Tag: Family

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Ten Straightforward Godly Expectations for Husbands/Fathers

a) It doesn’t matter how many times I say it, it needs to be repeated until it pierces the Christian masculine soul: Under normal circumstances, the church is not optional. It is God’s fourth commandment requirement of you.

Men, if you allow your wife or other circumstances to dictate your faithfulness to worship God with his people, you are weak and need to be rebuked.

b) Your children will grow to be annoying to you if you do not invest in them now. Love. Care. Spend time. Read. Play. Hug. Kiss. Instruct. You won’t be annoyed with your future children when you invest in the present.

c) Don’t just “date night your wife,” but kiss her, love her, write to her, romance her, cook for her, and make her job at home as easy as possible by making yourself useful. If you don’t know what that looks like, ask her. She will tell you.

d) Family devotions are either too boring or non-existent in the home. Secret: make them short and participatory. Men, most of you are not pastors and don’t play one on TV. Don’t play preacher to your kids. They will resent you.

e) Read. If you don’t read at least 3-5 books in a year, you’re a poor leader in the home. We no longer live in a society where men can afford to not like to read! If reading is unbearable, or some other deficiency keeps you from it, get yourself an audible subscription and start catching up. The future will belong to readers.

f) Pray like a man. “But I don’t have a habit of praying for me or my family.” Then get a copy of the “Valley of Vision” or Evelyn Underhill’s “Prayer Book” on Amazon. And read those and learn how to pray by reading people’s prayers.

g) Serve your church. “But I work odd hours and only have a few hours to spend with my family on the weekends.” That’s irrelevant. If your church has set-up to do, or if they have widows in need, or people moving into town, or other needs, there will always be time for service, even if a bit here and there. And if you are concerned about not spending enough time with your kids, take them with you to serve. I guarantee you your family time in service will be doubly as profitable as just about anything you can do together.

h) Sing God’s songs together. “But I can’t sing.” Ever heard of youtube? Psalms, hymns– it’s all there. No more excuses, gents. Gather around dinner with a few printouts and sing something. Start with the doxology, if you don’t know where to start.

i) Get together with other men. “But my wife does not want me to go out at night with my friends.” Tell her it will make you a better husband if you spend time with other godly saints. Don’t isolate your masculinity. Help her put the kids down and take time once a week or every other week to spend time with other men. On the other hand, if you don’t extend the favor to your wife, you’re an idiot that needs a firm rebuke. And even better, spend time together with other couples.

j) Watch good movies together. Quit isolating your styles from others in the household. A little here and there is okay, but when you have adult kids watching one thing, you watching something else and your spouse watching something else frequently, you have isolated the family from an exercise that may build healthy bonds and provide a forum for interesting conversations. Establish a top ten movies to watch as a family. Begin with good classics.

Men, don’t waste your leadership! Use it for the good of the family and the church. 

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Husbands and Headship: The Art of Dying

We live in a culture that views headship as abusive. In the Bible, however, headship is central to the stability of the home. Protestant and evangelical men need to see this headship in the context of the great covenant responsibilities that come with that role. The man who views his headship cavalierly views his role in the home with un-biblical eyes.

I have met many men who come to see the need for headship in the home and have made the necessary changes to their husbandry. Some of these men came to these convictions late in life, and therefore, the changes occurred too quickly; especially for their families. They went from rarely reading the Bible themselves to requiring family devotions with a 45-minute sermon. Dad went from barely feeding his family spiritually to stuffing his family. Children grow up dreading the evening “services”, and the wife, on the one hand, gives thanks to God for the change in her husband, while on the other, wondering if God misunderstood her prayers.

God knew all things, of course. The problem is sinners have made an art of over-reacting. Pastors need to watch out for these types and bring their enthusiasm to a proper balance.

But the Church is not suffering because of over-zealous husbands/ fathers; she is suffering for the lack of any zeal in husbands/fathers.

In particular, husbands are called to meet the needs of their wives. He is the provider, sustainer, and the one called by God to make his wife lovely. The wife is lovely when the husband beautifies her. Jesus is the head of the Church and part of his ascension task is to make his bride beautiful (Eph. 5). He comforts her with words of affirmation. He protects her from physical and spiritual abuse. He is her Boaz and David; a redeemer and king. The home serves as the castle. Pastors usually know when he enters a home whether it is being beautified or whether it has lost its beauty. I am not referring to neatness and tidiness; I am referring to the grace of a home. When that pastor leaves, he may have just left a pretty tomb with dead man’s bones. Grace makes a home, and the husband is the grace-giver. How he speaks, how he communicates, how he rebukes, how he seeks forgiveness; all these things demonstrate and encapsulate the type of headship he is embodying.

The husband is a resident theologian. He may not be a vocational theologian, but his actions and speech are the word and deed that his family will hear most often. When the husband lives a life of constant hypocrisy, his lectures will become dull and lose meaning. When his life demonstrates humility and the virtue of repentance, then his lectures, even the boring ones, will sink deeply into the fabric of the home.

The evangelical husband is a lover of truth. Truth keeps him from abusing his headship; truth keeps him from prioritizing his friends over his own family; truth keeps him from isolating himself from the Christian body; truth keeps him from turning headship into abuse. He must be, as Douglas Wilson once observed, “a small pebble that somehow by the grace of God pictures the Rock that is Christ.”[1]

The responsibility of being the head of the home is the responsibility of many, but the practice of some. Headship implies dying for your wife, and many prefer to see their spouse die than themselves. So men, let’s die together for our wives, and let’s show the world that death brings life.

[1] Wilson, Douglas. Reforming Marriage, 39.