WHAT IS MARRIAGE? Part 6 of 14 DWELL ACCORDING TO KNOWLEDGE In the third chapter of First Peter, Phillips translation, a simple, practical and beautiful passage is given: In the same spirit you married women should adapt yourselves to your husbands, so that even if they do not obey the Word of God they may be won to God without any word being spoken, simply by seeing the pure and reverent behavior of you, their wives. Your beauty should not be dependent on an elaborate coiffure, or on the wearing of jewelry or fine clothes, but on the inner personality, the unfading loveliness of a calm gentle spirit, a thing very precious in the eyes of God. This was the secret of the beauty of the holy women of ancient times who trusted in God and were submissive to their husbands. Sara, you will remember, obeyed Abraham and called him her lord. And you have become, as it were, her true descendants today as long as you too live good lives and do not give way to hysterical fears. Similarly, you husbands should try to understand the wives you live with, honoring them as physically weaker yet equally heirs with you of the grace of eternal life. If you dont do this, you will find it impossible to pray properly. King James, 1 Pet. 3: 7 says, Husbands dwell with them according to knowledge. . Knowledge comes from the Greek, gnosis, the act of knowing, and ginosko, to know (absolute) -- and a great variety of applications and implications as: allow, be aware of, feel, perceive, be resolved, can speak, be sure, understand. Among the references was the word science, meaning intelligence or consciousness; to see completely, co-perception, moral consciousness. What a feast husbands and wives would have if they would lump these together and feed upon them! In essence this would be merely the fulfillment of the golden rule. With each partner being conscious of the other, seeing completely from the others viewpoint, co-perceiving problems, pressures, emotional stresses, physical momentary unfitness; each being aware of, being resolved to know, able and willing to speak in sympathy and assurance, understanding the other -- what girders of steel for a marriage framework! If the wifes allotment were to make the living, how much excessive spending would be eliminated? If the husbands allotment were to bear the children, how many families of eight, twelve, fifteen would there be? Dwelling together according to knowledge? At a glance it would seem that some partners dont know much!
Posted on: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 18:33:17 +0000
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