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Scripture Reading: Col. 3:18-19; 1 Pet. 3:1-7; Eph. 5:22-23
We have already covered the subject of choosing a mate. That word was for the young brothers and sisters. However, not everyone among us is young. In the future some new believers among us will be married ones. The Bible has clear teachings for those who are married. Some portions of the Word contain teachings for husbands, and some portions contain teachings for wives. Before a person is married, he should do his best to choose someone with the fewest number of weaknesses. However, after a person is married, he or she has to learn to behave in a way that avoids causing problems to the family or the church.
The first thing a married person must realize is that it is a serious matter to be a husband or a wife. Everyone needs a certain amount of preparation before taking a job. For example, a doctor needs five, six, or seven years of training before he can practice medicine. A teacher has to spend a few years in a teaching college before starting to teach. An engineer also needs to spend four years in the university before launching his career. Even a nurse needs to study for three years in preparation for her career. But the interesting thing is that no one spends a day learning how to be a husband or a wife. It is no wonder that there are so many bad husbands and wives. They have never sat down to consider how to be a proper husband or a proper wife. I would be very hesitant and uneasy about asking someone to treat my illness if he had never studied medicine. Likewise, I would be very hesitant and uneasy about using a nurse who had never studied nursing before. I would be fearful and uneasy about hiring a teacher who had never been trained. If I wanted to build a house, I would only want to hire a civil engineer. I would worry and be afraid if he were not a trained civil engineer. Similarly, I have doubts about those who have become husbands or wives without ever being trained.
Our parents never taught us to be husbands or wives. When we grow up, we find a job. When we have the ability to support a family, we find a partner and get married. Please remember that many difficulties arise between the husband and the wife because neither has undergone any preparation. When two persons are drawn into a marriage unprepared and suddenly find themselves husband and wife, how can they expect anything but problems for the family? Everything we do with our life requires training; we dare not jump into anything rashly. We prepare for our work and try to learn something about it before we plunge into it.
We must see that no job is more difficult than the job of being a husband or a wife. All jobs have fixed working hours. This is the only job that takes up all twenty-four hours of the day. Every job has a retirement age except this one. This is a very serious vocation and a very important one.
For now we will put the past behind us. Even though you were not prepared when you became a husband or a wife, you have nevertheless become one. You are already married and have reached this point in your life. Perhaps your looseness in the past has ruined your family. Today you have to see that the family is a very serious matter. You have to go back and learn your lessons all over again. The husbands need to go back to learn how to be husbands, and the wives need to go back to learn how to be wives.
It may not work for a person to try to apply the same earnestness he adopts in his job to his family. The truth, however, is that many people are far more careless toward their family than they are toward their jobs. This invites inevitable failure into their family. We have to pour all of our energy into building our family. We have to be more conscientious with it than with our jobs. If we behave carelessly and do not consider being a husband or a wife a serious occupation, our family will end up with nothing but failure. If we want our family to be a successful family, we have to cherish it as a job and spend time with it. We have to try our best to make it work. This is serious business, and we have to make it work at all costs. Those who are careless about their marriage and have no intention of making it a success will never have a successful marriage.
All married brothers and sisters must learn this lesson. We must spend time before the Lord to deal with this matter in a responsible way. This is a more difficult job than any other job. We need to spend time before the Lord to learn our lesson well. I hope that we will start learning it today.
After a person is married, he should learn to close his eyes so that he does not see. In a marriage two persons live together as husband and wife. They do this day by day, year by year, without any leave of absence or separation. There is plenty of time for each one to find the other person’s weaknesses and faults. You have to learn before the Lord to close your eyes the day you are married. The purpose of a marriage is not to discover the weaknesses in the other party; it is not to discover the other party’s flaws. Your wife is not your student, and your husband is not your disciple. There is no need for you to seek out his faults in order to “help” him. Never look for weaknesses and never try to correct. If you take heed to this warning, your family will be on a firm foundation.
As I mentioned earlier, one has to open his eyes wide to discern and consider all the faults of the other party carefully before entering into a marriage. But after he is married, he should not try to know anything more. From the day he is married, he should forget about trying to understand anything. If he tries to find faults, he can easily find some. However, God has put the two together. They may have the next fifty years together. Each side will have all the opportunities he or she wants to find out the weaknesses of the other party during those fifty years. This is why the first thing to do after being married is to close your eyes to the other person’s faults and weaknesses. You know a great deal already. If you intentionally try to find out more, you will end up with nothing but trouble.
When God puts two persons together as husband and wife, His intention is that there be submission and love between the two. He has no intention for them to discover each other’s faults or to correct each other. God has not made you a teacher or a master. None of the husbands are the teachers of their wives, and none of the wives are the masters of their husbands. No one needs to correct her husband, and no one needs to correct his wife. Whatever type of person you have married, you should expect them to continue in the same way. There is no need to look at the faults and weaknesses of others and try to change them. A motive of trying to change the other party is basically wrong. Those who are married must learn to close their eyes. Learn to love the other party. Do not try to help or correct them.
One must learn to accommodate as well. This is the first lesson one must learn after he is married. No matter how much alike the husband and the wife are, and no matter how compatible their characters are, sooner or later they will discover many differences between them. They will have different opinions, different likes and dislikes, different ideas, and different inclinations. Sooner or later they will discover many differences between them. This is why a person must learn to accommodate the other person as soon as he is married.
What does it mean to accommodate? The meaning of accommodation is to meet someone halfway. We need to take note that it is something mutual. The best thing is for both sides to give in. If it is not possible for both sides to give in, at least one side must try to go halfway. Even if one sees many problems, he should still try to move away from his own position to the other party’s position. It is best to move over completely. But at least one should meet the other halfway. In other words, after two people are married, both must learn to change at least half of everything they do. It is best to change completely. But at least they should change half of what they do. Always go out of your way to meet the other party. To accommodate means to not insist on one’s own view and to be willing to drop one’s ideas. A person may have a certain view, but he compromises his view for the other’s sake.
If a young couple would learn to accommodate each other during the first five years of their marriage life, they would have a peaceful and happy family after these five years. Accommodation means one side goes halfway and the other side also goes halfway. It means one side moves halfway across and the other side also moves halfway across. The husband gives in to the wife, and the wife gives in to the husband. If neither party knows the meaning of this during the first five years of their marriage life, it will be difficult for the family to go on harmoniously. Marriage is not a simple matter. In order to have a good marriage, one must put much effort into it to make it good.
Accommodating others means sympathizing with the other person’s limitations. Some people are very sensitive to sound. Others are very afraid of silence. Some cannot stand noise, while others cannot live without noise and excitement. That is why you have to learn to accommodate. If one person likes to be quiet and the other person lowers his voice for this one’s sake, both have gone halfway, and there is accommodation. Suppose one is extremely clean, while the other is extremely lazy. If the lazy one has to go along with the clean one all the way, he will throw down his pillows and clothes and sing for joy when his wife leaves for her parents. On the other hand, if the tidy wife always has to go along with the lazy one, she will want to move back to her parents’ home when she cannot put up with the mess.
As Christians we should learn to deny ourselves. Self-denial makes one an accommodating person. Both the husband and the wife have to learn to accommodate each other. In this way the family will have peace, even if they do not yet have happiness. If there is self-denial in the family, there will surely be accommodation in the family. If there is no self-denial in the family, no one will be accommodating.
Accommodation is needed not only in a few things or a dozen things but even in hundreds and thousands of things. We cannot expect anything less. This is the discipline God gives to us in the family. Because we have to accommodate others in the family, we are disciplined through the family. This is the way we learn discipline. We must learn to put our views aside and accept the views of others. We must learn to accommodate.
Once we are married, we have to learn to appreciate each other’s virtues. In a family we need to learn to close our eyes to each other’s faults and accommodate each other on the one hand, and we need to learn to appreciate each other’s virtues on the other hand. This means that when the other person does something good, we must be sensitive to it. If a husband does not know how to appreciate his wife or vice versa, he or she opens up a big gap in the family. This does not mean that the husband has to flatter the wife or that the wife has to do something special to please the husband. It means that both must learn to appreciate the other person’s virtues, goodness, and beauty.
I know a brother who is taking responsibility in a local church. All the brothers and sisters in that locality think that he is a very good brother. But if you ask his wife about him, she will tell you that he is hopeless. The sister constantly criticizes her husband, saying that he is not qualified to be a responsible brother. In that local church, all the brothers and sisters are submissive, with one exception — his wife. You will find that this kind of family will not go on well.
We also know of cases involving the opposite circumstance, in which everyone says that a certain sister is very good, but her husband does not. One year I was in Peking talking to a few people. Everyone there spoke highly of a certain sister. Halfway through the conversation, her husband came in. As the conversation about the sister went on, her husband remained silent. He seemed to be saying, “You do not know her. I have married the wrong person.” The thought that one has married the wrong person has destroyed many families.
A husband must not be behind others in his appreciation of his wife. He may not need to excel above others in his appreciation, but he must not be behind others. You are not a proper spouse if your level of appreciation is less than that of others. If you feel that your husband is wrong, why did you marry him in the first place? This proves that you were firstly wrong. In order to have a good family, the husband must know how to appreciate the wife, and the wife must know how to appreciate the husband. One must not say something bad while others are saying something good about his or her spouse. You must discover his or her virtues. You must be sensitive to his or her merits. Whenever the opportunity arises, you must publicly acknowledge his or her virtues and speak your feelings. You are not telling lies. You are telling facts. When you appreciate your husband or your wife, your family will become more united, and your relationship more solid. If you do not do this, you will bring many problems to the family. Many misunderstandings and problems in the family arise as a result of neglecting this matter.
In England, a sister once married a brother, but the brother never said anything good about her all her life. This sister was always worried, saying, “I have failed as a wife. I have failed as a Christian.” She worried so much that she contracted tuberculosis and later died. Before she died, her husband said to her, “If you die, I do not know what I will do because you have done so much for me. If you pass away, what will happen to our family?” The wife asked, “Why did you not say this earlier?” Then she went on, “I have always felt that I was not good, and I rebuked myself for it. You have never once said that I was good. I was sad and worried and always thought that I was wrong. That is why I became sick and am about to die.” This is a true story. The husband told her how he felt only on her deathbed. Please remember that there is always a place in the family for kind words. We should learn to speak more kind words. We should learn to appreciate our wives and our husbands.
I know of some brothers who do not do well because their wives never appreciate them. The wives always think that their husbands are useless. They say to their husbands, “Among all the brothers, you are the only useless one.” These brothers become self-condemning. They say, “I cannot do anything. My wife says that I am no good. The person who knows me the most says that I am no good.” As a result, they actually turn out to be no good. Whether or not one has a happy family life depends not only on closing our eyes to the others’ weaknesses, but also on finding out the other party’s virtues and appreciating them. Sometimes we have to tell the other party about it or acknowledge it in public. If we do this, many problems in the family will disappear.
One also must exercise politeness in the family. It is repugnant for anyone to be impolite to others. You should treat everyone politely, no matter who he or she may be. No matter how familiar you are with a friend, you should never give up your manners. As soon as you give them up, you will lose him. No matter how close you are to others, you will lose them the moment you give up your manners. In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul told us that love does not behave unbecomingly. Love does not allow anyone to give up his manners. Please remember that problems at home often arise because of small matters. It is often at home that a person behaves with unbecoming manners. Most people think that they can throw away their manners because their wife or husband is so familiar to them. Please remember that the joy and pleasure of human relationships have much to do with manners. As soon as you throw away proper manners, the ugly side of human nature will surface. No matter how familiar people are with one another, they must maintain proper manners between them. A brother put it aptly once when he said that manners are like the lubricating oil in a machine. The machine will run smoothly only with the lubricating oil. When two persons are together and manners are lacking, friction will arise and uncomfortable feelings will breed.
In the home, we have to learn to always say, “Thank you” and “I am sorry.” We should take care of polite words such as thank you, may I, I am sorry, and please. If you do not know how to use these words, you cannot even make friends, let alone succeed at home. Christians must remember that love does not behave unbecomingly. You must learn to say, “I am sorry,” “Thank you,” and “May I” at home. Learn to speak polite words in the family.
In the family not only must our words be proper and polite, but even the way we dress has to be proper and tidy. Everyone wants to dress properly in front of their friends. But one should dress properly in his family as well. You must dress neatly and be proper with your clothing. Love does not behave unbecomingly. Do not be loose through familiarity. Once you become familiar, you become loose, and it is easy to act impolitely. Familiarity breeds disrespect and contempt. Husbands and wives are already very familiar with each other. If propriety is absent, more familiarity will breed. Therefore, be proper in the way you dress yourselves. Do not save your sloppy dress for wearing at home.
One must also be proper in his conduct. Whenever one serves something, it is best to serve it on a plate and to offer it to others with both hands. If he has only one hand to spare, he should still be proper in his attitude. When he passes a knife to others, he should avoid pointing the sharp end at others. When he passes a pair of scissors to others, he should avoid giving the others the pointed end. When he serves others something, he should present it properly and not throw it at them. We have to pay particular attention to these little gestures around the house. The difference between throwing something at others and handing it to them is only three seconds. But what a great difference it makes! Therefore, learn to have manners.
I cannot say that I have known many families, but I cannot say that I have known few either. When a person is discreet at home, his family will have less problems. I have observed that when a husband and wife are polite to each other, there is more peace and less noise from the plates and chopsticks. Where manners are wanting and things are thrown around, the family is full of friction. If a husband and wife are polite to each other at home, they will at least be able to maintain a peaceful family.
I believe that if many wives treated their friends the way they behaved in their family, no one would want to come to their houses. I also believe that if many husbands treated their colleagues the way they behaved at home, none of their colleagues would want to work with them. I want to tell the brothers that their wives have been very tolerant with them. They have tolerated what no colleagues would tolerate. I also want to tell the wives that their husbands have been very tolerant with them. If they treated their best friends the same way, their friends would desert them. Being impolite is an expression of crudeness. No Christian may be crude. A person who has learned the proper lessons will never be an impolite person.
There is another factor crucial to our manner — our voice. We may say similar things, but the way we say it may be different. Our tone can be different. When a boss speaks to his subordinates, he has one kind of tone. When friends speak to friends, they have another kind of tone. When people are in love, there is love in their tone of voice. When a person hates, there is hatred in his tone of voice. The problem with most people today is that they have exhausted their nice tone of voice before they get home. When they come home they have only an ugly tone of voice left. We are polite to our colleagues in the office, we are tolerant of the patients in the hospital, and we speak carefully to students in the school. But we speak bluntly when we are at home. If you spoke in the office with the tone of voice you have at home, you would be chased out of your office in two days. Many people have a very crude tone of voice at home. They use the crudest language in their homes. It is no wonder that they cannot maintain a proper family life.
We must see that the family will not be peaceful as long as the tone of voice is wrong. Any tone of voice that is improper, strong, harsh, or proud must not be allowed in the family. Any tone of voice that is self-pitying, self-loving, or that gives the impression of a self-pronounced martyr must not be found in the family. If you speak in other places with the tone of voice that you use at home, you will ruin your career. Yet you allow such a tone of voice to remain in the family. It is no wonder that you are experiencing trouble at home. Therefore, we need to learn to be polite. Love does not behave unbecomingly, even in one’s tone of voice. Do not speak loosely. If one is careless with his tone of voice in the family, his family will not go on well.
In order for a family to go on well, love must grow. One must not allow love to die. Often young people ask, “Is it possible for love to die?” I will answer today, “Yes, love can die, and it dies easily.” Love is like anything organic; it needs feeding, and it needs food. Love dies without food. If you starve it, it will die. But if you feed it, it will grow.
Love is the foundation of a marriage. It is also the foundation of the family. Love leads two people into marriage, and it keeps them together in the family. Love grows easily if you feed it properly. However, it dies easily if you starve it. Many people love each other before they are married, and so they marry one another. But after they are married, they begin to starve their love, and their love gradually dies.
Marriage without love is a painful thing. A family that is without love is an even more painful thing. If a family is without love, it may not feel the pain of it now. It may not feel anything before the couple reaches middle age. But when they become old, you will find that something is wrong with this family; it is too cold! The difference between a family that has love and one that has no love is very great. Learn to feed your family with love before you reach middle age. Try your best to feed it and nourish it. If you do this, your home will be full of love.
Another point which needs much attention: Every married person should find out the things that the other person is most afraid of. Do not indulge in your own carefree lifestyle. Every person has something which he or she hates or fears the most. This hatred and fear may be related to a moral weakness. Husbands and wives must learn to accommodate each other and learn to adjust themselves in this case. One person may fear and abhor something that is not at all related to a moral weakness. In this case the other party should learn to compromise completely.
Let me give one or two examples. A few years ago I read a story about a husband in America who sued his wife for abuse. This story may sound funny, but it is also scary. This husband could not stand monotonous sounds. He simply could not tolerate them. Originally, he and his wife were deeply in love, but the marriage came to a crisis after two years. His wife loved to knit, but he could not bear the sound of it. For the first year or two, he tried to tolerate it. But gradually it became worse. By the seventh year, he could no longer tolerate it, and he sued her for mental abuse. The judge declared that it was not a crime to knit and did not grant them the divorce. The husband told the judge, “Before I was married, she was like a lamb to me and I loved her. After a year of marriage, I found out that she was addicted to knitting. Each time she completed a piece, she would take it apart and knit it back all over again. She just loves to knit. Today I cannot bear the sight of any woolen yarn. I cannot even bear the sight of a lamb; as soon as I see one I try to kill it. If you do not grant me the divorce, do not blame me for killing someone else’s lamb.” Do you see the problem here? It is a real problem. His wife felt that there was nothing wrong with her knitting, but her husband hated knitting so much that he was driven to kill any lamb that he saw.
Please remember that everyone has things that he does not like and things that he fears. These things may have nothing to do with morality. A person may hate monotonous sounds; this is his peculiarity. Everyone has his own peculiarity, which has nothing to do with morality. For any family to be successful, the husband and the wife must never do anything which the other party considers obnoxious, even though he or she may not have the same feeling about it. If you do something which the other party cannot stand, yet have no feeling about it, you will end up having problems in your family.
In Shanghai I had many occasions to talk to families. During my travels, I also talked to many families. The things that a family fights over are often very small matters. To outsiders and friends, they may be small matters. But when these so-called small matters happen with such frequency that it exhausts a person’s patience, major problems occur in the family.
We must realize before God that it is a very delicate thing for two persons to live together. This is not an easy task. Never think that we can be loose in this. What you consider inconsequential may be intolerable to the other party. You will be mentally torturing the other party if you do what he or she cannot stand.
There is another consideration which is very important for the family: One must not be selfish. If you are married, you must live like a married person. You should not live like a bachelor. First Corinthians 7 says that a person marries to please the other person (vv. 33-34). Selfishness is probably one of the chief causes of family problems.
I remember a pastor in America who conducted the marriage of more than 750 couples during his lifetime. In every wedding he would advise the newlyweds to take note of one thing — not to be selfish. After they were married, they had to love each other and not be selfish. When the pastor was old, he wrote to all the couples asking how they were doing. All of them replied that they were able to have a happy family life because they took his advice about not being selfish. This is very unusual in America. At least twenty-five percent of American marriages end up in divorce today. But these seven hundred or more couples had lived happily with each other.
We must see that selfishness is a big problem. We must learn to feel what the other person feels. We must learn to feel his pain, his joy, his dislikes, his problems, and his inclinations. A person cannot be a good husband or a good wife if he or she is subjective. Those who are subjective are selfish. In fact, self-love is the most subjective thing.
A basic condition for marriage is self-sacrifice. Sacrifice means learning to please the other person. If you want to please the other person, you must be objective, not subjective. It is not a matter of your likes and dislikes, but of the other party’s likes and dislikes. Learn to discover what the other party likes. Learn to understand him and his views. Learn to stand on his side, and learn to understand him and yourself from his perspective. Learn to sacrifice your own feelings, your own opinions, and your own views as much as possible. Try to understand and know the other side. Pursue self-sacrifice and love. If you do this, you will have fewer problems in the family.
Many married men think that they are the center of the universe. They think that the whole universe revolves around them. When they marry a girl, they receive her into the family for their own welfare and benefit. Those who think this way surely bring problems to their family. A wife may also think that she is the center of the universe and that everyone exists for her sake. She may think that everyone is for her happiness, and that when she found a husband, she actually found a slave. For her, everyone else is peripheral and she is the center. She marries a husband only for the purpose of achieving her goal. Such a marriage will surely fail. It serves nothing but self-interest. Brothers and sisters, your family will have problems unless you pay attention to this matter.
In a home, you must allow the other person to have a certain amount of freedom and confidentiality. You must also allow the other person to keep his or her private possessions.
In many homes wives do not have any rights. In other homes husbands do not have any rights. These kind of families are bound to have problems. You may be a husband or a wife, but bear in mind one thing: Anybody in the world can be loved except one type of person — a jailer. No one can love a jailer, a prison warden, or someone who imprisons him. No one can love those who take away his freedom. Many husbands are like prison wardens to their wives. For them to expect their wives to love them is like expecting a prisoner to love the prison warden; nothing can be more impossible than this. They hope for the impossible. Many wives are prison wardens to their husbands. They are asking the impossible when they want their husbands to love them. Prison wardens are objects of fear, not objects of love. You can never completely take away a person’s own freedom. Although marriage does take away a man or a woman’s freedom, not all freedom should be sacrificed. The husband does not have to give up all his freedom to the wife, nor does the wife have to give up all her freedom to her husband. If you expect your wife to give up all her freedom to you, this is the same as saying that you want her to fear or hate you.
No one likes to lose all of his freedom; this is human nature. Even God gives us freedom. The biggest proof of this is that there are no fences around hell. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was not surrounded by the fiery sword of the cherubim from the beginning. If God did not want man to have any freedom, He would have surrounded the tree of the knowledge of good and evil with the fiery sword of the cherubim in the first place, and Adam and Eve would not have eaten the fruit. But God does not infringe upon man’s freedom. For this reason, every husband should leave room for the wife, and every wife also should leave room for the husband. If you take away all freedom and make all the decisions, it is only natural that the other party will fear you. If you are not careful, the other party may go further; he or she may hate you. As soon as freedom is gone, hatred comes in. At the minimum, fear will come in.
The husband must learn to give the wife some freedom, and the wife must learn to give the husband some freedom. Allow the other party to have his own time, his own money, and his own possessions. Do not think that you can borrow your wife’s time for your use just because you are her husband. Both the husband and the wife have to learn to keep their place. When you waste your wife’s time, you are taking away her freedom. Small matters can become serious problems later.
Every husband and wife should have his or her own secrets. This is a legitimate thing. The right hand does not need to know what the left hand does. If he is the left hand, it is not necessary for you as the right hand to know what he is doing. Learn to respect individuality. Do not make two persons one. If you keep this rule, you will avoid many problems in the family.
What should we do when there are disputes between the husband and the wife? How do we solve family disputes? It is inevitable for husbands and wives to encounter problems and enter into arguments. However, since both are adults and are children of God, they must learn to know what the other person’s problem is, and where they differ. Before they can solve any disputes, they must know where the problem lies.
Any settlement must be fair. If it is not fair, it will not last. Do not expect one party to endure to the end. One out of ten Christians may endure to the end. But the other nine will not able to endure to the end. If a solution is not fair, sooner or later the problem will come back again. When I was in Shanghai, I arbitrated in some family disputes. Many people wondered why tiny matters could be blown up to such a big scale. You must realize that when small matters are blown up, they are not blown up because of the matters themselves but because of history. It is the accumulation of a series of things that leads to the explosion. The explosion may be ignited by small matters, but the underlying cause may have been an accumulation of grudges over the years. Do not consider any matter to be trivial. Problems surface today because they were not dealt with in a fair way in the first place, and patience ran out in the meantime.
It is best for outsiders to stay out of family disputes. Let the couple hold their own conference. Let them settle their own disputes when they get into an argument. Do not allow news to leak out of the family, while the family itself is left in the dark. Sometimes, news regarding the husband is heard twenty miles away and yet he does not know about it himself. Sometimes news about the wife travels the same way. Let the wife tell her own husband about their own affairs, and let the husband tell his own wife about their affairs. In this way both are clear. Our experience tells us that husbands seldom know what their wives are thinking about and vice versa. Everyone else knows what they are thinking about, but they themselves do not know what each other is thinking about. Therefore, allow both to have the opportunity to speak to each other, and each should wait for the other to finish before he or she speaks. Do not allow the talkative side to dominate the talk. The husband must listen to the wife, and the wife must listen to the husband.
Many times, problems are solved as soon as the husband hears a word from the mouth of his wife, or the wife hears a word from the mouth of her husband. Many wives will only speak but will not listen to their husbands. If they would just listen, their problems would go away.
Both husband and wife should sit down and discuss the matter in an objective way, not in a subjective way. Once they become subjective, the discussion will fall apart. While they are talking, they should try to find the right judgment and the right feeling. They may not know who is right, but they should try to find out what is right. They should try to understand what each one is saying. Both must do this objectively, not subjectively. Both should speak, and after speaking, they should pray together. Always seek settlement through prayer. Ask the Lord to clearly show them where the problem lies. If they can follow this advice, the problem will be more or less settled by the time they pray together a second time. Many problems arise because they have not sat down to listen to each other and to listen objectively. As soon as they sit down and listen objectively, half of the problem is solved. As they sit and listen some more, they will discover where the problem lies.
During the first few years of a marriage life, a family should have this type of meeting two or three times a year. Each side will then learn where problems lie and how to deal with them. Many families need to learn this lesson. It will surely solve many problems within the family.
Between the two persons in the family, there must be confession and forgiveness. Many mistakes need to be confessed, not just ignored. Do not be careless about your own faults; you must always confess them. As for the faults of the other party, you must forgive them.
When a Christian does something wrong, the basic principle is to not cover it up. It is not enough to just repent for it. When a Christian does something wrong, the basic principle is to confess. A Christian does not cover up or turn away from a sin; this is not enough to be called a Christian. When a Christian does something wrong, he must confess and say, “I was wrong in this.” Every wrong must be confessed. Whenever there is any wrong between the husband and wife, there must be confession. One must acknowledge, “I have done wrong.”
You confess when you are wrong. But what happens when the other person is wrong? You have to treat it the same way that you treat all Christian relationships. When there is any wrongdoing, learn to forgive. Do not delve into the matter and do not be vindictive. Love does not take account of evil. This means that it does not remember the sins of others. Learn to forgive them before the Lord. Once you forgive, you should forget. You have to lay aside what you have forgiven. Do not be like Peter, who tried to count the number of times others offended him (Matt. 18:21-22). As long as you are counting, you are not forgiving. Real forgiveness does not count the number of times one forgives. As soon as you forgive, the matter is over. In order for a family to go on, there must be forgiveness.
When a family has a problem, it must try to solve it first by calling a family meeting. In some cases one should forgive. In other cases one should confess. It is difficult for a third party to settle disputes within a family. The disputes between two persons are most easily solved between themselves. When a third party is involved, the situation becomes complicated. We should try to settle any dispute in as simple a way as possible. Do not look for complicated solutions. Referring a dispute to a third party is like adding mud to an injured leg. An injured leg without any mud is easily treated. But when mud is added, it is hard to deal with the wound. Disputes between two persons are more easily solved when a third party is not involved. As soon as a third party is informed, the problem is complicated. Therefore, a couple should learn to solve their own problems and should not try to inform a third party about it.
However, sometimes one needs to refer a certain matter to the church. Please remember that a person should not bring the matter to the church alone. The husband must seek the consent of the wife and vice versa before they can bring their dispute to the church. The two persons must have exhausted their means of handling the situation, and they now want the church to step in to help them. They should not come with their quarrels, but as those who are seeking help from the church. Both must come, and both must speak. Suppose both are willing to come to the church and say, “We are Christians. There is something between us. We would like the church to point out what is wrong.” One will tell the church how he feels, and the other will tell the church how she feels as well. When both do this, it is easy for the church to step in to solve the problem. This is not an occasion for vindication. It is not the time for each person to expose the other’s faults. Neither is it a time to get into a brawl. The purpose of telling the church is for both parties to sincerely discover where the problem lies.
In order to settle family problems and to have a good family life, there is also the need of positive influence. In particular, families with children should set aside a time for prayer together, a time for waiting upon the Lord and for fellowshipping about spiritual matters. Both the wife and the husband should be open to judgment from God’s light concerning many matters. Neither the husband nor the wife should try to save his or her “face.” Both should be willing to come under the judgment of God’s light. There should be many spiritual transactions in the family. The members of the family should spend much time in prayer and spiritual fellowship together. This is especially true for families with children. They must seek opportunities to come more often to the Lord. In order for a family to go on properly, the husband and the wife should both live before the Lord. As soon as they do not live before the Lord, their family will have problems.
I have mentioned twelve items. I hope that you will learn these lessons in the family. Do not be careless or foolish in these matters. If you do not learn your lessons well, family problems will soon become church problems. If a man cannot live together with his wife at home and cannot be one with her, he can never be one with the brothers and sisters in the church. This is a fact. A person cannot possibly fight at home with his wife and come to the church with hallelujahs in his mouth. One can only be a good brother in the church when he is a good husband and father at home. A good church life is maintained through good families. The husbands have to be good and the wives also have to be good. Then the church life will be free of problems.
