Is It Loving to Rebuke My Wife?

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and you're not allowed to hold women to a standard that the Bible has set, which is why it feels weird for so many people who typically do agree with us to say, rebuke for some reason feels strange.

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Alright, Tim, the question for today's episode is, is it loving to rebuke my wife?

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Yeah, this is one of those questions that we're doing based on a couple of Twitter polls that I did, and it was somewhat surprising to me to think that many people, in response to one of the

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Twitter polls I did, there was a repeated idea that was happening over and over and over again, and that people were uncomfortable with the idea of rebuking a woman.

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So I think the poll that I did had something to do with, should a husband rebuke his obese wife, or something along those lines.

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And there was a variety of different responses to this, from people that I thought wouldn't go there with it.

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I would think that most of our followers are basically accustomed to the idea of telling women they're wrong in general.

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I think something about this topic was uniquely distressing to them. But over and over and over again, there was reactions to the idea of rebuking a woman in general, and it was a little bit surprising from our audience, our following, that that was coming up.

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But it's not surprising in general. We're living in a world where you obviously can't tell a woman she's wrong in any way.

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You're living in a world right now where pastors have failed to go there for years.

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One of the biggest sins that men are committing, and pastors in general, is that they refuse to correct women, particularly with women's sins, and fail to speak to those.

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But I just thought our audience would be a little bit different than what they actually were at that point.

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And this was even from people who were generally agreeing with the actual question being proposed.

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Right, right. So yes, you should encourage them, but rebuke is too strong of a word. What was strange about it is, this is such a foreign concept to me in general, that I just don't know how you married to a woman unless rebuke is a normal part of marriage.

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I'm so accustomed to the idea of rebuke in general that this kind of thought process to me, it's just utterly incomprehensible.

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I don't even know how to be married if rebuke is not a part of it. So you can imagine that question being asked in a different way.

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Should a wife rebuke her drunk husband, right?

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And there would have been no scandal and shock and awe, or, no, you shouldn't rebuke him, you should only encourage him, right?

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And show him the way, by example, and all that. But there wouldn't have been any of that.

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So we all have a category for rebuking men, but I think the idea of rebuking a woman, for some people, just seems way off the rails.

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But as I'm saying, it's profoundly confusing, and I don't really know what to make of it, particularly with our group.

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Well, you see that even with, if you think about Mother's Day sermons versus Father's Day sermons.

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Right, right. It's always men, or women, you know, you got, you are...

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Praised and wonderful, can't do anything wrong. Who knows where we would be without you? And obviously that's true.

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We'd all still be sucking our thumb, throwing up in a ball. Yeah, I mean, I think it's overdone.

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But then there is a truth to the statement that we need women, right?

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Right, right. And so, and the Bible says there is a type of woman who is worthy of praise, right?

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But then the Father's Day sermons are, hey, we've got to be better, and we've got to step up.

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Man up. And I think there is a part of that that is, you know, in our culture, fatherhood has basically become, the bar has been lowered extremely low.

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Sure. That's not the greatest way to say that, but the bar has been set pretty low, and so it's easy to pick on guys.

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But then I think, honestly, the bar has been set pretty low for women, too. Oh, it has been.

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But then you're not allowed to say that it has, and you're not allowed to hold women to a standard that the

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Bible has set, which is why it feels weird for so many people who typically do agree with us to say, rebuke for some reason feels strange.

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I would rather encourage, you know, it's like, well, you would never, if you're not going to talk about the guy that way, well, number one, like,

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I mean, is there any sort of, like, just change it to, like, let's not even talk about guy and girl categories.

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Let's talk about anything else. And, you know, if you're okay with rebuke and that other scenario, then why aren't you for women or wives?

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So I think what's happening is that a lot of people haven't really spent a lot of time in looking at what the

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Bible is saying about rebuke in general, and I don't think they have enough categories in their mind to work with. So rebuke kind of becomes the all -purpose, like, harsh word.

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And I mean, I think there's a reality that you speak to men more harshly than you speak to women.

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And I think that... You say that meaning, like, you should speak to men harder than women.

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I think, you know, men and women are different, and men respond differently to harsh speaking than women do.

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And, you know, like, I think drill sergeant kind of stuff, coaches kind of stuff, men are used to it, and we don't just curl up in a ball and get offended.

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You know, we're not as sensitive, we're not as delicate and refined in our nature, and so I think we're tough, we're made to be tough, and we speak toughly.

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I get all that, but then, like, the point, though, is just to say the Bible has other words for... Like, rebuke is not that word.

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Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah. So the Bible says admonish the unruly, encourage the faint -hearted, help the weak, be patient with all.

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If you want to know the word biblically for a strong rebuke, that would be admonishment, okay?

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So admonish the unruly. Like, that would be your strong rebuke kind of thing.

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But rebuke in of itself, I mean, there's just so many verses in the Bible about rebukes, and rebuke is just a normal part of life, so better is open rebuke than hidden love, right?

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Like, rebuke is just a word where all a rebuke is is just telling someone you need to repent.

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And you can either say it, like, directly, you need to repent, or you can say it indirectly. So Nathan the prophet, when he was confronting

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David, he rebuked him, but he didn't even say, you need to repent. He just said, you're the man, right?

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Yeah. He told him a story, he said, you're a man. That was a rebuke that was done from someone who's a subordinate to someone who's their authority, right?

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Yeah. And so, like, the idea of rebuke is you need to repent. And there's nice ways to say it, and there's mean ways to say it.

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Like, you can do a sharp rebuke, or you can do a mild rebuke, or you can do an indirect rebuke. There's all sorts of rebukes.

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Rebuke is just not the word that people should be reacting to. Does that make sense? Like, so yes,

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I mean, I think that, you know, if whatever the sin your wife is committing, your go -to move shouldn't be yelling and screaming and hollering and all that, right?

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You shouldn't turn into the military drill sergeant with your wife. You shouldn't be harsh with her, right?

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I think you should. But just, like, the idea of rebuke itself is just a big nothing burger.

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You get what I mean? It's just a part of life. It's just like, honey, like, precious love angel,

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I love you. Precious love angel. But you can't talk to me that way, right? Like, honey, like, you know, like, can't talk that way.

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I'm not going to respond when you talk that way. That's a rebuke, right? Like, but what is mean about that? What is loving about that?

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Like, honey, I, you know, I asked you to do that, and you didn't do it. And, like, you need to ask forgiveness for that because that was wrong.

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Like, that's a rebuke. Like, is that mean? That's not mean. That's just normal, calm, direct. You know, love of my life.

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I love you. Care about you. I want you to honor the Lord. And that isn't the way to do it, right?

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I mean, and that's just a normal part of, hey, you know, you got to repent.

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You got to repent of this, okay? All right. You can't just sit there and give me the cold shoulder because I said something you didn't like.

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We got to be reconciled, right? Yeah. Give me a hug. Come on. Right?

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Give me a hug. Yeah. Give me a hug. Pretend like you mean it, you know?

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But I mean, there's all sorts of ways that you can rebuke someone that are not just tyrannical, out of control, crazy.

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But I mean, if that's not just a natural, normal part of your life, honey, you need to repent, you know? That did not honor the

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Lord. I'm willing to forgive you if you ask. Like, I just don't know what you're doing in marriage if that's not a part of it.

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You get what I'm saying? Yeah. And that's definitely more direct than simply saying, hey,

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I'm going to try to encourage them or I'm going to indirectly, you know, I'm going to set the example by the way

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I lead, right? Honey, you haven't done the dishes in a week, you know, so I'm not going to bring it up in a direct way to you because then you're going to lose your mind and emote on me.

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So what I'm going to do is like I'm going to, you know, basically drop hints around, you know, and try to motivate you in a passive way.

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And it's just like, I think if that's what people think leadership is in the home, it's just like, no, I mean, there's like, you have to, your wife's a sinner.

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You have to confront her. And just because you, and I think maybe for a lot of people, they just have no category for calmly, intentionally correcting your wife and encouraging her to repent, encouraging her to like, you know, you need to ask the

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Lord to forgive you. I'm willing to forgive you. You need to ask the kids to forgive you. We're, you know, like we need to make this right.

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Can't go to bed like this, right? With all of this, we need to reconcile.

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We need to be restored. Like, I don't, you know, I love you. I care about you.

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I want our relationship to be fixed. Can't shelf this. It's only going to get worse. And that's just a normal part of life.

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And I don't understand, like, I don't understand what you're doing as a husband if that's not a part of it.

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Yeah. And, you know, both ways, you know, same thing happens both ways. You know, she should be doing the same kind of things to you.

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Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. This has been another episode of Bible Bashed.

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