A Godly Wife

Dear Mable,

You asked what a godly wife looks like, so here goes.

First, in order to talk about a godly wife, we need to talk about what godly means. Of course, a wife is someone who is married to a husband. That part is easy. But godly, now there’s the rub. What does godly mean?

How We Got Where We Are

Godly begins with God, of course, and our connection to God. The Bible tells us that God created the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:1) which I take to me shorthand for, God created everything. What everything is is fleshed out in the next few chapters to include, heavens, stars, land, seas, rivers, plants, animals, and mankind.

At first, mankind consisted of one man, Adam, and then one woman, Eve. Adam and Eve were brought together in marriage and through marriage and as part of marriage made “one flesh” (Gen 2:24). They were married before the Fall and this lets us know that marriage is part of what is good about humanity. The Bible tells us that Adam and Eve were naked and felt no shame.

In that pristine context, Adam and Eve loved one another and walked in perfect fellowship with God. Part of that fellowship meant that God was God and they weren’t. They were his creation. Adam was created out of the dust of the earth and Eve was created out of Adam (Gen 2:7; 21-22). This creation order set the stage for how their roles in life were to work themselves out. Adam was created to rule and care for the Garden, and Eve was created to help him (Gen 2:18). Again, all this was part of how they walked in perfect fellowship with God. They lived with him, talked to him, worshipped him, praised him, gave him glory and when he wanted something, they joyfully obeyed him.

Part of what he told them had to do with what they could eat and not eat. God said, “Y’all can eat anything you want, but please don’t eat the fruit from that tree. That is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat from it, you will surely die” (Gen 2:16-17). So, one day, Eve was out shopping for dinner, when she came upon the tree to be avoided. Satan, prowling around looking for someone to devour (1 Pet 5:8), came to her and convinced her that eating from that tree would be a good thing. He said, “surely God wouldn’t want you to deny yourself. Surely God wants the best for you. Just act on your feelings. Feelings are never wrong. Do you want to know things? This tree will fulfill all your dreams and fantasies.” Eve thought about this for a few minutes and thought, “you know, it isn’t right for anyone to tell me what to do, I’m my own woman, I can make up my own mind. Besides, the snake is right, God just made me, he certainly wouldn’t just up and kill me for eating a small apple.” And she ate (Gen 3:6).

Then Adam, sitting down to dinner, noticed a new bit of food at the table, thought it looked rather tasty, asked about where Eve got it and what it was. Eve said, “I was walking along, minding my own business, when this really beautiful hunk of fruit fell into my basket, right out of the sky, it wasn’t my fault. It turns out that it came from that tree God said not to eat from. But look! It’s beautiful. I ate some and I’m okay. I didn’t die. Have some, it tastes as good as it looks.” So, Adam agreed with her and ate as well.

From there everything went downhill for Adam and Eve and for all humanity. You can read about the immediate consequences and curses in Genesis 3 and 4.

The Bible calls what Adam and Eve did, sin. Disobeying God by not doing what said to do or doing what he said not to do is sin. And while Adam and Eve did not die in the physical sense when they ate the fruit they did die in the way the Bible talks about death. Death means the relationship with God is destroyed. Our physical death is only a picture and result of what real death is. Real death is losing fellowship with God. We can see this in the section in Genesis 3 where God tells Adam and Eve the consequences of their sin. They are booted out of the Garden, they will always have to toil for their sustenance, they will be at war with everyone, life will be hard in every way, and they will no longer have fellowship with God.

Throughout this narrative, there are little hints that what God is telling Adam and Eve is going to extend to all of their progeny, not just their lives (Gen 3:20). This is a human problem, not just an individual problem. The New Testament says that because of Adam’s sin, as our head, we all are guilty of sin (Rom 5:14). It tells us that we were in him when he sinned and thus we sinned (1 Cor 15:22). It says that even though we were not alive when he sinned, we are sinners because he was a sinner (Rom 5:22). And this connection is not primarily generational, it is covenantal (1 Cor 15:22). This is important because in the Bible also tells us that there will be a solution to our problem of lack of fellowship with God.

Let me remind you again: the primary human problem is lack of fellowship with God. The reason for the problem is our sin. Sin isn’t the primary problem. It is the reason for the problem. So, the solution to the problem is how do we restore fellowship? The answer is, we need to do something with the sin so that fellowship can be restored.

Again, let me remind us of the sin problem: Adam sinned, so we all sinned (Rom 5 12-14). It is a covenantal relationship and problem, not primarily a generational or genetic problem. You’ll see why it is important to maintain that distinction in a minute. So, we are out of fellowship with God because we are all sinners.

Again, we can say we sin in two different ways: Sin means not relating to God as God (Awe, faith, trust, praise, worship, obedience, etc.). It also means thinking of and treating ourselves as God (me first, me biggest, my desires, my needs, my rights, my meaning, my comfort, etc.). These are both happening at the same time in a sinful person.

So, that’s the situation and the problem. We are out of fellowship with God because we think we are God and he isn’t, and we are living that way.

What Being Here Looks Like

Someone said, “Life is hard.” James said, “Consider it all joy, when you encounter various trials.” When you encounter various trials. Life is full of trials. The Bible is full of trials. You know from experience that life is full of trials. Life is hard. The Bible knows that, explains that, and tells us what to do about that.

The person who is in sin, out of fellowship, lives in a way that increases their trials. They trouble their troubles, they suffer in their suffering. This is because they often create their own trials. For example, Galatians says the works of the flesh are “Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like” (5:19–21). What the text means by the flesh is one of the ways the Bible contrasts those who are in fellowship with God from those who are still in their sins—out of fellowship with God. Consequently, a person who is not in fellowship with God will have trouble with all these things and more. In the sermon on the mount, Jesus took a few of these and showed that these thoughts and behaviors were the outcome of sinfulness (Mt 5:21-48). And so, if a person is not walking with God and is instead doing these kinds of things, you can see how, if life is hard all by itself, committing adultery, for example, would make things even worse. They add trouble to their trouble.

The thing to notice is that most people don’t jump right into most of these things. The list in Galatians is, for the most part, the end of a long line of smaller sins that have grown over time. The Bible also tells us that sin is pleasurable for a season (Heb 11:25). This means that at the moment we’re all like Eve when she was chatting with Satan (what could be wrong with that? We’re just talking. There’s no law against talking.) But whereas temptation entices our desires (Jas 1:14), and we can see that it will be a pleasant respite from the trouble we’re living in, the end is death (Rom 6:21). Sin is pleasurable for a season, but long term it is ugly and keeps us out of fellowship with God—dead.

The point here is that being out of fellowship with God starts out looking easy, cool and “with it,” but soon becomes a curse and the cause of death. And usually, those caught up in it don’t even know they are caught until way too late to do anything about it – unless God intervenes.

The Way Back

The whole Bible is about how to repair the ruins that caused our loss of fellowship with God. Early on, God taught that there would eventually be blessing for all the nations of the earth (Gen 12:1-3). Later, this was shown to come through the death of a surrogate (Ex 29:36). In the beginning the death of a bull, but not just any bull, it had to be a perfect bull, without blemish (Lev 4:3). God created a whole culture focused on and devoted to restoring fellowship with his people. But there was always the sense, lurking in the background, that this system was never meant only for the Jewish nation, but for all mankind. Also, that the blood of bulls and goats was only temporary (Heb 10:4) and that there needed to be something permanent to restore fellowship between God and his people (Heb 9:14).

The reason the bulls were temporary was because they couldn’t fully or completely represent man to God in their deaths. What needed to happen to restore fellowship was for man to die for his own sin. We haven’t said this before, only alluding to it, but disobedience, sin, is rebellion against God. When we sin, we are thumbing our noses at the creator of the universe and thus deserve his wrath. So, whatever or whoever died for us, in order to be truly effective, needed to be a human. But he needed to be a perfect human. If he weren’t, he would be dying for his own sins, not for the rest of us.

But, no one is perfect. The Bible tells us that God, because he loves us and created us for fellowship with him, sent his only begotten son to die in our place (John 3:16). Jesus was perfect and didn’t deserve to die, but he died as a sacrifice so that we could have fellowship with God and live with him for eternity (Rom 9:6). The Bible says,

For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time (1 Cor 15:3–8)

What Jesus’ death did was to represent us before God. The Bible says that his death satisfied God’s anger (1 Jn 2:2), it took our punishment (Rom 3:21-26), it killed the power of sin (1 Cor 15:56-57), it cleansed us from the ugliness of our sin (1 Jn 1:9), it paved the way for our forgiveness (Heb 9:22), and it made the restoration of fellowship possible (1 Cor 1:9). In short, Jesus saved us from our death (1 Jn 2:25).

How do we know any of this is true? Because God didn’t leave Jesus dead. He raised him from the dead, proving that all this was true (1 Cor 15:3-8).

Earlier I mentioned that we sinned in Adam and that this sinning wasn’t primarily a generational kind of thing, rather a covenantal kind of thing. And here’s one of the reasons this is important to know: The Bible tells us that in the same way that we died in Adam, we also were given new life in Christ Jesus (Rom 6:4). But we aren’t genetically related to Jesus, he had no children. But all over the place in the Bible people are connected to one another covenantally and what they do affects everyone in their covenantal sphere. So, Achan stole some booty and 36 people die as a result (Josh 7). David counted the people and thousands of people died (1 Chron 21). Also, Jesus dies for his people and blessing and the Spirit is poured out on all his people. It’s a covenantal thing, not a generational thing. It is a belonging kind of thing, not an individual person kind of thing.

Throughout the Bible, the people are connected to one another through covenantal union. The people of God is not an uncommon accolade for those who are in fellowship with God. While it is true that we come into the covenant one person at a time, through birth or rebirth, but all over the place in the Bible what we are coming into is a people, a family, a body, a church, and most importantly, a fellowship with the living God. We are individuals, but we not alone, we belong to one another.

How We Respond To The Good News About Jesus’ Sacrificial Death

The information that God has provided a way to reestablish fellowship with him through the death and resurrection of Jesus is called good new—or Gospel. It is the Gospel of God or of Jesus Christ. Jesus died to change sinners into saints. ‘Saints’ means holy one or set apart one. Christians are saints. And this is not about going to heaven when we die, though that is true. It is really about being God’s people, chosen, set apart, holy, saints. God changes people who were not in fellowship with God into people who walk with God. But how do we take advantage of this great gift?

The Bible is very clear that we can’t earn this gift (Eph 2:8-9). It is a gift after all and earning a gift doesn’t really make a lot of sense. So, we have the picture of God holding out his hand to us, having made provision for us to come to him, but what does “come to him” mean? And what does it look like? How do we come to God?

We need to remember what we’re being “saved” from. We are sinners, we think we are God and we think God is not worth relating to even if we wanted to. But suddenly it occurs to us that most of the problems we have in our lives are because we are in rebellion against God. This is not to say that we wouldn’t have troubles if we thought of God correctly, life is hard, as we said before. But because we are in rebellion against God we are making our troubles even more troublesome. We need help.

Therefore, we are being saved from our belief that we are God and he is not. We are saved to the belief that he is God and we are not. Everyone in the Bible who makes this realization falls on their face before and God and says things like, “Woe is me, I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips” (Isa 6:5). Unclean is another way of saying sinful.

Sometimes our coming is like those who met Jesus in the Gospels. Some come in the night. Some come and weep on his feet and wipe their tears with their hair. Some climb trees to see him. Some carry his cross. However, people come to Jesus, they always come in humility and reverence, fear and awe. And that’s how, when we understand who he is and what he’s done, come to Christ. Coming face to face with God is a humbling experience and if we don’t have that feeling, we probably haven’t met him.

Our attitude will be something like:

Praise the Lord!

Praise God in His sanctuary;

Praise Him in His mighty firmament!

Praise Him for His mighty acts;

Praise Him according to His excellent greatness!

Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet;

Praise Him with the lute and harp!

Praise Him with the timbrel and dance;

Praise Him with stringed instruments and flutes!

Praise Him with loud cymbals;

Praise Him with clashing cymbals!

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord! (Ps 150:1–6)

And:

How can a young man cleanse his way?

By taking heed according to Your word.

With my whole heart I have sought You;

Oh, let me not wander from Your commandments!

Your word I have hidden in my heart,

That I might not sin against You.

Blessed are You, O Lord!

Teach me Your statutes.

With my lips I have declared

All the judgments of Your mouth.

I have rejoiced in the way of Your testimonies,

As much as in all riches.

I will meditate on Your precepts,

And contemplate Your ways.

I will delight myself in Your statutes;

I will not forget Your word. (Ps 119:9–16)

Remember it’s all about joyful and glorious fellowship. Coming to God through Christ’s death and resurrection is about coming to him for fellowship. And fellowship with God, with the risen Christ, means coming and fellowshipping with God. This means that we come knowing that while he loves us, cares for us, died for us, and lives for and in us, he is still God and Lord and he gets to tell us what to do.

So, when Jesus says things like, if you want to be my disciple, you’ve got to take up your cross and follow me (Lk 14:26), he means, if you want to walk with me and learn from me (Mt 11:29), and become like me (Lk 6:40), you’ve got to lay down your life, assume you are dead (not God) and imitate me (Mt 19:21).

Some people think that disciples are some kind of super Christian, but a disciple of Jesus is simply a follower or student of Jesus. And in the Bible, it says that the disciples of Jesus were called Christians (Acts 11:26). So, rather than a disciple being a subset of Christian, it is the other way around. A Christian is a subset of disciple or rather a Christian is a disciple. If a person isn’t a disciple, he isn’t a Christian. Thus, if a person hasn’t laid down his life and is following Jesus he isn’t a disciple and he isn’t a Christian and he doesn’t have fellowship with God.

In summary then, the way we appropriate or take advantage of this great gift of God is to believe the Gospel, put your faith in God, trust him for every aspect of your life, die to yourself, reckon yourself dead to your own desires, submit to God, follow after Jesus, and thank him for his great gift.

What Happens Next

When we lay down our lives, give ourselves, lock stock and barrel, to Jesus, he fills us with his Spirit and begins the work of changing us into his likeness (2 Cor 3:18). In addition, his first action inside us is to give us the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal 5:22). This fruit grows as we mature in our relationship with God. So, we don’t have all the joy, for example, that we will have, but as we spend time with God, his presence in our life will transform us more and more so that over time, we will look, act, and think more and more like Jesus. In fact, as we walk with God, we will take on the characteristics of Christ such that we will accurately represent him to others. This is how we shine the light of Christ on others (Mt 5:14), how we season the earth as salt (Mt 5:13), and act as ambassadors of Christ to those around us.

As part of this process, as I mentioned, we are in fellowship with God. This means that we meet with him in his word, talk to him, work diligently to please him (2 Cor 5:9), and give him glory (1 Cor 10:31).

I know it has taken a long time to get here, but this is what we mean by godly. A godly Christian woman is a woman who understands what God has done for her in the Gospel, who has given herself over to God’s lordship and has repudiated and abandoned her own goodness, and who is walking in fellowship with God through Jesus Christ.

A Godly Wife

We finally come to describing or defining what a godly wife is. It goes like this: First, a woman comes to God through and in gratitude for the death burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, laying down her life in submission to him. This makes her a godly woman.

Then, one day, when she is spending time with God, she says something like, “Lord, I love you with all my heart, soul, and strength (Mt 22:37), how can I better serve you?” God says something like, “I know you, my sweet daughter, and here’s what I have for you: In the same way that you submit to me as God, I want you to submit to and respect your husband as if he were me (Eph 5:22-24; 1 Pet 3:1-6).”

If everything I’ve said about her is correct, down to her bones, she will say, “Very good! I’ll start right away. Thank you very much.” And off she would go to read those passages that tell her how to treat her husband.

In Ephesians it says,

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything (Eph 5:22–24)

Later it says, “…let the wife see that she respects her husband” (Eph 5:33).

Then, in 1 Peter 3, it says,

Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives, when they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear. Do not let your adornment be merely outward—arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel—rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God. For in this manner, in former times, the holy women who trusted in God also adorned themselves, being submissive to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid with any terror (1 Pet 3:1–6).

As she reads these passages she will notice that it tells her to submit in a particular way, “as to the Lord.” How does she submit to the Lord? Well, Jesus is Lord of all things and she submits to him in a total way. In 1 Peter it tells her to imitate Sarah who bowed down and called Abraham lord. In other words, treat your husband like he is God. Or, as earlier in that text, submit without a word. This means that she shouldn’t correct him, fix him, make him do what she wants him to do, even if in her opinion it is godlier.

One of the biggest things this means for a godly woman is that instead of looking for things wrong with her husband, and there will be plenty, she will focus on how she is serving God by serving and respecting her husband.

This, in a nutshell, is what a godly wife looks like. There are plenty of books on the subject. The Wilson girls, Barbara Hughes, Joni Tada, and Martha Peace are examples of women who have written good books for women who want to be godly wives.

Does this say anything about her husband? No. Does it assume that her husband will be a perfect lord like God is? No. In fact, the Bible assumes and even addresses the fact that he isn’t a man who is walking with God (1 Pet 3:1). A godly wife will look the same with regard to obeying God if her husband is a godly man or if he is an ungodly man.

Questions

But what if the woman says, “Um, you know Lord, that my husband is an ungodly man? How can I submit to him when he’s so bad?” God might say, “What would you have done if I had said, “Go eat lots of ice cream”? You would have jumped up and down with joy as you ran off to eat, wouldn’t you? You call me Lord, and that is right, I am Lord. But then you don’t want to do what I told you to do. Am I Lord, or are you Lord? (Lk 6:46) Whether your husband is a fathead or not does not determine whether you will serve the Lord or not. Your husband’s sinfulness does not give you an excuse to sin yourself.

Most of the commands of God are general in nature. They apply to everyone all the time. Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength (Mt 22:37) is a command that we all have to obey. Love your neighbor as yourself (Mt 22:39) is the same. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you (Mt 5:44) is for everyone who has enemies. Some are given to specific groups of people: husbands—”love your wife, live with your wife in an understanding way” (1 Pet 3:7); wives—”Submit to your husband” (Eph 5:22-25; 1 Pet 3:1-6), “respect your husband” (Eph 5:33; 1 Pet 3:1-6); children—Obey your parents in the Lord (Col 3:20); Slave owners– And you, masters, do the same things to them, giving up threatening, knowing that your own Master also is in heaven, and there is no partiality with Him (Eph 6:9); slaves– Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh (1 Pet 2:18); etc.

But still, what if your husband is a schmo? The commands to wives assume her husband is a schmo. In 1 Peter 3, it specifically says the husband may not be obeying the Word. But his wife’s behavior and demeanor will win him to her and to the Word.

All of us are responsible to do what we know to do, not to do what others are supposed to do. Wives can’t change their husbands. They can only obey God, walk with God, fellowship with God. Life is hard. Life is messy. Persecution happens (read Hebrews 11). But in all this God tells his godly saints to persevere by walking with God in the midst of suffering, even to rejoice (Jas 1:2ff) and to boast in the suffering (2 Cor 12:9).

Am I saying that a wife can’t or shouldn’t talk to her husband about his sinfulness? No. I think she should talk to him. But she needs to be obedient to God throughout the discussion. According to Galatians 6:1, (“Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted.”) she needs to be godly. As this whole paper has said, godly means not living in sin. So, if she has confessed all her sin and is in fellowship with God, she may approach her husband to gently restore him. Here restoration is the goal, not winning, or fixing, or being right, or having your needs met, or being your own woman.

What about Matthew 18:15? Doesn’t that tell folks to go fix people? Well, let’s see what it actually says, “Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother.” What’s the goal? Gaining your brother. With what demeanor do you go to him and “tell him his fault”? It doesn’t say. But where it does talk about demeanor, like Galatians 6:1 it says, go as a godly person, go gently, go trying to restore the brother. when a wife goes to her husband who has sinned against her according to Matthew 18:15 if her goal is to restore or gain him, she will go gently and as a godly woman. In addition, wives should go in either case with the attitude of submission and reverence. Going is fine and good. How you go is a different matter.

What about those verses in Ephesians that say things like “speak truth” (4:15), or “expose the deeds of darkness” (5:11)? Well, the first one is pretty easy, given what we’ve been saying. The rest of that verse is to speak the truth in love. So, when a wife speaks to her husband is should be as a godly woman, being gentle, submissive, respectful, and in love. The second is similar, the whole verse says, “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.” If your husband is asking you to sin with him for perhaps for him, don’t do it. And, with all the attitudes given above, with wisdom, depending on what is going on, you might tell the police, your church leaders, or someone else who can do something about whatever sin he is involved in. But again, a godly wife stays a godly wife throughout.

Many women point to Abigail (1 Sam 25:3-43) as an example of a strong woman who stood up for herself against her husband. I agree that Abigail is a good example of a godly wife but notice some things: first, she didn’t stand up to her husband. She didn’t rebuke him, or “fix” him. She didn’t go to him and tell him where he was a failure. Second, when she interceded for her husband to her lord, David, she asked David to put the punishment for the sin on her (v. 25). I see a sacrifice kind of thing going on here. She was standing in the gap for her people and her husband. Third, while she did acknowledge that her husband was a Nabal (disgraceful folly), she did not go on and on about it. She didn’t need to, but the point is that even though he was a fathead, everyone knew it and Abigail was still respectful. Finally, even after her meeting with David went well and Abigail finally did talk with her husband, she waited until he was sober, there was nothing going on, and she simply told him what had happened (v. 36-38). And that’s what I’m saying a godly woman will do toward her ungodly husband.

What about all those passages in the Bible that talk about rebuking folks who are in sin? I don’t know which ones, in particular, you are referring to, but most of them are in contexts that cannot apply to wives’ treatment of their husbands. The commands and passages of scripture that are uncertain as to their application, should certainly be applied in the context of those passages that are clear. I can imagine a time when a wife might be tempted to “give it to her husband with both barrels.” But given the way men are and how they take criticism from their wives, the wife who takes it on herself to come after her husband in a disrespectful way like this should have her bags packed and an escape plan in place when she does it.

When a man is strongly confronted by his wife for his sin, he reacts in one or more of the following ways. He might explode back at her. He might simply leave (go to the garage, downstairs, upstairs, out with the boys, or actually leave). He might cow down and submit to her. But none of these is a godly response and the wife whose husband does any of these is not going to be a happy wife in the long run.

There is another way he might respond. Because God is gracious, and not because his wife did anything right or good, the husband so confronted, might realize that while she didn’t approach him in a godly way, she was right about him. And he might repent, ask God and his wife to forgive him and get things right between God and his wife. And then she will need to confess her sin of not respecting him and they can go off together in the joy of the lord.

This possible good outcome is not a warrant for a woman to sin in the hopes of getting what she wants. Getting what she wants is the problem.