Opus 2014-193: Monday Pulpit: The Love of a Godly Husband

The pastor was preaching from Ephesians 5 on marriage.  He was talking about the command for  husbands to love their wives.

(Ephesians 5:25 KJV)  Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

This love is agape love.  Next the pastor threw in a quote from C.S. Lewis.  He did not cite a source so I am guessing it is a paraphrase.  It went like this.

“This love is intended for the man whose wife does not return his love.”

I do have some notes from C.S. Lewis’s book, The Four Loves.  In it he said,

“This headship, then, is most fully embodied not in the husband we should all wish to be but in him whose marriage is most like a crucifixion;...”, p. 105

I think that is along the same theme.  The time for agape love is when it is the most counter intuitive.  When we want to walk away, we stand firm.  When we want to lash out, we embrace.  Keep in mind the parallel between marriage and the church.  Remember that Jesus died for us when we were the hardest to love.

(Romans 5:8 KJV)  But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

This is not the standard of our civil culture but is a foundation of the Christian life.  We are different.

Lewis, C.S.  The Four Loves.  Norwalk, Connecticut:  The Easton Press, 2002.

homo unius libri