My Wife Is More Spiritual — How Do I Lead Her?

00:00:00.000 | Well, if a wife is more spiritually mature than her husband, how does her husband lead

00:00:10.960 | her spiritually?

00:00:11.960 | It's not an uncommon situation.

00:00:14.280 | It's not an uncommon question in the inbox, and it's up next in an email from a young

00:00:18.160 | man.

00:00:19.160 | "Pastor John, hello.

00:00:20.160 | How do I lead my wife spiritually when she is more spiritually mature than I am?

00:00:23.520 | I became a true follower of Christ years after my wife, and her spiritual maturity is far

00:00:28.800 | greater than mine.

00:00:30.160 | For most of my marriage, I have been a poor leader of my family, especially in spiritual

00:00:33.920 | matters.

00:00:34.920 | But by the grace of God, I am growing in my faith, and I am slowly starting to take the

00:00:39.520 | reins of leadership in my family.

00:00:42.460 | My wife's discernment, desire, and dependence on the Lord are incredible examples, and I

00:00:47.240 | often ask for advice and discernment in my search and reading through Scripture.

00:00:53.160 | How, Pastor John, can I lead her better?"

00:00:56.360 | Let's start with the foundations.

00:00:58.360 | I'm going to get to very specific responses to his question, how to lead a woman who's

00:01:03.760 | ahead of you like this.

00:01:05.280 | But I just think way more important than those particular suggestions are getting foundations

00:01:11.280 | clear.

00:01:12.360 | So let's do that for a few minutes.

00:01:14.440 | Ephesians 5, 23 to 25.

00:01:18.200 | The husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body,

00:01:26.600 | and is himself its Savior.

00:01:28.640 | Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their

00:01:35.560 | husbands.

00:01:36.560 | Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

00:01:43.160 | Now that's all very, very radical in every culture on planet earth.

00:01:50.400 | It is a restoration of what God established in the Garden of Eden and a transformation

00:01:58.080 | of the mess that the relationship became after the fall.

00:02:04.160 | So it recaptures what God originally designed, and it redeems what was ruined in that design

00:02:14.880 | by sin.

00:02:15.880 | That's the point of Ephesians 5.

00:02:18.840 | It restores headship or leadership, and it transforms that leadership by modeling it

00:02:27.920 | on the self-giving love of Christ for his church.

00:02:32.300 | When Paul was finished in Ephesians 5 describing the relationship of husband and wife in this

00:02:39.480 | recovered and renewed dynamic, he said in verse 32, "This mystery is profound, and I

00:02:50.360 | am saying it refers to Christ and the church."

00:02:57.480 | The mystery of marriage refers to Christ and the church.

00:03:00.520 | The reason he calls marriage a mystery is not that it can't be understood, but that

00:03:09.520 | it was kept secret for thousands of years and has now been most fully revealed in relation

00:03:18.280 | to Jesus and his church.

00:03:21.120 | In other words, the secret that human marriage is modeled on the coming relationship between

00:03:29.320 | the incarnate, crucified, risen Son of God and his blood-bought bride, the church, is

00:03:36.000 | mysterious.

00:03:37.000 | That's the meaning of the mystery or the secret.

00:03:40.120 | There were hints of it, the mystery, in the Old Testament because God called himself the

00:03:46.440 | husband of Israel.

00:03:49.160 | But this full-blown pattern of Christ and the church is a new revelation and very radical

00:04:00.200 | in every culture on the planet.

00:04:04.440 | The reason that calling marriage a mystery is relevant right here is because it tells

00:04:12.640 | us that when God created man as male and female, he already had in view Jesus Christ and his

00:04:24.520 | church as the model for Adam and Eve and all marriages to follow.

00:04:32.760 | This means that the wisdom of God created male and female in such a way, with such male

00:04:43.960 | and female natures, that in their most godly manifestations they would rejoice in and flourish

00:04:52.280 | in the living out of Christ-like headship and church-like submission.

00:04:58.160 | He made them that way.

00:05:00.520 | That's the mystery.

00:05:02.080 | It was the model from the beginning.

00:05:05.840 | The distinct calling of each of them would fit their created design.

00:05:13.240 | The calling would fit the design.

00:05:16.160 | They would be perfectly suited for this dynamic of leadership and submission.

00:05:22.600 | In other words, calling this relationship a mystery in Ephesians 5 assures us that God's

00:05:31.160 | design of male and female from the beginning included this glorious destiny of the man

00:05:40.960 | echoing Christ in his role as husband and the woman echoing the church in her role as

00:05:48.000 | wife.

00:05:49.000 | One of the reasons I'm stressing this is that I want you to have a clear sense of why you

00:05:58.120 | are called to lead your wife, even when she is superior to you in significant ways.

00:06:07.680 | What is your calling to lead rooted in?

00:06:11.840 | Because if you don't get that clear, you'll probably just bail on this and say, "Well,

00:06:16.280 | there's no point in trying to do this."

00:06:19.160 | I don't want you to say, "Well, the reason I am called to lead is because I am called

00:06:26.360 | to lead."

00:06:27.360 | There are a lot of people today who more or less take that position.

00:06:32.320 | Men should lead their families on the basis of the fact that men should lead their families.

00:06:36.760 | Or to put it another way, God says in the Bible that men should lead their families

00:06:42.800 | because men should lead their families.

00:06:45.360 | I want to discourage you from thinking that God flipped a coin in the Garden of Eden when

00:06:54.200 | he was deciding about leadership in the home.

00:06:59.080 | I want to encourage you not to think that God said, "Well, here we have two human

00:07:07.860 | beings that I have made, and there's nothing about them as I have created them that would

00:07:14.800 | make it fitting or especially beautiful for either one to always be the leader.

00:07:22.520 | I have not made them that way, and nothing about their male or female differences make

00:07:28.200 | it better or more fitting that one should be the leader."

00:07:34.880 | But I want somebody to be the leader.

00:07:37.800 | So let's flip a coin.

00:07:40.120 | Heads, Adam leads.

00:07:42.720 | Tails, Eve leads.

00:07:45.120 | Flip.

00:07:46.120 | Heads, there you go, settled for all of history, codified in a book.

00:07:52.240 | God said so.

00:07:53.240 | This is the way it's going to be because I say so.

00:07:56.480 | I flipped the coin.

00:07:57.480 | I don't want you to think that.

00:08:01.200 | I think that notion of why you should lead because God just flipped a coin or God said

00:08:08.120 | so dishonors, discredits the wisdom of God.

00:08:15.200 | I don't think God decides anything about flipping a coin, ever, for the simple reason that if

00:08:20.080 | he did, he controls which way the coin lands every time.

00:08:23.520 | So there's no point in flipping the coin.

00:08:26.480 | God never does anything whimsically or randomly, ever, because he's governed always by infinite

00:08:33.840 | wisdom.

00:08:34.840 | "Oh Lord, how manifold are your works in wisdom.

00:08:38.720 | You have made them all."

00:08:41.760 | That's what you do.

00:08:43.720 | His decisions always reflect the profound suitableness and beauty of what he decides,

00:08:51.480 | and that applies to the decision that husbands are called to be the leaders of their wives,

00:08:58.240 | and we're both fitted to these distinct callings.

00:09:04.200 | So here we are at your question, and you are pointing out that it doesn't necessarily look

00:09:13.240 | like you are especially fitted for leadership and she especially fitted for submission.

00:09:20.560 | You say that she is spiritually more mature than you are and that her discernment, desire,

00:09:28.720 | dependence on the Lord are wonderful examples for you.

00:09:33.420 | So how are you going to lead her?

00:09:37.160 | Well here's my answer.

00:09:38.880 | First, by being thankful and expressing thankfulness to her and to others that she is as mature

00:09:49.360 | and discerning and godly as she is, and by not being the least intimidated or resentful

00:09:59.920 | of it.

00:10:00.920 | That's your first job.

00:10:03.520 | Confident, Christ-exalting thankfulness that you have such a wife.

00:10:11.120 | Oh my, what a gift.

00:10:14.080 | Second, realize that what makes your leadership fitting and beautiful is not your superior

00:10:24.040 | knowledge or your superior wisdom or your superior insight or your superior language

00:10:31.720 | skills.

00:10:33.440 | She may be ahead of you in all of that, and yet the fitness of your leadership is still

00:10:42.400 | firmly in place.

00:10:45.600 | I'm not denying that knowledge and wisdom and the ability to speak are helpful in exercising

00:10:53.680 | leadership, but they're not the essence of it.

00:10:57.440 | No, no, no, no.

00:10:58.560 | They're not.

00:10:59.680 | Nor are they the essence of what a godly woman hopes for in her husband's leadership.

00:11:07.480 | The essence of this God-given call on your life as husband is a mature, loving sense

00:11:18.600 | that you bear a primary responsibility for the relationship.

00:11:23.040 | Let me say that again, because that's the heart of the matter.

00:11:26.160 | The essence of the fitness for your leadership is that you sense a call, because it's there

00:11:35.680 | from God for every man, a mature, loving sense that you bear a primary responsibility for

00:11:45.680 | this relationship, especially the flourishing of the spiritual life of the relationship.

00:11:52.080 | You should feel a uniquely masculine burden that the buck stops with you for making this

00:12:02.320 | relationship work.

00:12:05.360 | When anything is not working in this relationship, you feel the primary responsibility to get

00:12:14.040 | it fixed, even if she has the wisdom to fix it and you ask her to use it.

00:12:22.600 | God created men to bear this burden of mature, loving, Christ-like primary responsibility

00:12:33.800 | for the relationship.

00:12:35.680 | She has her responsibilities, but you take special initiative and bear primary responsibility

00:12:44.680 | before God that God's pattern be joyfully fulfilled.

00:12:50.040 | That's your calling, and it does not depend on being her superior.

00:12:58.120 | It depends on faith and courage and initiative and sacrifice.

00:13:05.120 | Amen.

00:13:06.120 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:13:07.120 | And thanks for listening to the podcast.

00:13:08.440 | If you want new episodes delivered to you, subscribe to Ask Pastor John in your favorite

00:13:12.760 | podcast app on Spotify or by subscribing to DG's YouTube channel.

00:13:17.240 | And to find other episodes in our archive, a lot of them about leadership in the home,

00:13:22.120 | or to submit a new question to us of your own, do all those things online at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:13:26.840 | Well, humans are movers.

00:13:31.600 | We move, literally.

00:13:32.760 | We can make new homes all over the world in different countries.

00:13:36.080 | We travel, we sightsee, and as soon as wooden ships could traverse oceans, we jumped continents.

00:13:43.080 | And then steam engine boats of iron came along, and then came commercial jets.

00:13:48.180 | Most of the world is open to us today.

00:13:50.320 | So what's the difference between the frenetic globetrotting of an unsatisfied soul and the

00:13:55.840 | movement of a globetrotting soul satisfied in Christ and moving on mission?

00:14:02.120 | We'll find out next time on Wednesday.

00:14:04.520 | I'm your host Tony Renke, and we'll see you then.

00:14:06.160 | [music]

00:14:07.160 | [music]

00:14:12.160 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

My Wife Is More Spiritual — How Do I Lead Her?

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