"Christ
In The Home: God’s Plan For His Family” Series
#4
“The Biblical Model for Love”
The meaning of love.
1. Storge: family love; the love of parents for children, children for parents, brothers and sisters for each other.
2. Eros: sensual love. It means a love that is egocentric, “wanting to have,” seeking union with the object of its desire. The value that evokes it is found in the thing loved.
3. Philia: friendship; love given to all kinds of human beings, shown in such terms as philadelphia, brotherly love.
4. Agape: a spontaneous impulse of the heart to desire that which is good for the one loved, and it will be at my cost. There are no prerequisistes, no conditions, no requirements.
What these words mean to marriage.
Storge: “my family is important to me. I want my family to be important to you. I recognize that your family is important to you. Your family will also be important to me.”
Eros: “I am physically attracted to you.”
Philia: “Í like you. I enjoy being with you, going places with you, experiencing things with you.”
Agage: “I will be good to you. I will treat you with patience and kindness, with courtesy, consideration, and deep concern. That is an unconditional promise. I will always, under all circumstances, treat you that way.”
Agape is self-giving love, gift love, the love that goes on loving even when the other becomes unloveable. Agape love is not just something that happens to you; it is something you make happen. Love is a personal act of commitment. Christ’s love (and hence the pattern for our love) is a gift love. Christ’s love for us is a sacrificial love. Christ’s love is unconditional. Christ’s love is an eternal love.
There are no conditions necessary.
You don’t have to earn my love.
You don’t have to deserve my love.
You don’t have to measure up to any standard to get me to love you.
You don’t have to work for my love.
You don’t even have to appreciate my love.
Agape is not a feeling. It is an act of the will. Agape is a commitment to act in the best interest of another without any conditions on his/her part, except his/her need.
Love is an unconditional commitment to an imperfect person.
In a good marriage, the husband and wife are also friends. Philia’s companionship is many things…being reasonably happy to go shopping with her…watching TV together and munching popcorn…feelong lonely when he/she is out of town.
Friendship also means communication. Philia’s communication is many things…sharing something you read in a book or magazine…reminiscing how you had to catch all the mice and remove all the bats before you could move into your apartment…eating breakfast together without the morning paper…agreeing on the design of the new wallpaper for Jane’s room…having the courage to tell you her you don’t that dress she’s trying on.
Philia is also cooperation. While eros is almost always face-to-face relationship, philia is very often a shoulder-to-shoulder relationship. When there is philia, husband and wife are working together on something greater than both of them. They are finding their oneness, not directly in each other, but in their interest in a common cause. In eros, each seeks fulfillment in the other; in philia, they both seek fulfillment in one mutual goal.
Married Love
You have said to another, “I will,” and with those words you have declared your voluntary assent and turned a crucial point in their lives. You know full well all the doubts and suspicions with which a life-long partnership between two persons is faced. It is you as a married couple who must bear the whole responsibility for the success of your married life, with all the happiness it will bring. It is not your love which sustains the marriage, from now on the marriage sustains your love.
“I will give to you a love that is patient…a love that is kind, a love that endures. I will pledge to you a love that is not jealous or possessive, a love that is not proud or selfish, a love that is not rude or inconsiderate.
“My love for you will not insist in its own way, will not be irritable or resentful, will not keep account of wrongs or failures. I will rejoice when good prevails.
“Our love will know no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope. It will outlast everything. Our love will stand when all else has fallen. Our life together will have three great qualities: faith, hope and love. But the greatest is love.” --- Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Marriage was designed by God to provide companionship.
“…not good to be alone” the key to a great marriage is delightful companionship. Long-term, delightful companionship is at its best in an intimate friendship!
How Love Acts (1 Cor. 13:4-7)
(1 Corinthians 13:4-7) "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. {5} It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. {6} Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. {7} It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."
Patience Love suffereth long
Kindness and is kind
Generosity Love envieth not
Humility Love vaunteth not itself, Is not puffed up
Courtesy Doth not behave itself unseemly
Unselfishness Seeketh not its own
Good temper Is not provoked
Guilenessness Taketh not account of evil
Sincerity Rejoiceth, not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth
Male/Female Differences
Anatomical/Psychological Differences
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Men |
Female |
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Men have 50% more brute strength |
Greater constitutional vitality: outlive men 4-8 years |
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40% of man’s weight is muscle |
Lower metabolism than men and therefore, withstand higher temperatures better than men |
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Shorter legs; longer trunk; larger kidneys, liver, stomach, and more active; different and more numerous hormones |
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Blood contains more water & 20% fewer RBC’s (tires more easily) |
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23% of women’s weight is muscle |
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Average heart rate is 72 bpm |
Average heart rate is 80 bpm |
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Significantly higher vital capacity |
Her blood pressure is generally 10 pts. lower than man’s and thus has less tendency toward high blood pressure |
Rational/Emotional Differences
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Men’s self-esteem is more centered in what they do; men tend to show love in how they perform |
Women’s self-esteem is more centered around how they relate to others |
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Men tend to find their identify through their vocations |
Women tend to find their identity via close relationships, and tend to be more personal than men |
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Women become an intimate part of their surroundings; view their house as an extension of self; need more time to adjust to change because of their emotional identity |
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Men are more solution oriented. Men tend to feel responsible for their wife’s happiness; when she is emotional – he hears “FIX IT!” |
Women are more process oriented (i.e. the process of taking the time to stop and listen to a woman has an much as the end result) |
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Men are geared more to maintaining survival; providing for the family |
Women are more geared to dependency, but are great survivors. |
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Men generally talk around 12,000-15,000 words per day |
Women generally talk between 25,000-40,000 words per day |
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Men are less trained to share emotions and talk more from the cognitive brain (tend to be more preoccupied with logical deduction and practicalities – straight to the point |
Women are better at using the language of emotion (feelings) |
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Men tend to mull over their feelings and are hesitant in pulling them up; harder for them to verbalize feelings |
Women tend to think their feelings out loud, and cover it all |
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Men are more general in their observations. Look at the “big picture” with great awareness but not aware of a lot of details |
On the whole, women are more detailed in their observations, and more sensitive to the little things |
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Men are more apt than women to express hostility via physical violence |
Women tend to express their hostility verbally |
Sexual Differences
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Men are like a microwave; need little to no preparation for sex (turned on first via their eyes) |
Women are like a crock-pot; often need both mental and emotional preparation for sexual fulfillment (turned on first with their heart) |
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Men’s sexual drive is fairly constant |
Women’s pre-menopause sex drive is somewhat related to her menstrual cycle. Women are generally more sexually sensitive (i.e. want to have more than sex; want to be a lover, friend, fan, appreciated partner, etc. |
10 Worst Mistakes
1. Treat a man like a child (kills passion – no man sleeps with his mother).
Women make men wrong.
Women fall in love with a man’s potential.
Women cover up their excellence, their competence, when around men.
Women get too serious.
Women act like girls to get what they want.
Women either tiptoe around men, or they rebel against them.
Women use their sexuality to manipulate men.
Women offer unsolicited advice.
Criticizes him when he makes decisions or takes initiative.
Lack of commitment.
“When reference is made to an individual’s ‘commitment’ to marriage, what is being described is the degree to which that person is willing to compromise self-interest, personal ideals of perfection, indulgence in tastes, and so forth, so that a particular relationship can continue. The alternative to making a commitment is not having a relationship – that is remaining alone.” --- William J. Lederer, The Mirages of Marriage, 1968, p. 196.
Too much attention to the urgent; not enough attention to the important.
Ignorance or naivete.
Decentralization – the average home has released or delegated too much of its responsibility to others who are not as crucial to raising good children.
The expectations for a marriage are set too high
Whatever marriage can be, it ought to be! Marriage is sustained by self-discipline and evaluated through growth.
MARRIAGE
A bridegroom is a man who spends a lot of money on a new suit that nobody notices.
A deaf husband and a blind wife are always a happy couple.
French Proverb
A good husband makes a good wife.
A good marriage is not one where perfection reigns: it is a relationship where a healthy perspective overlooks a multitude of “unresolvables.”
James C. Dobson (1936– )
A good wife makes a good husband.
A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers.
Robert Quillen (1887–1948)
A man too good for the world is no good for his wife.
Jewish Proverb
A marriage is like a long trip in a tiny rowboat: if one passenger starts to rock the boat, the other has to steady it; otherwise they will go to the bottom together.
David Robert Reuben (1933– )
A successful marriage demands a divorce; a divorce from your own self-love.
Paul Frost (1938– )
A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day.
André Maurois (1885–1967)
A successful marriage is not a gift; it is an achievement.
Ann Landers (1918– )
A wife is not a guitar; you can’t play on her and then hang her on the wall.
Russian Proverb
An ideal wife is any woman who has an ideal husband.
And they lived happily ever after is one of the most tragic sentences in literature. It is tragic because it tells a falsehood about life and has led countless generations of people to expect something from human existence that is not possible on this fragile, failing, imperfect earth.
Joshua Loth Liebman (1907–1948)
If you would have a daughter, so choose a wife.
Italian Proverb
Be to her virtues very kind;
Be to her faults a little blind.
Matthew Prior (1664–1721)
Better be half hang’d, than ill wed.
Better to break the engagement than the marriage.
Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads that sew people together through the years.
Simone Signoret (1921–1985)
Choose neither a wife nor linen by candlelight.
Spanish Proverb
Dogs are quick to show their affection. They never pout, they never bear a grudge. They never run away from home when mistreated. They never complain about their food. They never gripe about the way the house is kept. They are chivalrous and courageous, ready to protect their mistress at the risk of their lives. They love children, and no matter how noisy and boisterous they are, the dog loves every minute of it. In fact, a dog is still competition for a husband. Perhaps if we husbands imitated a few of our dog’s virtues, life with our family might be more amiable.
Billy Graham (1918– )
Don’t marry for money; you can borrow it cheaper.
Scottish Proverb
Even if marriages are made in heaven, man has to be responsible for the maintenance.
Extreme independence is as destructive to a relationship as total dependence.
James C. Dobson (1936– )
Getting married is easy. Staying married is more difficult. Staying happily married for a lifetime should rank among the fine arts.
Roberta Flack
He who does not honor his wife dishonors himself.
Spanish Proverb
Husbands and wives should constantly guard against overcommitment. Even worthwhile and enjoyable activities become damaging when they consume the last ounce of energy or the remaining free moments in the day.
James C. Dobson (1936– )
Husbands are in heaven whose wives chide not.
I’d trade my fortune for just one happy marriage.
J. Paul Getty (1892–1976)
If your wife is small, stoop down and whisper in her ear.
Jewish Proverb
It is as absurd to say that a man can’t love one woman all the time as it is to say that a violinist needs several violins to play the same piece of music.
Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850)
It is not marriage that fails, it is people that fail.
Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878–1969)
It takes two to make a marriage a success and only one to make it a failure.
Herbert Samuel
Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.
Knit your hearts with an unslipping knot.
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
Knowing when to say nothing is 50 percent of tact and 90 percent of marriage.
Sydney J. Harris (1917–1986)
Let the wife make her husband glad to come home and let him make her sorry to see him leave.
Martin Luther (1483–1546)
Life is full of troubles and most of them are man-maid.
Love is blind, but marriage restores its sight.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799)
Love is not a state, it is a movement. Personal contact is not a state, but a fleeting movement that must be ceaselessly rediscovered. Marriage is not a state, but a movement—a boundless adventure.
Paul Tournier (1898–1986)
Love is one long sweet dream, and marriage is the alarm clock.
Marriage cannot make anyone happier who does not bring the ingredients for happiness into it.
Sydney J. Harris (1917–1986)
Marriage does not make us better, any more than it makes us worse; it merely intensifies what is already there, for good and for bad.
Sydney J. Harris (1917–1986)
Marriage halves our griefs, doubles our joys, and quadruples our expenses.
Marriage has in it less of beauty, but more of safety, than the single life; it has more care, but less danger; it is more merry, and more sad; it is fuller of sorrows, and fuller of joys; it lies under more burdens, but it is supported by all the strengths of love, and charity, and those burdens are delightful.
Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667)
Marriage is a desperate thing.
John Selden (1584–1654)
Marriage is a perpetual test of character.
Marriage is adventure, not an achievement.
David A. Seamands
Marriage is heaven or hell.
German Proverb
Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out.
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533–1592)
Marriage is not for a moment; it is for a
lifetime. It requires long and serious preparation. It is not to be leaped into,
but entered with solemn steps of deliberation. For one of the most intimate and
difficult of human relationships is that of marriage.
Infinitely rewarding at its best, unspeakably oppressive at its worst,
marriage offers the uttermost extremes of human happiness and human bondage—with
all the lesser degrees of felicity and restraint in-between.
Gina Cerminara
Marriage is that relation between man and woman in which the independence is equal, the dependence mutual, and the obligation reciprocal.
Louis K. Anspacher
Marriage may be an institution, but it is not a reform school.
Marriage resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing any one who comes between them.
Sydney Smith (1771–1845)
Marriage with peace is this world’s paradise; with strife, this life’s purgatory.
Married life is a marathon. . . . It is not enough to make a great start toward long-term marriage. You will need the determination to keep plugging. . . . Only then will you make it to the end.
James C. Dobson (1936– )
Married life offers no panacea—if it is going to reach its potential, it will require an all-out investment by both husband and wife. James C. Dobson (1936– )
More and more young people are . . . too impatient to make the adjustments that marriage inevitably entails. They cannot wait to learn the tolerance that marriage always demands. They don’t have the time to achieve the understanding that never comes quickly. They have not been taught that while love may come suddenly, happiness is a distant goal to which there is no shortcut.
Sidney Greenberg
My wife is an angel.
You are lucky, my wife is still living.
Pray one hour before going to war,
Two hours before going to sea,
Three hours before getting married.
She is but half a wife who is not a friend.
William Penn (1644–1718)
Success in marriage is more than finding the right person: it is being the right person.
Robert Browning (1812–1889)
Successful marriage is always a triangle: a man, a woman, and God.
Cecil Myers
The Christian is supposed to love his neighbor, and since his wife is his nearest neighbor, she should be his deepest love.
Martin Luther (1483–1546)
The man who is forever criticizing his wife’s judgment never seems to question her choice of a husband.
The man who would rather play golf than eat should marry the woman who would rather shop than cook.
There is no perfect marriage for there are no perfect people.
French Proverb
Think of all the squabbles Adam and Eve must have had in the course of their nine hundred years. Eve would say, “You ate the apple,” and Adam would retort, “You gave it to me.”
Martin Luther (1483–1546)
Those who marry mostly to escape an unhappy home soon find that they have just added one more to the total number.
Sydney J. Harris (1917–1986)
Variability is one of the virtues of a woman. It obviates the crude requirements of polygamy. If you have one good wife you are sure to have a spiritual harem.
G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936)
When a marriage works, nothing on earth can take its place.
Helen Gahagan Douglas
When I was a young man, I vowed never to marry until I found the ideal woman. Well, I found her—but, alas, she was waiting for the ideal man.
Robert Schumann (1810–1856)
When marriage becomes a solution for loneliness . . . it rarely satisfies.
Steve Goodier
When will there be an end of marrying? I suppose, when there is an end of living.
Tertullian (c. 160–after 220)
Where there’s marriage without love, there will be love without marriage.
Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)
Who of us is mature enough for offspring before the offspring themselves arrive? The value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults.
Peter De Vries (c. 1910– )
You see roses; he sees thorns. You see God vacuuming the sky; he sees God dumping the vacuum bag. You’re planning the next party, and he’s worrying about all the trash the party will make; in fact, he worries about all the trash in the whole world, plus the shortage of water, the national debt, and any number of other serious matters.
Barbara Johnson
You’ll never see perfection in your mate, nor will he or she find it in you.
James C. Dobson (1936– )