Homework Assignment 14

The Ideal Husband

Ephesians 5:21 introduces the best known passage in Scripture on the role of the husband and wife in marriage. You as a husband are to be subject to your wife through the proper exercise of your God-given role. Always keep this basic relational principle before you as you proceed through this study.

Leader

The first role of a husband mentioned in Ephesians 5:23 is that he should be the head of the wife.

HEAD: As God's representative authority, the husband is to take the initiative, leadership, and responsibility for the marriage relationship.

1. Being the head means to be the initiator. List five key areas of the marriage or family relationship in which a husband should fulfill his role as head of his wife.

2. What is a current misapplication of this principle?

3. If you applied the same initiative, drive, creativity, planning, and priority to a business of which you were the chief executive officer as you currently apply to your marriage and family, which of the following terms would most appropriately describe the outcome of your business venture?

--Miserable failure

--Still alive but doing poorly

--Maintaining status quo

--Doing well but have a long way to go

--Growing, successful company

4. What positive effect has your spiritual growth had on the climate of your home?
 

5. Are you willing to take the initiative in praying with and for your wife?

Lover

The second role of a husband is that he is to love his wife.

1. Are there any conditions listed in Ephesians 5:25-29 which free a man from the responsibility to love his wife sacrificially?

 

2. Paul tells husbands to love their wives in two ways. What are they?

a.

b.

3. After careful thought, fill in the chart below with some practical ways you can love your wife.

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4. Now take time out for an interview with your wife. Carefully jot down in the space below her responses to the following questions (you may wish to write her answers on a separate sheet of paper):

a. What are your needs (e.g., emotional, intellectual, physical, spiritual, etc.)?

b. How would you prioritize these needs?

c. What practical suggestions do you have for me so that I can help meet these needs?

5. What do you think Peter means when he says, "live with your wives in an understanding way" (1 Pet. 3:7)?

6. You can measure your “U.Q.” (understanding quotient) by checking the statements that are true for you:

____ I listen carefully and attentively when my wife describes the activities of her day and the various difficulties she encounters.

____ Even when I believe my wife is wrong, I am compassionate toward her and considerate of why she feels the way she does.

____ I make a habit of trying to overlook the surface words and actions of my wife when she expresses anger or hurt and patiently try to discover the real cause.

____ I am a student of my wife and pay close attention to her feelings, likes, dislikes, attitudes, etc.

Point to Ponder: "I used to pray, 'God, change my wife.' Then I realized I was praying the wrong prayer, and began to pray, 'God, change my wife's husband.'"