BE GOOD TO YOUR WIFE, LAYING DOWN YOUR LIFE FOR HER, AS CHRIST DID FOR HIS CHURCH
From Saint John Chrysostom, Homilies on Ephesians, Homily 20; A.D. 497:
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“You have seen the measure of obedience, hear also the measure of love. Would you have your wife obedient unto you, as the Church is to Christ? Take then yourself the same provident care for her, as Christ takes for the Church. Yea, even if it shall be needful for you to give your life for her, yea, and to be cut into pieces ten thousand times, yea, and to endure and undergo any suffering whatever — refuse it not. Though you should undergo all this, yet will you not, no, not even then, have done anything like Christ. For thou indeed art doing it for one to whom you are already knit; but He for one who turned her back on Him and hated Him. In the same way then as He laid at His feet her who turned her back on Him, who hated, and spurned, and disdained Him, not by menaces, nor by violence, nor by terror, nor by anything else of the kind, but by his unwearied affection; so also do thou behave yourself toward your wife. Yea, though thou see her looking down upon you, and disdaining, and scorning you, yet by your great thoughtfulness for her, by affection, by kindness, you will be able to lay her at your feet. For there is nothing more powerful to sway than these bonds, and especially for husband and wife. A servant, indeed, one will be able, perhaps, to bind
down by fear; nay not even him, for he will soon start away and be gone. But the partner of one’s life, the mother of one’s children, the foundation of one’s every joy, one ought never to chain down by fear and menaces, but with love and good temper. For what sort of union is that, where the wife trembles at her husband? And what sort of pleasure will the husband himself enjoy, if he dwells with his wife as with a slave, and not as with a free-woman? Yea, though you should suffer anything on her account, do not upbraid her; for neither did Christ do this.”
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Take Care of Your Gift of Ordination by Being a Peaceful Loving Man:
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The hands being laid on you are from a chain of gentle sweet martyrs who died for their Love of God so that your ordination could happy and your church survive. It could be proven via the below verses that you have been given a higher ontology than other men because you were ordained by God. Now, if God deals with you at a higher metaphysical level, who deals with you as a mere man? Your wife does. Why would you not listen to the chaste counsel of your wife and be good to her? The Bible awards good wives with recognition of their wisdom (Proverbs 15:22; 1 Peter 3:2,7; Genesis 21:12). She sees the side pops up from time to time that your church does not see. Are you not the “old man” sometimes, Priest, Bishop, or Deacon though you are?
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What Chain of Saints and of Saved Men Now Ordains You:
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“But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word. And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas a proselyte of Antioch: Whom they set before the apostles: and when they had prayed, they laid their hands on them. And the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly; and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith. And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people” (Acts 6:4-8).
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How Real Is the Authority of the Laying-On of Hands?:
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“And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom; for Moses had laid his hands upon him: and the children of Israel hearkened unto him, and did as the Lord commanded Moses” (Deuteronomy 34:9).
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How Does Christ See Your Apostolic Office?:
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“Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery” (1 Timothy 4:14).
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Did Not the Risen Christ Give Priests Higher Life?:
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“And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained” (John 20:22-23).
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Will You Not Be Kind and Sweet to Your Wife and Family at Home as in the Church?:
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“Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:13-14).
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The Lamb’s Monarchical Union With His Church Mirrored by a Husband’s Duty Toward His Wife, in the Apostle’s Epistle, on Which Chrysostom’s Sermon is Based:
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“For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband” (Ephesians 5:23-33).
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