Jesus said to her,
“Go, call your husband, and come here.”
The woman answered
him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have
no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not
your husband. What you have said is true.”
The woman said to
Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet.” (John 4:16-18)
What did Jesus say
that was “prophetic”?
He’d already told
her about living water as the gift of God (verses 10-15); but that didn’t seem
to be enough for the woman to identify Jesus as a prophet. The final clue for the Samaritan woman at the
well was Jesus’ Divine knowledge of her romantic history, including a
prophetically accurate update on her current relationship status: “The one you
now have is NOT your husband.”
There is a PROPHETIC
DIFFERENCE between having a boyfriend and having a husband.
In Scripture the closest
equivalent to boyfriend or girlfriend are references to lovers, suitors, and concubines. Lovers were often associated with
adultery. They were the side-chicks and
side-dudes. (Ezekiel 16; Hosea 2 &
3). A suitor was a man looking for a
wife, like Jacob pursuing Rachel in Genesis 29.
A concubine was like a legal live-in girlfriend.
For a boyfriend-and-girlfriend
living together, spiritually speaking she’s not his wifey, she’s his concubine. Concubines don’t have the same authority as a
wife.
Which doesn’t mean
that you don’t really love each other. Nothing
in the record of John chapter 4 implies that the Samaritan woman’s 1st
century live-in boyfriend didn’t love her.
Later in the story, we learn that the woman had enough social prestige
to convince the male leaders of her Samaritan village to come out and listen to
this traveling Jew she’d just met; so her situation was as at least as socially
acceptable in that context as living together is now. It’s not necessarily about feelings, legal
status, or what’s culturally acceptable.
It’s already fashionable
to say, “We’re basically married” or “We love each other like we’re married.” Your social circle may totally accept your
relationship like that, but Jesus knows that “The one you now have is NOT your
husband.”
The distinction
between husband-wife and boyfriend-girlfriend is spiritual.
From Genesis to
Revelations, God reserved special blessings for the husband-wife
relationship. Whenever God applies
special blessings, He also sets special expectations.
God expects husbands to give exclusive priority to their
wives. Prophetically, Adam who had no biological
parents, declared that “a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold
fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). A husband should put his wife before his own
mama. Scripture does not require that exclusivity
of lovers, suitors, or the keepers of concubines.
God expects special honor for the institution of marriage.
“Let marriage be
held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled” (Hebrews 13: 4). The Holy Spirit makes it clear that the honor
due to marriage doesn’t extend to other romances. Hollywood might celebrate passion outside of
marriage but in the rest of Hebrews 13: 4 says, “for God will judge the
sexually immoral and adulterous.”
God expects husbands and wives to do it (You know, “it.”)
riiiight!
The husband should
give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For
the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does… Do
not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that
you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again…(1
Corinthians 7:2-5). One of the most
ingenious and evil tricks of Evil has been the propaganda that portrays any sex
outside of marriage as more desirable that sex within marriage. People say, “If we get married then we’ll get
bored.” That rule is written in
Hollywood scripts but it is not written in Holy Scripture.
God expects husbands to honor, protect, and understand their
wives.
Husbands, likewise,
dwell with them with understanding,
giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may
not be hindered. (1 Peter 3: 7). God
says that a husband who isn’t understanding and honoring to his wife, that may
might as well stop praying because God will stop listening. A girlfriend can’t claim that promise against
her man.
God expects husbands to love with self-sacrificial love.
“Husbands, love your
wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her”
(Ephesians 5:25). Through Scripture God repeatedly
commands husbands to love, to give love, to be loving. A husband must be willing to die for his wife
because Jesus died for the church. A
husband must want his wife to be stronger and better because of their
relationship, because Jesus came to build up a church “without spot or wrinkle
or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians
5: 27). A husband must build his wife up
so strong that “the gates of Hades shall not prevail against [her]” (Matthew
16: 18). A girlfriend may want that from
her boyfriend. She may rightly look for
evidence of it as their relationship develops.
But no girlfriend can claim it from her boyfriend, not in the name of
Jesus.
God has special expectations of husbands because marriage
is a special representation of God’s redeeming relationship to mankind.
“ ‘For
this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife,
and the two shall become one flesh.’ This is a great mystery, but I speak
concerning Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5: 31, 32).
Within a marriage,
you can pray these expectations because God recognizes them. Within a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship
you can look for evidence of these expectations. You can pressure your man to act like a husband. But, if you’re not married, you don’t have
the spiritual authority to claim or complain about exclusive priority, special
honor, sexual satisfaction, protection, understanding, honor, or love.
All of those things
are husband responsibilities.
Girlfriends don’t have the spiritual authority to set husband
expectations for their boyfriends.
The flip-side of
this is that any husband who doesn’t give his wife exclusive priority, special
honor, sexual satisfaction, protection, understanding, honor, and
self-sacrificing love--- that husband is living outside of God’s will. We accept that violation and call it thug-love,
or keeping it real, or “a man being a man.” The Bible calls it sin.
“But if anyone does
not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has
denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” (1 Timothy 5: 8)
Husbands who act like
boyfriends forfeit their spiritual authority.
“for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take
care of the church of God?” (1 Timothy 3: 5)
The rate of divorce
and dysfunction in Christian families is high and climbing because husbands are
fulfilling boyfriend expectations and boyfriends are trying to fulfill husband
expectations, and all the adults involved are praying but not seeing
breakthroughs because none of them has the spiritual authority necessary to
overcome the brokenness.
Now if you never
pray, or expect God to bless you, if you never seek God’s favor, or need God’s guidance, or
depend on God to deliver, heal, or protect you --- then none of this will make
a bit of difference to you.
But.
If you are a
Christian the difference between a boyfriend and a husband matters. If you’re a Christian you understand that you
absolutely need God’s favor to successfully build a family because “Unless the Lord
builds the house, they labor in vain who build it” (Psalm 127: 1).
When men become
husbands and act according to God’s expectations for husbands, brothers will
have the spiritual authority to bind and loose in their homes. When women stop having boyfriend expectations
for their husbands and husband expectations for their boyfriends, then sisters
will rediscover their spiritual authority and finally begin to see the changes they've been trying to declare and decree over themselves.
---Anderson T. Graves II is a
writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural
leadership development.
Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of
Miles Chapel CME Church in
Fairfield, Alabama; executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth
Networking Organization
(SAYNO);
and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for
Human Development (
NIHD).
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
#Awordtothewise
You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his
personal blog and clicking
the
DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.
Support by check or money order may be mailed to
Miles Chapel CME Church
P O Box 132
Fairfield, Al 35064
