The Fulfilled Family by John F. MacArthur

Author:John F. MacArthur
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2010-09-08T16:00:00+00:00

THE MEANING OF LOVE

Authentic love is incompatible with a despotic or domineering approach to headship. When Paul commanded husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church, he was in effect forbidding them to exercise severe or abusive authority over their wives. If the model of this love is Christ, who “did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28), then the husband who thinks he exists so his wife and children can serve him couldn’t be farther off the mark.

It is significant, by the way, that husbands are not commanded to lead, but to love their wives.

Consider the implications of a command to love. This suggests that genuine love is not merely a feeling or an involuntary attraction. It involves a willful choice, and that is why this is in the form of an imperative. Far from being something we “fall into” by happenstance, authentic love involves a deliberate, voluntary commitment to sacrifice whatever we can for the good of the person we love.

In 1 Corinthians 13:4–8, the apostle Paul outlined the characteristics of true love. Notice that none of the features of true love are involuntary, passive, or feelings-based. In fact, Paul used active verbs wherever possible, rather than adjectives, underscoring the truth that love is both dynamic and deliberate:

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.

So when Paul commanded husbands to love their wives, he was calling for all the virtues outlined in 1 Corinthians 13, including patience, kindness, generosity, humility, meekness, thoughtfulness, liberality, gentleness, trust, goodness, truthfulness, and long-suffering. It is significant that all the properties of love stress selflessness and sacrifice. The husband who truly loves his wife simply cannot wield his authority over her like a club. Far from being overlord of the family, the godly husband and father must make himself servant of all (see also Mark 9:35).

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