Honoring a Weaker Vessel

And, but the flip side to that is we ought to have, we ought to be served notice, which is we are gonna be held accountable for the way that our disobedience to God casts a stumbling block before another to cause them to not obey the Lord. And so we will bear that burden of casting a stumbling block before another. And so, it says in verse number seven, it says, likewise.

So, we have the wise part in verses one to six, and then likewise, the man’s part, the husband’s part in verse number seven. So there’s two, there’s mutual obligations when it comes to husbands and wives. And this is what you see, you see it in Ephesians, you see it in Colossians. The mutual obligations between the husband and wife. Now the obligations are different, although they do overlap, the obligations are distinct based upon the role of the husband and wife. But we know this, there are mutual obligations which if both are fulfilled properly, create a happier and a holier relationship, if they’re both fulfilled properly.

But, as we saw in verse number one, if both are not fulfilled properly, basically it begins to disintegrate from that point. And if I am not obedient to the Lord toward my wife, then that is gonna make it a lot more difficult for my wife to be obedient to the Lord and to treat me right, and it just goes down, it begins this death spiral. It begins this death spiral. That doesn’t mean that if I’m in that case that my wife is okay to just do her own thing or to disobey the Lord, but it creates a situation that strains her.

And the reverse would be true if the reverse were true. So, we have to keep these mutual obligations in mind. You know, isn’t it always just, know, those of you that are married or can imagine the way it is in a married relationship, you know, you know how it works. We say, if you do this, I’ll do that. Right? That that’s, even if we don’t say it outright, that’s the way we act, is it not?

He’s not doing his thing, so I’m not gonna, you know, he’s not loving me, so I’m not gonna respect him, not gonna honor him, or she’s not showing me respect, so I’m not gonna be considerate, I’m not gonna love her. Listen, this is where mutual obligation, every one of us will give an account of himself to God.

But when you see these mutual obligations in verses one to six and verse seven, it does bring to mind what are two competing extremes in marriage, that is in the practice of our marriage, and there are two competing extremes. Just as side note, what’s on either side of the road?

Ditches. Almost everything, just a practical advice, I don’t know that the scripture exactly says this, but this is just good old fashioned horse sense, which is anything that ends up on either end of an extreme is usually gonna be the wrong thing. It’s usually gonna be somewhere in the middle. If you wanna use a modern term, modern jargon, you need balance, you need balance. Well actually, you just need to avoid the extremes.

Here’s the two competing extremes when it comes to marriage that are touched on here. There in in one case, you have a husband who dominates his wife at the expense of honoring her. That’s one extreme. And then the other extreme, you have a wife who manipulates her husband to also dominate him, and that is done at the expense of biblical submission. And they both happen. They both, listen, the most Christian, the most modestly dressed, the most conservative, the most, you know, however you want to describe it, there are both of those things exist.

It might be easier for us to point out the man who, you know, barks at his wife and you know, who dominates his wife and you know, she walks around like a dog with a tail between its legs and that’s, you know, all of you know that you associate that more with a conservative, you know, more theologically conservative, practically conservative way of life, right? You all associate that.

But there are just as many of the other. It’s just this behind the scenes where mom, where wife is dominating her husband by means of manipulation. There is no actual submission, it just looks like there is. That’s a thing too, and I wouldn’t say there’s one more than the other. They’re probably equally divided. And both of them are unbiblical, and both of them are addressed in first Peter one, first Peter three one through seven.

This passage answers both extremes. Verses one through six answers the extreme of the wife manipulating her husband behind the scenes, and verse seven answers the extreme of the husband dominating his wife at the expense of her honor. And so, let’s look at verse number seven. The Bible says, likewise ye husbands dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life that your prayers be not hindered.

Now, as we take this apart, I wanna, I’m not gonna go in necessarily in the order of the verse because I wanna make sure we cover all the parts. But notice, the first I want you to see is the word the two words weaker vessel. Now a vessel, a vessel is like this. This is a vessel. A cup is a kind of vessel, a bowl, a tray, anything where you can put something, you know, vessels, a household vessel is something like that, alright? A vessel has use.

And the Bible says that the woman is the weaker vessel. Now, here’s the problem. We have been trained in our society, no, we, not we. Here’s the brainwashing and the conditioning of our society has trained men and women on this matter. It has trained women to recoil and express the claws when they see this word weaker vessel. And men have been trained to kind of run and hide over the fact that the woman is irate over being called a weaker vessel.

But the fact that the Lord says this tells us that He is actually making a statement about a woman’s constitution. Now, and a lot of people object to this, you know, obviously, mostly because of the feminist culture. I’ll touch on that in just a minute, but oftentimes women object to this and we always run to these exceptions, and we say, well hey, I mean there’s women that can bench press more than a man, and there’s a woman who can dunk, you know, and and I I, you know, I certainly can’t dunk. I put probably couldn’t dunk from this stage if I had to. And so there’s there’s women who dunk and there’s there’s probably a woman who could beat me in arm wrestling. But the truth is that first of all, those exceptions do not deny the rule. In fact, they prove the rule because they’re exceptions. But the second thing is we’re not even talking about physical strength anyway.

What’s primarily in view is the inner part. The part that’s not just physical, not just bone density and muscle mass. But we’re talking about a woman’s constitution, and it is a fact. It is a fact of nature. It is a fact of nature that a woman’s constitution is, the Bible says, weaker. It is more tender, more delicate than a man’s. It is less capable of enduring hardship and fatigue. And Joanna’s back there rolling her eyes inwardly, not really, because she’s about to have a baby.

Honestly, I wouldn’t volunteer for that, I honestly wouldn’t volunteer for that. But nevertheless, I’m joking of course, but you know what I’m saying, that’s why we send men to go on long, you know, deployments overseas where it’s hard and they don’t shower and eat enough or, you know, and all of those kinds of things. It it’s because it’s hard so we know this innately, it’s just a matter of whether we’re willing to yield to what is obviously a natural fact.

Women are more tender and more delicate, you know? And in fact, our feminist culture that has sought to equate women primarily physically with men has done them harm. You put a woman who weighs two fifty pounds into a wrestling match with a man who weighs two hundred fifty pounds, he is literally gonna pick her up over his head and throw her around. How is that helpful to her? That is harmful.

That is dishonorable. And I’ll I’ll I’ll show you why in just a minute. So, you see, the push to make them equal in all things is actually, it actually slaps back with actually in mockery Because the reality is that nature does not flex and doesn’t bend because of somebody’s ideology. Now I wanna say this though, The fact that the Bible describes a woman as a weaker vessel speaking of her constitution primarily inwardly, it is not a statement of inferiority.

That’s not what we’re talking about. And I’ll show you, I’ll give you an example in just a minute. It’s also not a statement of intelligence. That’s not what is in view at all. Let me give you an example. So, we already talked about this, right? This represents, this is a vessel that represents a man, okay? I have another vessel here that represents a woman.

Now both vessels that are up here are capable and suitable for carrying liquid, right? But they have different constitutions and they have different functions and they have different, if I can say, tolerances to stress. Can we put it like that? And see, these are, this is a biblical illustration. You know why it is? Because in in this verse seven, the Lord is not saying a woman is a cup. He’s using an example, an illustration, which which means this is the best way to understand what the Lord is saying.

So, again, we’re not talking about is is this inferior to this? Or is this inferior to that? Again, inferiority is not what we’re looking at. Is this less capable of holding liquid than this? Or this less capable than the other? That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about strength and weakness. So, if I were to take this, this vessel and drop it on the ground, exactly, it’s steel, it’s not going to break under that stress, under that hardship.

But if I were to do the same with this, then obviously you would know what would happen. It just is not made for the purpose of enduring the same stress. So again, it’s not a question of inferiority, it’s not a question of intelligence, it’s a question of function, and it’s a question of nature, right? This is just a fact. And the sooner that we, and by we I’m referring primarily to the ladies, the sooner that the ladies yield to what the Lord is saying, the better it is, the better it is.

Now, though we see in verse number seven, the wife is referred to as the weaker vessel, speaking of her constitution, though that is stated, and that’s a fact of scripture, that is not, however, to be taken as a statement of inferiority for the man to dominate his wife.

Now, Just because this vessel is weaker, if you will, I would use the term more delicate, if you compare it to this you would say it’s weaker. On its own you would say it’s more delicate. But just because it’s more delicate doesn’t mean you mistreat it. You treat it differently. Right? This is the example God gave us. Okay? I’m gonna use this one differently. Here, here it is, here it is, here it is. You ready?

There. See? I’m using it differently. With this one, I’m gonna hold it nice and tight. Now, here’s the problem. The danger is that some men read weaker vessel and they use that as an excuse to dominate their wife who is weaker.

You know what that is? That is wicked. That is nothing short short of wicked. Actually in this verse it is the opposite that is being argued. Not she is weaker so that you can dominate, but she is weaker so therefore you should treat her better. More tenderly, more considerately, and more delicately due to that fact of nature. So, and this also is, this is also a warning to ladies, to the wives, which is this.

That constant push we have in our society toward the feminist push to always want to you know, usurp you know, the strength and all that kind of thing of the woman’s constitution, you gotta remember that if you do that, you do that to your own detriment. Because the reason God tells men to dwell with their wives according to knowledge, with cognizant of their weakness is because of their weakness. The reason he tells us to be delicate and considerate with our wives is because of that. So you can’t say, well I want him to treat me like a lady on the one hand, and then constantly assert yourself as you know, well I’m just good as man, or what, you know, whatever. We’re not even talking about that, but you know what I’m saying.

The reason why men should treat their wives delicately is because they are the weaker vessel, that’s the whole point. And so it says, dwell with them according to knowledge, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel.

You see, healthy woman, I say healthy emotionally and mentally and spiritually, every healthy woman wants to be treated like this. And if a woman does, listen, just hear me out, if a woman does not want to be treated as she were this, instead like this, something’s not right.

Women who are healthy want to be treated like this. And it is the man’s duty to dwell with her with the knowledge of her constitution so that he is considerate and so that he is caring and he is delicate with her. And he is considerate of her not because she is stupid or inferior, but because she is tender and delicate. In many ways, I’m not, listen, I’m not trying to equate everything here. I’m not pulling punches here. I know some people, know, some, I guess there’s some preachers who you know, they don’t wanna upset the women in the congregation or whatever and they tiptoe around. I’m tiptoeing around it.

But the truth is there are things about this that are better than this. Right? But strength is not one of them, which is what we’re talking about. Right? So we expect to treat this one more delicately than the other. It has a different purpose. And husbands, it is our job to make sure that we treat our wives like this should be treated.

She should be treated with tenderness. Her limitations, weaknesses are to be regarded. And you think about a marathon runner. You know, you have two guys who are running a marathon, maybe they’re on the same team, know, like they run-in teams and marathons, and you know, if he’s running and the faster runner might slow down to the pace of his partner, so that they arrive at the finish line together. In fact, in the Marine Corps, that’s exactly what they do and they have these things called motivational runs.

Motivational runs are not for exercise, really. They’re for show. Motivational runs are for show. In other words, at the end of recruit training, at other times, you go on a motivational run and the whole idea of that is everybody dresses the right way and it’s slow and everybody runs in formation and they call the cadence And why do they do that? What it means is all of the people with long legs, which I never was, they slow their pace down so that everybody in the back, people like me, can keep up with the same pace.

So that everybody crosses the finish line together. Note what word did I say? Together. Now what does that mean? That means the faster one has to be considerate of the pace of the slower one. Because we know ladies are a little bit slow, just kidding.

But see that’s the idea. The point is to be considerate of the weaker so that we can cross the finish line together. I’ll just say this, men that dominate instead of responding to this fact of nature, men who use that as the pretext to dominate their wives are not right with God. You know what that is? That bully is who has no honor.

And that, I’ll just say that, I’ll extend it a little bit further out, that also includes men with their children. Anybody who dominates and mistreats somebody because they are weaker is a punk.

And that is the very opposite. Think about, man, think about the Lord Jesus Christ. One of, not the only, I know he is often mischaracterized in this world, is he not? He’s just like, he’s this nice little lamb. Nobody ever mentions how he spent time the night before braiding a whip to overturn tables in the temple. Nobody mentions the fact that the same Jesus who was crucified, the same lamb as it had been slain returns with fire in Revelation.

Nobody mentions that, everybody wants to talk about Jesus as the lamb, and he is the lamb of God, right? But let’s dwell on that just a minute. Our Lord was almighty, like is almighty. I mean, he had all power. He, if you wanna talk about two vessels, I mean, they could not be more different than God and man. Christ and a human being. He has all power. He could dominate us and rightly so and all of that, but he doesn’t.

He deals with us gently. Does he not? And be careful because the other extreme comes up here. Husband you deal with your wife gently but that doesn’t mean that you don’t lead her.

It’s not that. It’s that true gentleness being considerate of her constitution because you know her weakness and you’re gonna take that into account. And you’re gonna treat her in a way that is consistent with that. Now, keep going. In one Peter three:seven, notice it goes on to say this.

So we’ve covered dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel. Now, we’re going to the giving honor unto the wife, and as being heirs together with the grace of life. Giving honor. Honor is this, honor is great respect, esteem, or deferential admiration. In scripture, what are we told to honor? We’re told to honor our parents, We’re told to honor the king.

We’re told to honor our masters. We’re told to honor other Christians. We’re told to honor all men. And here, husbands are told to honor, same word, their wives. I’ll tell you what honor is not. Honor is not tolerating your wife. Honor is not belittling your wife. Honor is definitely not insulting your wife. Honor is deference and respect. And here’s the balance, know you wanna talk about balance. Here’s the balance.

The Lord tells us to honor someone who is actually someone that we lead, who is weaker. You know what that is? That’s a balance. That’s exactly what it is. Is it possible to honor somebody who is someone that you lead, who is looking to you for leadership? Yeah. It is possible. Here’s the problem, a lot of men, they have this idea of leadership which is commando, barking orders, and they do what I tell them to do.

But the problem with that is that’s not really consistent with honor. The flip side is also true. To honor your wife doesn’t mean that she calls all the shots. That’s also not biblical.

You see, the command to honor one’s wife does not negate what we’ve already seen in the first six verses of this very chapter. Obviously, he did not intend that.

But to honor one’s wife means the husband willingly esteems and values his wife, notice it says, as being heirs together of the grace of life, because she is his partner in life, and note for I’m talking to Steve and Sandy, she is a full partner. She’s not a partial partner, she’s a full partner in the firm. It says, heirs together the grace of life. Now listen to this verse, you know this verse, you’ve probably heard it before, Galatians three twenty eight says this, there is neither in the body of Christ, it says, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

Now, in the flesh on this earth there are distinctions between men and women, between bond and free, between Jew and Gentile. Yes, there are. But in the body of Christ there are no such distinctions. That’s why it says we’re heirs together of the grace of life.

And that that means that she, as as my full partner, my joint heir if you would, is to have the honor of that position. She is not she is not like an add on.

Indeed, the Bible says that the woman was made to help to be the help meet for the man, that is true. She is his help, but at the same time, she is also a full heir of the grace of life with him.

Now, what we see here, this command to honor one’s wife answers the unbiblical model of domination that sometimes characterizes the way Christian men tend to lead their wives. And I’ve seen it, you’ve seen it. Often Christian men think the idea is all of my needs and desires should be fulfilled because I’m in charge. But giving honor means not that I insist that I always get my way because I’m the head, which is true on its face, but what it means is I defer to show her honor and to be considerate of her needs before my own.

And that is great honor. That is respect. You see how both of these things in their proper place create a certain harmony, a balance, right? An equilibrium in the home that is supposed to be that way. And any time you get one out of order, whether it be domineering husband, being a jerk, or feminist wife that can’t understand or yield to the fact that she’s the weaker vessel, in both cases things go completely out of kilter, out of balance, and it ends up being unhappy for both parties.

One of my biggest pet peeves, one of my biggest pet peeves, I was actually talking to someone recently on the subject of the family, and this person was talking a lot about feminism and you know, how detrimental it is, all, you know, he was talking about some things that touch this. And I just could not help myself because whenever I men discuss that, and we know that, we know it’s evil, right? We know it’s evil and we know it’s not biblical and it’s actually ultimately harmful to women themselves, We know that. But when I hear a man harp on that and he mounts his steed, you know the steed, the hobby horse, he mounts that steed, it’s a strong indicator to me that he might be on the other extreme.

And so usually in that case, which is what happened in this example, is I quickly tried to remind the man that a man who dominates his wife and doesn’t take her into consideration, all that is jerk and that’s not a biblical either, no matter what it appears to be. And that’s one of my biggest pet peeves probably in this world is a man that dominates his, you know maybe it’s because I have daughters.

You know, maybe I think of my daughters and I think you know, I don’t want my daughters to be mistreated under the guise of leadership or headship of the family. But I want a man who’ll lay that, who’ll, giving honor to his wife, who’ll lay down his life for his wife, my daughter, right? I want a man who will defer to her if at all possible.

Is that the kind of man you want to marry? Right? Yeah, that’s the kind of husband you want who will show you that honor. And when we do that, then our marriage will be the kind of marriage that brings us great joy. Let’s pray together.