Saturday Night Devotions

I Peter 3:7

     Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered.

     Peter gave 6 verses of recommendations to wives and here gives his single verse of counsel to husbands.  He begins by admonishing husbands to live with their wives “with understanding.”  It is often made a matter of humor that men don’t understand women, but the humor ends with I Peter 3:7.  Men are here given the clear admonition to understand the needs, emotions, values, challenges, desires, and dreams of the wife God has given them.  If we admit that we do not understand any of these matters of our wife we are compelled here to fix that.  We are called to be men, not boys or beasts – and living without understanding our wife is unmanly.  Psalm 32:9 says, “Do not be like the horse or like the mule, which have no understanding, which must be harnessed with bit and bridle, else they will not come near you.”  Similarly, Psalm 49:20 says, “A man who is in honor, yet does not understand, is like the beasts that perish.”  Let us then stand like men and increase our understanding of our wives.  It is not just for the sake of our wife’s happiness that we seek understanding, it is for ours as well.  Proverbs 3:13 says, “Happy is the man who finds wisdom, and the man who gains understanding.”  And Proverbs 2:11 promises, “Discretion will watch over you, understanding will guard you (ESV).”

    After being compelled to understand our wife, we are next told to give her honor, “as to the weaker vessel.”  In general, women do not have the physical strength of the husband.  Since that is so, men ought to respect, even marvel with appreciation all that women accomplish in their day.  Women who meet the needs of the family and community are doubly worthy of receiving honor from their husbands.  Husbands are not called here to honor their wives despite their weaker frame, but because of their weaker nature.  When a woman’s work load equals or exceeds her husbands, though she has less physical strength than he does, she is worthy of honor.  Romans 13:7 calls on us to give honor to whom honor is due, and Peter reminds us here that this certainly includes our wife.  Perhaps there are many ways to honor our wife, but Proverbs 31:28 mentions that a virtuous wife is praised by her husband.  Let us seek opportunity at home to privately praise our wife for her godly attributes, as well as seek appropriate opportunity to compliment her in public.

     After giving us this counsel to understand and honor our wife, Peter then gives us just cause for doing so.  He says first of all that we should honor and understand our wife because we are “heirs together of the grace of life.”  That is, our blessings from God, the grace that we receive from Him is bound up together in a single package.  A husband cannot hope to be richly blessed by God yet have his wife sadly miss out on the blessings.  When God blesses, He blesses the husband and wife together.  If we allow problems to creep into our marriage relationship, we will find problems creeping into our relationship with God.  We must see here that we are “heirs together.”  In many ways, what God gives the husband, He gives to the wife just the same.   He spells it out even more clearly in the next line, “that your prayers may not be hindered.”  Peter is saying, if you take care of your wife’s needs, God will take care of yours.  If you are the answer to your wife’s prayers, God will be the answer to yours.  If we fail our wife, however, we will find that our prayers fail with God – a frightening prospect.  Since the blessings that we receive from God are caught up inseparably from the blessings our wife receives from God, and since our prayers to God are hindered when our relationship with our wife is weakened, let us make all effort to make our marriage relationship a vital priority.