The Word says that husbands are to honor their wives, treating them with care and kindness and tenderness. It also says for wives to honor their own husbands by submitting to them. That does not mean to be under their thumb and to follow their orders. That is not being submissive; that is being dominated. Wives are supposed to submit to their husbands' honoring of them.
Then together husbands and wives are to submit to God by honoring Him. First Peter 3:7 says that husbands should dwell with their wives "according to knowledge." This knowledge is knowledge of God's Word. Husbands and wives are to dwell with each other in honor as God has explained it in His Word, not according to some religious tradition.
For too long, women have been relegated to second-class citizenship in the Kingdom of God simply because proud, foolish men have not understood what the New Testament really teaches about honor. In their ignorance and arrogance, such men have built dishonorable religious systems that bind up the handmaidens of the Lord.
Some of these men are in for a big surprise. The husband will find himself carrying around his wife's Bible for her while she preaches the gospel and wins souls by the millions. Hopefully, many of us men in the Church will begin to realize that our wives are just as much God's children as we are. We will start treating them with the honor God prescribes in His Word.
The Bible teaches that wives are to be submissive to their husbands, and that husbands are to treat their wives with honor as if they were weaker vessels. He says for men to honor them as if they were, treating them with tenderness and love.
Men and women are each superior to the other in certain ways. God made them that way. Both are made in His image. God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them (Gen. 1:27).
That means God is both male and female. Every word in the Hebrew language has either male or female gender - except one! Jehovah. Jehovah is the only word that has both male and female gender; so God is as much female as He is male.
When God made Adam, Adam was both male and female. God separated the female part from Adam and deposited it in Eve. Then He brought them back together to honor one another.
Where a man is weak, the woman is strong. Where the woman is weak, the man is strong. United, the two of them should have no weaknesses. They should honor and reverence one another as heirs together of the grace of life.
Honor One Another
"Be kindly affectioned one to another...in honour preferring one another" (Rom. 12:10).
As husbands and wives, we must honor one another in the Lord. I'm still learning, but I'm reaching to learn much more from God about how to treat my wife. I am to treat her as I would a fine priceless treasure - which she is.
We husbands must start treating our wives right and in honor as God commanded. The honor of God, His covenant with us, will change not only our attitude toward our wives, but also their attitude toward us.
When we live in honor, it brings the Father on the scene. Some of us husbands have been treating our wives like women; instead, we are to treat them as children of God.
The believing husband is to honor his wife as an heir with him of God's grace. The woman with whom he shares a marriage covenant is not just his wife. She is his covenant sister in the Lord. She is the daughter of God Almighty!
This woman is an heir of God's grace and a joint-heir with Jesus Christ. She does not deserve to be mistreated or abused. She does not deserve to be dominated. She does not deserve to be put in bondage. She deserves honor because she belongs to God just as her husband does.
Honor the covenant Almighty God has offered you. Honor it, and He will honor you - with mercy, love, grace, career satisfaction, marital happiness and prosperity.
Eagle Mountain International Church, Inc.
aka: Kenneth Copeland Ministries