Bible Basics: Responsibilities of Husband/Father

Earl Robertson
Tompkinsville, KY

The word of man's creator is not silent concerning the duties which lay heavily upon the man. The philosophy of unisexualism can never truly destroy the identity of man with his inherent characteristics and responsibilities as opposed to the female. The will of God makes the difference!

God created them male and female (Gen. 1:27; 5:2; Matt. 19:4). He did not create two males. He did not create two females. God made them male and female. He made the male, Adam, first and then made the women for the man (1 Cor. 11:8, 9). The woman is the weaker vessel and must look to her husband as being in control of her (1 Pet. 3:7). Peter says the husband must dwell with his wife "according to knowledge." Vincent says, "With an intelligent recognition of the nature of the marriage relation." Peter says "giving honor unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel." Aponemontes is a present active participle and is rendered "giving" in this verse. This word is not used any place else in the New Testament. It is used in the sense of the husbands' dwelling with his wife, and is said to literally mean, "to portion out, and is appropriate to the husband as controlling is to be meated out to the wife." This must be true because of the headship of the man (Eph. 5:23), and the Biblical demand for the wife to submit to her husband (Eph. 5:24, 33). Paul wrote, "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord" (Co. 3:18). The very fact that in this husband/wife relationship there is the divine injunction for the wife to reverence and submit to her husband lies the headship of the husband. That headship is respected by godly wives; but, rebellion obtains in the eases where the wife either disbelieves what the Bible says about this relationship, or she simply flaunts the divine rule and impudently obtrudes on sacred ground where angels fear to tread. In this, she rudely and/or clandestinely arrogates to herself rule for which there is no justification, bringing upon herself dishonor and failure and finally judgment itself. The husband must assume headship.

The lack of respect for God's order of creation has produced the state of irreverence in which we see unisex, sodomy, prostitution and every other sexual vice - as prevalent as in the Hellenistic world. But the godly can change this!

Truth Magazine XXIV: 41, p. 665
October 16, 1980