The Law Was Not Abolished

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B UILDING S TRONG F AMILIES

enough to sit still, but as they squirm or stare out the window, most fathers throw in the towel and give up the whole idea. A husband needs to muster his courage and take the initiative regu larly to call his wife and family back to the Scriptures as their source of life and truth. He doesn’t have to rely on his own insights or creativity. There are tools, like Dennis and Barbara Rainey’s devotional Moments Together for Couples, or the daily devotional magazine Tabletalk, produced by Ligonier Ministries, which a husband and wife can read together. A husband can stand on the shoulders of others as he fulfills his prophetic responsibility to declare the truth of the Scriptures to his wife. He confronts sin and calls his wife to repentance. Perhaps this is the most difficult assignment facing a husband, for several reasons. First, con fronting sin and calling a wife to repentance may rock the domestic boat. A husband may decide he doesn’t want to incur his wife’s wrath. But he needs to obey God’s call regardless of how his wife will respond. He may also fail to confront his wife’s sin because he has a soft view of what it means to love her. Pointing out sin seems harsh and judgmental, not loving. But our example here is Christ, who loves us too much to overlook our sin. The same Prophet who wept over Jerusalem, pronouncing judgment on Israel, comes to us today by His Holy Spirit to convict us of our sin and to lead us to righteousness. If we begin to understand the consequences of sin for ourselves and for future generations, we will not think it loving to ignore or overlook our wives’ ongoing patterns of sinful behavior. A husband-prophet may also feel hypocritical pointing out the speck in his wife’s eye when he is aware of his own sinfulness. But Jesus’ instructions were clear on this. It is not necessarily hypocrisy to confront someone else about her sin; it becomes hypocrisy when you do so without first confessing and repenting of your own sin. “First,” Jesus said, “take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye” (Matt. 7:5). It is easy to see why husbands would rather not confront the sin ful behavior of their wives. (I include myself in their number!) Most books I’ve read on how to have a happy marriage don’t suggest that