Paul uses in 2 Corinthians 4, 7 when he says we have the treasure in earthen vessels that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God and not of ourselves.

41:54 So when he says, now you husbands, you're to dwell with your wives. You're to dwell according to a standard of knowledge and that knowledge is to have a peculiar focus upon the reality of what they are as the weaker vessel, the feminine one. Vessel simply means what she is as created and fragile. But now he says the weaker vessel.

42:20 And here he uses a comparative word. Now think for a minute. If he says the weaker comparative, whatever it's being compared to is also weak. I give you two very flimsy reads and I say here are two weak reads.

42:38 Which of them is the weaker? And so you put some pressure. Oh, you say this is the weaker one. So man, you can't go around and pop your chest out and say I'm the strong one.

42:49 No, God says you're weak. She's weaker. But you're both in the same category. Weaker and weak.

42:57 So again, women, don't... And it's amazing how people who've got a controversy with God will finally say, ah, see, they're Peters and misogynists just like Paul putting down women and calling them vessels and calling them weaker.

43:09 Well, back off a little bit and let God speak and let God say what he means and mean what he says and God's not saying anything demeaning. But he does say she is compared to the man she is the weaker vessel. Now, the $64 question in what way is she weaker?

43:30 He doesn't tell us.

43:33 Remember, he's putting the whole duty of husbands in a nutshell. So he can't go off the rabbit trails and explain everything. But when we study our Bibles and when we rightly read what is called general revelation, what God's revealed in himself in his created order,

43:50 there is no indication that the woman is weaker in her individualism. There is no intellectual strength. None whatsoever. Recent studies have shown you women on the whole have 15% less gray matter than we men have.

44:09 But because you test out just as smart in any category, you've got better gray matter cells than we do. You're getting more for your money. Right? If you've got a car that can go as fast and as far as mine and it takes less gas, you've got a better engine.

44:32 You get more mass per gallon to go as fast and as far. So women have 15% less brain mass, but they can do more with what they've got. In all seriousness, there's nothing to indicate that women are intellectually inferior. So when Peter said, as unto a weaker vessel, there's no indication that he's speaking of her intellectual strength nor of her moral courage.

45:00 Her moral courage. In this very passage, he's talking to women in all their vulnerability who have unconverted husbands. The latter part of verse 1 and on to verse 2. And what does he say of these women?

45:13 He says that these women in that vulnerability, even with husbands who obey not the word, they have the moral courage to embrace their God-given role. And all women in their place of vulnerability, the capstone exhortation to them in verse 6 was, if you do well and are not put in fear by any terror, he appeals to them to be morally courageous. And scripture indicates that women can demonstrate tremendous moral courage. Just the fact that they bear the children.

45:45 A lot of men faint. They're going to be the big shot coach to their wife in delivery. And the poor doctor has to carry them out. Down they go.

45:55 So there's no indication that women are the weaker vessel in terms of moral courage or in terms of spiritual stature. Read your Bible. And women of tremendous stature. This epistle, in that sense, is gender neutral in terms of the blessings of God's grace upon His people.

46:15 They come equally to men and women in Christ. There is neither male nor female. In what sense, then, is she the weaker vessel? Well, let me suggest that I believe the heart of understanding this is one of the reasons Peter used the word vessel to point to created identity.

46:34 And when we go back to the very act of God in creation, He constituted the woman. That's why Peter uses this strange word. Dwell with your wives according to knowledge as the weaker, as with a weaker vessel, the feminine one. There is something in her very identity as the feminine one that constitutes her the weaker vessel.

Understanding 'Weaker Vessel': Physical and Positional Weakness

47:03 And I suggest it's two things. She is physically weaker and she is positionally weaker. She is physically weaker. Now, does that mean you cannot find any woman who is stronger than any given man?

47:18 Of course not.

47:21 But biologically, the way God has constituted maleness and femaleness, the male is the stronger of the two.

47:32 And it's been interesting to me to watch the development of the women's basketball league. And you see these women now, 6'2", 6'3", some of them 6'7". But while they've stretched up to 6'2", 6'3", 6'7", there was a time, I can remember, when if you were a professional basketball player and you were 6'10", you were the giant among the pygmies. And now, I mean, you've got guards that are 6'8", and 6'9".

48:01 And if you're going to be a power forward, you've got to be 6'10", to 7 feet or more. And any center that's making, you've got them all the way up to 7'6". And as you compare them,

48:15 the woman is the weaker. Some of you are aware of the obsession with female bodybuilding. And I don't care how many steroids some of these women pump and how much iron they pump, they're never going to have 54-inch chest and 20-inch biceps like the male counterpart in the body-worshiping bodybuilding.

48:36 Why? Because God made it that way. And as I was reflecting on this, I went back to Genesis 2. And I want you to turn there.

48:46 For a moment. Because I think it's critical that I at least get you thinking as to whether or not the weaker vessel focuses upon primarily and fundamentally physically weaker. In Genesis, you remember God put Adam down in the garden to keep it, brings the animals before him to name them, and Adam is engaged for at least a period of time in the task assigned by God. But there was no helper answering to his need.

49:16 And God says he would make one answering to his need. And then God brings the woman to the man, and after he awakens Adam from his state of being anesthetized, we read verse 23 of Genesis 2. And the man said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, Isha, because she was taken out of man, Ish.

49:45 Now think with me for a moment. Adam had already seen and named the major classes of the animals. Chapter 2, verse 18 and following.

50:00 Now, if God caused something to pass before Adam that was in any way a counterpart of the modern elephant, can you use your imagination with me and try to think how Adam might have reacted to that elephant when he saw it in its massive, ponderous, essence as an elephant? Do you think he would have had any notion? Oh, that elephant is such a marvelous beast, displaying aspects of the power of God and the magnitude and the greatness of God, and so thrilled with what he sees of God's handiwork in the elephant that he jumps onto its leg and tries to dance with an elephant?

50:44 Yes, Adam would have had more sense than try to dance with an elephant. However he was going to express his joy in the handiwork of God, without beholding an elephant, there would have been something wholesomely intimidating about the elephant. And however he related to it, however he expressed his joy, it would have been commensurate with what the elephant was in terms of its imposing physical presence. The past is not safe to leave you alone in your study.

51:13 Your head goes straight into it. Now, you stay with me. You stay with me. And then the hippopotamus.

51:19 Think of some of those animals that are massive and intimidating to a human being. No sin. There's nothing that in any way would cause Adam to feel the animal would harm him. But do you see that he could not help by observing that animal with a view to giving it a name that is assigning its significance in God's world or discovering and articulating its significance in God's world by God's design?

51:43 Adam would not have responded to his joy of discovery by wanting to dance or embrace one of those huge behemoths. Now, come to this section where he wakes up. He's seen all the animals. Maybe when he saw a monkey and named it, he put the monkey on its shoulder.

52:05 Maybe he even danced with the monkey and rejoiced in the wisdom of God in making this little monkey that brought him such joy and laughter, etc. What do you think Adam's response was when he saw the woman?

52:18 And he says, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. What did God bring to you? He brought him a creature larger and stronger than he, before which he would feel an instinctive sense I must follow her leadership, submit to her strength, come under the protection of her strength.

52:45 No, I'm rather inclined to believe Adam threw his arms around her and danced with joy, seeing his greater physical strength as a deposit of God to envelop and protect him. To protect and to rejoice in this one who is now bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh. And when Eve looks upon Adam, she knows that there is in the very way God made him an element of size and strength and masculine identity that does not intimidate her because she is bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, but towards which she's instinctively drawn as that strength under which she will find safety and protection and guidance. And God is programmed into the male and the female as a general pattern genetically even in the animal world that the woman is the weaker vessel. All right? So my assertion is when Peter says as unto a weaker vessel, it's pointing to her physical weakness and then her position.

54:02 From the very beginning, the woman, 1 Corinthians 11 says, was made for the man. He is in the position of divinely appointed headship and government and direction. And in that sense, she is weaker. She is vulnerable to his good or to his poor leadership.

54:27 She is in her position of submission in the weaker position. And that is not demeaning. As one commentator beautifully stated, is it demeaning that the vine is weaker than the tree around which it wraps itself? Is it demeaning to say that the rose is weaker than the horny stem on which it blooms?

54:56 Of course not. And it's not demeaning. It is part of the glory of the woman that she is the weaker vessel. And here, Peter adds this little phrase, the feminine or the wifely one, I believe to underscore that this is part of the very essence of her femininity.

55:18 And he's saying to these men, dwell with your wives according to knowledge as being what God has made them. The weaker vessel, the feminine one. You husbands recognize what they are. In the creative wisdom and purpose of God, they are the weaker vessel, weaker physically, weaker positionally, and in the light of that, you are to dwell with them.

Application: Sin's Perversion and Grace's Transformation

55:48 So in summary and concluding application, as we consider the first strand of the divine mandate to husbands, let me say we can't escape the facts of what God has done in His own creative order. We can't escape them. We can defy them or try to. We can curse them.

56:13 We can say, I don't like them. But we can't change them. And as we saw before sin, Adam's strength was no threat to Eve. Eve does not feel threatened by that strength.

56:30 Adam has no desire to use his physical strength to abuse his wife, but to give her responsible, loving, leadership that together they may fulfill their God-given task of being fruitful and multiplying and replenishing and subduing the earth, a mandate given to both of them in the original creation. But what has happened with sin? Sin in man causes him to abuse his place of relative strength so that man's physical strength becomes the instrument with which he becomes a predator, toward women.

57:11 And men, far more than women, are guilty of rape and of physical abuse. Why? Sin has so perverted what God has given that man's strength now takes advantage of the weaker woman. And what is true physically is true positionally.

57:30 Men turn their position of responsible, loving, servant leadership into tyranny and abuse and exploitation and machoism. That's what men do because of sin. But women are equally sinners. And what do they do?

57:49 They try to deny that they are the weaker vessel.

57:53 They sing their song, Anything you can do, I can do better. Anything you can do.

58:03 You've got Professor Higgins saying to Eliza, Why can't a woman be like a man? Well, she can't be unless she kills what she is as a woman. Dear women, you're the weaker vessel. Try to be like a man.

58:16 Try to be anything other than that. You cease to be a woman. You cease to be a woman. That's what God's made you.

58:24 But sin is so perverted. Women, that they want to be something other. Some of it is out of a motive of protection. They've been exploited.

58:32 Yes. The man's relative strength has been turned against them physically and positionally. Yes. But in this very passage, what does Peter say to these Christian women?

58:45 The way of redemptive grace is not to throw them out. Throw over who and what you are. But to embrace it from the heart even when the husband obeys not the word. Manifest the glory of embracing who and what you are as a woman.

59:02 Wives, be subject to your husbands. Take your place as the weaker vessel. Positionally, I've assigned him to lead and for you to follow. But here's the wonder of God's grace.

59:16 It comes and takes the man who needs to be natively and sinfully abuses his strength and now enables him to take that very strength in service for the well-being of the woman. His physical strength now to bear burdens that she ought not to bear. To carry loads from the car into the kitchen that she ought not to carry.

59:45 The walk between her and the curb on the street. These symbols that people call are just meaningful traditions. No. They are the sacramental evidences of male strength committed to the protection of the weaker vessel.

60:01 The opening of the door. May I help you with that load of groceries. What are those things? Just banal courtesies.

60:09 No. They're evidence. It should be in Christian men that the grace of God has caused us to see our greater physical strength is there to ennoble and to take the place of loving service to our wives. Not submission to but service to.

60:28 And then our position. Grace so works in a man that he does not see his position of headship as his little unrivaled throne to call the shots and to bully his wife and preach submission to her. But under Christ to seek to administer the home and all that transpires in it in a way that glorifies God and enables his wife to come to her place to her full potential in Jesus Christ. Notice I've not cross-referenced anything with Ephesians 5 and it hadn't been easy.

61:06 But Ephesians 5 is the extended commentary on what that means. That's what grace does for a man. And what's it do for the woman? It enables her to glory in the fact that she has the weaker vessel.

61:17 She doesn't resent it. She's not irritated with it. She's not uncomfortable with it. And she glories in her distinctive feminine identity physically.

61:28 She doesn't try to look like a man. She gladly wears and adorns herself in a way that screams I'm a woman and I'm glad in it. Is that where you are, women?

61:43 Is that where you are? I hope you are. The same way I hope you men say I will dress and carry myself and shake hands in a way that makes it plain in the world. I'm glad to be a man.

61:54 And I'm willing to bear the burden and the dignity of my manhood. And the woman then embraces the manhood. Her place is weaker physically, weaker positionally, and the grace of God gives us a little taste of what Eden must have been like before the intrusion of sin.

Concluding Exhortations and Warnings

62:15 And I want to say a word and I trust you bear with me. I want to say a word to husbands.

62:23 This is your duty.

62:26 By divine mandate, dwell together according to knowledge, knowledge focused on her identity as the weaker vessel. So let me ask you, husbands, do you give any serious thought and prayer to this issue of asking God, Lord, give me the knowledge necessary to dwell with my wife in such a way that it's patent to her and to all who see me in relationship to her that I understand who she is as the weaker vessel, the feminine one.

62:59 Oh, I didn't have that in my background. Neither did these men. I don't have any examples around me. Neither did they.

63:06 But God calls you to this and you will see it. You will see tonight that crowning motivation. If you're a true Christian, I'll have to scare you with this. You want heaven shut to your prayers?

63:16 Then you be indifferent to this directive to dwell with your wife according to knowledge as with the weaker vessel, the feminine one. And God says you can pray on in vain and your prayers will not be heard. Your prayers will be hindered. This is serious stuff, men.

63:32 We can't take this lightly.

63:35 And I want to bring a closing word to you husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, are you imparting to your sons these perspectives by example, by instruction, by regulating their conduct with their sisters.

63:51 You fathers, don't laugh when your sons are gruff and insensitive to your daughters. That's the way they're going to treat their wives.

64:03 Your home is to be the crucible of producing men who can dwell with their wives according to knowledge as unto the weaker vessel, the feminine one.

64:14 Sit your sons down and tell them what it means that the woman is the weaker vessel and that in the light of it she's not to be despised or demeaned but as we'll see tonight she's to be given honor.

64:31 We're not going to get much help in the fabric of society. There was a time when there was a stock of common grace where in many places a young man growing up simply absorbing the climate of society, picking up the manners and the mannerisms and the way things were handled in general social interest, interaction, he would learn something of what it is to dwell with a wife according to knowledge as with a weaker vessel, the feminine one. But that stock is well nigh all been spent and there is more and more a wretched, horrible, God-defying, crippling stock of aggressive feminism, of wretched, self-centered machoism and every aggravated expression of what sin does to unman men, and to un-women women. And if we would have as a congregation any kind of credibility as being part of the new humanity back to 2, 11 and 12, a lifestyle in which there is a validation of the gospel, how critical it is that we learn what this is and live in the light of it and pass it on to our children. And my final word is to you girls and young women, what do you look for in that? In that man?

65:53 You look for some indication that he's at least beginning to understand who and what you are as the weaker vessel. And that he's determined to relate to you in a way that makes you not merely reluctantly accepted of that identity, but to glory in that identity and to know you're going to feel safe more fully embracing that identity under his leadership and under his guidance. You got what I'm saying? You single gal?

66:23 You hear me? Both ears? I don't care if he can sing like Pavarotti and hit home runs like Mark McQuire and make bucks like Bill Gates if he doesn't show that he's begun to understand what it is to dwell with a woman according to knowledge as the weaker vessel, the feminine one, run from the bum and tell him come back and look at you a second time when he begins to learn what this means. Why do I say that?

66:58 I want you single the rest of your days? No. But I don't want you married to someone that won't dwell with you according to knowledge, won't dwell with you as the weaker vessel, the feminine one. Father, we're so thankful for your word, that word which is a lamp to our feet and a light to our pathway.

67:27 And oh, how we pray that you would take this portion of your word and write it upon our hearts with power. Oh Lord, we feel at times like the little boy sticking his finger in the leaking dike, with the whole heart, the whole seed pressing itself in upon us. Have mercy upon us and help us, oh God, stem the tide of the horrible overturning of these biblical perspectives in the past generation. Will you not establish again these perspectives in the hearts of your people that you would so work that by your grace in this place, these things would be evident in the husbands, who dwell with their wives according to knowledge, a knowledge that respects what they are as the weaker vessel by your creative design. We pray for those, our Father, who have very little acquaintance with these matters, to whom these things may sound very strange. We pray that you would cause them to have an inquisitive mind that will be driven to your word and that you would help them as they seek your face and read the scriptures, to be brought to an understanding and embrace of your truth. Dismiss us now with your blessing and continue with us throughout this day, we ask in Jesus' name, amen.