1) Almost all the problems that surround conflict resolution can be solved by Christians learning to act more like Christians.
A) Gal. 2:20 – “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who live sin me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
1) Die to myself.
2) Become more like Christ.
B) As I write these notes, I have a file with 16 pages of information about conflict resolution. What are the stages of conflict? The Gottman method. How do we understand the geometry of a fight? Resolution through the POJA and conference table methods. At the end of the day, our creator has already outlined the core issues and effective methods for avoiding and handling conflict.
C) These notes better reflect my own experiences. How we speak to each other are reflections of what is inside our hearts. These principles go farther towards addressing the core issue underlying conversation.
2) Five unconditional responsibilities of husbands.
Discuss
· How does your conversation and conflict look (differently) when we do these things?
· Wives can make these easier or harder. She can make a husband more or less willing to do these.
There can be no selfishness in the first three:
A) Eph. 5:25 – “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”
1) cf. 5:2
2) Self-sacrificial love, and selfless decision-making, use of my time, resources, etc. Even if you don’t want to or it’s hard.
B) Eph. 5:26-27 – To seek my wife’s highest good even ahead of myself at my own cost. You’re going to be tired pouring yourself out for another.
C) Eph. 5:28-30 – This is basically the second command (Matt. 22:39) and the golden rule (Matt. 7:12) applied to marriage. The idea is to love your wife with the same level of care that you give to your own self.
D) Col. 3:19 – “Husband, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.”
E) 1 Pet. 3:7 – “Husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel…”
F) NOTES
1) I recommend that husbands read Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. In short, the premise of the book is that all responsibility for success or failure rests with the leader. Husbands can learn a lot about what good leadership looks like from the principles in this book.
3) Five unconditional responsibilities of wives.
A) Gen. 2:18 – “It is not good that the man should be alone”
1) cf. Gen. 1. Everything was good / very good (7 times).
2) “The skies without the luminaries and birds are incomplete. The seas without the fish are incomplete. Without mankind and land animals the earth is incomplete. As a matter of fact, every phenomenon in Gen. 1-2, God excepted, is in need of something else to complete it and to enable it to function.”[1]
3) Don’t be the meme of the man sitting in his driveway for 30 minutes before he goes in the house. Instead create a space where a man says, “I want to be home.”
B) “I will make him a helper fit for him”
1) “Helper”
(a) This word is used 16 times in the Old Testament, and 12 of those refer to God as man’s helper. It obviously does not imply “less than.”
(b) NET Notes – “In the Bible God is frequently described as the ‘helper,’ the one who does for us what we cannot do for ourselves, the one who meets our needs. In this context the word seems to express the idea of an ‘indispensable companion.’”
(c) She is the one I don’t want to do anything without.
2) Gen. 2:21-22
(a) Rib = side. God took a chunk out of me, and my wife fills it back in.
(b) “It suggests that what God creates for Adam will correspond to him…The creation of this helper will form one-half of a polarity, and will be to man as the south pole is to the north pole.”[2]
3) POINT
(a) God made the woman…
(i) To solve the problem of the man’s aloneness.
(ii) To be an indispensable companion.
(iii) To complement and complete him.
(b) If a wife makes her husband…
(i) Wish he was alone,
(ii) Feel like everything is harder with her,
(iii) Feel like he has a thorn in his side instead of like she fills in what is missing in his side,
(iv) Then something is not the way it should be.
C) “Submit to your husband”
1) Eph. 5:22-24; Col. 3:18; 1 Pet. 3:1-2
2) This is not a result of the fall. It was God’s intent from the beginning.
3) This is not a conditional statement depending on his worthiness.
4) It’s a good idea to marry a man that you will be able to submit to without regret.
D) Eph. 5:33 – “…and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”
1) One way to do this is how to talk about him to others.
E) Wives are warned not to be contentious, quarrelsome, or nagging (Prov. 19:13; 21:9, 19; 27:15-16).
[1] Hamilton, Genesis. 182.
[2] Hamilton, 182.