Is It Loving to Rebuke My Wife?

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Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear His words, they will act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment come, in that final day, they're ha -

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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?

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Something along those lines. 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 I mean, it's not surprising in general. Like, we're living in a world where you obviously can't tell a woman she's wrong in any way.

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

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Like, 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. And so what was strange about it is,

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I guess I just— 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 like it's 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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Like, should a wife rebuke her drunk husband, right?

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And there would have been no scandal and shock and all, or like, 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 like— you know, if you think about Mother's Day sermons versus Father's Day sermons, it's always men, you know, or women, you know, you got—

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Praised and wonderful. Yeah, like, who knows where we would be without you. And obviously that's true.

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I mean— We'd all still be sucking our thumb, you know, going 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, like, we need women, right?

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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, you know, we've got to step up.

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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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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, yeah.

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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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Yeah, I think it's— 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, you know, the all -purpose, like, harsh word.

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And 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 there's something— 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.

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And we don't just curl up in a ball and get offended. You know, we're not as sensitive. We're not as delicate and refined in our nature.

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And so I think we're tough. We're made to be tough. And we're, you know, speak toughly. I get all that. But then, like, the point, though, is just to say

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Bible has other words for— Like, rebuke is not that word. Do you get what I'm saying?

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Yeah. So the Bible says, admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, 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 you admonish the unruly. 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.

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So better is open rebuke than hidden love, right? 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 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. 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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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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A rebuke is just not the word that people should be reacting to. Does that make sense? Mm -hmm.

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So yes, I think that 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 the idea of rebuke itself is just a big nothing burger.

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You get what I mean? Mm -hmm. It's just a part of life. It's just like, honey, 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, you know,

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I can't talk that way. I'm not going to respond when you talk that way. That's a rebuke, right? But what does it mean about that?

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What is loving about that? Like, honey, I asked you to do that and you didn't do it. You need to ask forgiveness for that because that was wrong.

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That's a rebuke. Is that mean? That's not mean. That's just normal, calm, direct. Love of my life.

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I love you. I care about you. I want you to honor the Lord. And that isn't the way to do it.

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Yeah. I mean, that's just a normal part of, hey, 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 that 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? 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 with 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? Now, honey, you haven't done the dishes in a week. 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 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 a home, it's just like, no, I mean, there's like, you have to, your wife's a sinner, you have to confront her.

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And just because you, and I think maybe for a lot of people, they just have no category for a 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, we need to make this right.

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Can't go to bed like this, right? Can't go to bed like this 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. We hope you have been encouraged and blessed through our discussion.

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Now, go boldly and obey the truth in the midst of a biblically illiterate world who will be perpetually offended by your every move.