A Husband’s Call to Love

On this episode of Guys Garage, Chris and Shawn have an honest and practical conversation about what it means to love your wife in a biblical way. Using Ephesians 5:33 as the foundation, they unpack God’s design for marriage and the calling for husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church, with sacrifice, consistency, and humility.

The discussion explores the different expressions of love found in the Greek language, including agape (God’s unconditional love), ludus (playful and romantic love), eros (passionate love), and philia (deep friendship and brotherly love). Each one reveals an important part of healthy marriage and reminds husbands that love is more than a feeling. It is something that must be cultivated intentionally.

Chris and Shawn also challenge the idea that a husband’s role begins and ends with providing and protecting. While those responsibilities matter, wives also need emotional connection, kindness, support, affection, and intentional care. Loving your wife well takes time, energy, and a willingness to serve her in both big and small ways.

True leadership in marriage is not about control or status. It is about reflecting the heart of Christ through servant leadership and daily love in action. When husbands choose to love with intention, marriages grow stronger and God is honored.

This episode encourages men to pursue their wives faithfully, lead with humility, and build marriages rooted in Christlike love.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Welcome back. Welcome to the Love for a Lifetimes Authentic Marriage Podcast. Today you're getting uh Sean and I. Um, Brooke had this idea that she wanted us to talk about Ephesians 5.33, and she wanted Sean and I to talk about the front half, talking about loving our wives, and then uh later in a different podcast, uh Brooke and Lauren are gonna talk about the back half about respecting your husbands. Uh so we're gonna kick it off. Um we want to look at this first. I'm gonna read a few versions uh of Ephesians 5.33. I'm gonna read it um ESV, uh King James, and then the CSV, just to give you a feel. They're similar but slight differences. So first, uh ESV. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. The King James version, uh, nevertheless nevertheless, let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself, and the wife see that she reverence her husband. And then the CSB, to sum up, each one of you is to love his wife as himself, and the wife is to respect her husband. So Sean and I, we're gonna talk about the front half about loving your wife. And that means the first place we have to start here is what is love? What does love mean? Um, and the thing you need to know here is that Paul uh is writing, speaking the Greek here, and he uses the word agape love. And the thing with the Greeks is they actually have multiple words that mean love. So what you gotta have to realize it doesn't mean one of the words they have is um ludos. And ludos is a playful or flirtatious love, kind of early romance love. Uh then you have Eros. Eros is your passionate or erotic love. But then separate from that, you also have philia, which is this idea of brotherly love and camaraderie. But what Paul's talking here about, and the word he uses is agape. So that's the same word agape that we have in the famous 1 Corinthians 13, uh, where it tells us love is uh love is patient, love is kind, love does not envy or boast, it's not arrogant or rude, it does not insist on its own way, and it's not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. The love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. So this love is a much deeper love than we tend to tend to think about a lot.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Um, this is the way God loves. This is the way Jesus loved his church, loves his church.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

And that's where Paul's holding us to the a higher standard here, his husband's he he is, he's holding us to a much higher standard here, this this idea of an uncondition, unconditional or a sacrificial love.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Yeah, and there's there's research that's been done on like the Ludos love, which is the flirtation stuff, and the even the erotic type love, that it wears off in about 14 months from when you meet. And a lot of times that's people's engagement. So by the time they get married, that love is kind of w worn out, you know, and then they have no idea how to get into the agape love.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Yeah, so they got to learn in transition, right? That happens, you know. I can say that over 30 plus years of marriage, is that you know, you your feelings come and go, but you need to make a decision each day that we talk about a decision to love and to love with actions. And that's this agape type love, unconditional love, a love with actions.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Yeah, I love that that you just said it's a decision. You are making a commitment and a decision to love your wife in spite of how you feel, or in spite of how she may be treating you. This is where it becomes sacrificial, um, the way that Jesus loved us. Um Ephesians 5 25 says, Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. That's how we're to love our wives. To completely give ourselves up and be willing to lay down our lives. And sometimes I think it's easier to lay down your life, like in a physical sense of I'll take a bullet for my wife. But is it easy to lay down your desires, your thoughts, your um agenda for your wife? That's where it becomes harder. And I notice you know, a lot of the kids that um that are newly married, they play a lot of video games. And they're not willing to lay these video games down, right? They'll be up till three in the morning playing or whatever, they're not going to bed with their wife at the same time. There's guys that do sports, and all they watch is sports day in, day out. And it's got you've got to be willing to lay those things down. Um it's harder to do that than to take a bullet, I think, at times, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:37

Yeah, that's a that's a good example. In fact, an another one that comes to my mind is Brooke was uh uh reading uh just recently a book. I think it's a Johnny Evans book, and and what he talked about is that he actually needed to let go of some of his friends when he got married. He was he he was the first to get married. He had a bunch of single friends that he ran with. And soon after, or a little while after he got married, he realized he needed to separate from them because the things that they were doing and the things that they were focused on were no longer the things that he needed to do and focus on as a as a loving husband in his marriage. And and and he had to actually said that he actually had to cut ties with some of those friend childhood friendships that he had carried into adulthood.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Yeah, and and wow, and that's a really serious thing that he was able to do. Like that's a big effort and sacrifice because those are the people you grew up with that who know you probably more intimately than your wife does at this point, right? As a newly married couple. So that's a really big step in loving sacrificially.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Yeah. A couple other comments I wanted to make about this this verse is um it starts out, it says, it says, either uh let each one of you, so each one of you, or in the King James, it actually adds in you in particular. So it's like this idea about this isn't a generalized, this is about me specifically. It's about Sean specifically loving Lauren and me specifically, Chris loving Brooke. And it's this idea is that part of what's in there is that I need to know how Brooke feels love. So it's it's not about how I feel love, it's about how she feels love. And that comes to this idea that you know you've kind of talked about is that hey, I gotta put some things down, and I need to understand her uh and how she feels love. Um, the other thing in there is that you've got this instruction, you know, depending on the verse, it says, you know, you is to love, the husband is to love, or must love. So it's not a it's not a recommendation you should try or do your best. It's you will. And it means, quite honestly, what for me, what it means sometimes is you fail and you fall down, it means try again. Get up, try again, get up, try again.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

And those little mistakes that you make are going to build your character, they're gonna build your perseverance, you know, in love if you let them. Um if we don't become defensive when our wives say, Hey, I'm not feeling loved by you, or I'm not feeling what I need to feel, or what I'm desiring in this marriage. And and we as guys tend to get super defensive. Oh yeah, well, I'm providing and I'm I'm uh protecting and I'm doing these things, and that's that's what it takes to be a husband. But you're not getting to the depth in the soul of your wife and just those things. Yes, those are big things, and those are really important things. But I think ultimately getting to know your wife, getting to know your spouse to the degree that um you've touched her soul. You can you can you know just who she is spiritually, who she is with God, what her needs are, what her anxieties are, all of those things, getting to know those makes it so much easier to love her the way she needs to be loved. But that takes intentionality, that takes a lot of investment, that takes time and energy, you know.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

Yeah, let's say you gotta let go of your selfishness sometimes to put that time and that energy in, right? That's yeah, that's part of the challenge we have as uh in our humanly flesh is that all we can be selfish, we can think about ourselves, and it's like oh, I need to set that down. Yeah, and I need to think, okay, wait a minute. I'm doing something here that I would appreciate, but is she gonna appreciate it?

SPEAKER_00 8:06

And is it good for our marriage? Yeah, you know, is it good for our marriage? Now, if you both like to play video games, cool. If you both like to watch football, cool. You know, but if one of you is doing something that is not benefiting the marriage, then really take a look at that and and decide is this something that I'm gonna have to limit, give up completely, you know, and and have those conversations with your spouse. I think that's ultimately the most important thing is to communicate these things. Because and and women, we can't guess what you what how you like to be loved. So you've got to share, you've got to tell us. Tell us your expectations, your desires, those things, so that you know, for most men, we want to meet those. We want to do a good job. Like we've been ingrained to do a good job for you. And so I think sometimes we need help. You know, Lauren has helped me, just even in the five love languages, right? The basic thing that's a very good start. If you haven't done that, it's a great start. Do the five love languages. Um, but you know, once we got into that, Lauren asked me at one point, how can I show you love today? And so we started, I started reciprocating that. And I knew her so in depth because she would tell me daily what was on her heart. I need this, or I need this, or it would really help me if you would clean the toilet. I don't want to clean the toilet, but if it if it helps her in that moment and shows her love, then I'll absolutely clean the toilet. Right? So I think that's what we need to start looking at is how can we serve if that's what if they're at the service, if they love gifts, can we put time into thoughtful gifts, not just some random thing, but a thoughtful gift. Yeah, you know, what brings them joy.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

Yeah, I think that's an important point. That's a great place to start is looking at the love languages, knowing what yours is, but knowing what hers is because they're often different. Yeah, then you've got to focus on hers. Now, the last part of this verse that we're talking about uh is it says, Love his wife as himself, as himself. And we've kind of talked about this a little already. It doesn't mean uh it doesn't mean I'm gonna love her the way I want to be loved. I have to understand her and serve her and love her the way she wants to be loved, but there's a whole lot about this that's about this idea of unity and partnership in the marriage, right? The same as Genesis 2.24, become one flesh. There's this this this continuation of this idea of unity. And I think one of the things I had to learn was where was I focusing on myself, right? Where was I you thinking in terms of my versus our? And and I think one of the things personally I had to learn is that for me, I often thought about my career and my accomplishments uh and and the things I was doing there, and I and it probably was detrimental for our marriage for probably 20 or 25 years, because I often thought about my career, my um accomplishments, and even my reputation. One of the things I carried around was that I had felt I had this reputation of that I was always someone they could count on in difficult times. I would jump in to help, I would change my plans. That means I would change vacations. Our vacations were always tentative. I would we would move them back, push them around. And I did that for a long time, but eventually I had to realize that I was that was a focus on my and not our. Yeah. And that was that was hurting or weakening our marriage because I wasn't putting the priorities correctly.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Well, interestingly, you were doing all these things which are inherently good. Yeah. But you were doing them not for the marriage, but for your career or your thing. Yeah. And think about it if you'd put that energy and effort into the marriage, right? That's what we want to try to convey to people is put that energy and effort into your marriage, um, into knowing one another, into that unity that you're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

Yeah, and it doesn't mean that you it doesn't mean that you can't be, you know, you can't be a a good professional or you can't be a good employee. I I think it was to me, I was doing it to my detriment of I was constantly, or not constantly, but frequently, almost every year, we would reschedule things because of something would come up. Yeah. And I and it's because quite honestly, I had pride in that reputation, and I had to recognize, ooh, wait a minute, pride, that's probably not a good thing. I probably need to reevaluate it.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

Well, we've spoken about pride, and and I think pride comes with a lot of why men don't love their wives very well. We don't want to be the first one to say I'm sorry, or we want to be right, or we want to, you know, we'd rather do those than love well. And I think that so we were talking about what does sacrificial love really mean? Like, what does that mean to put that into action? Loving her when she's not in a good mood, you know, that's hard to do. Um, or sick, or just you know, just not feeling herself when you feel disrespected. So this they're gonna talk about the disrespect side of the things, uh the respect side of things, but men, when we feel disrespected, we will shut down or or fight or get defensive. And so we have to love her even when we feel like she's disrespected us. And I know that you've talked about that sometimes with with Brooke, um, that you've been able to um talk to her and communicate about that a little bit better, which is a really big move. And I think it's helped your marriage.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

Oh, certainly, certainly. Is it's it's learning to use uh patience and peace to say, okay, wait a minute. You know, I'm frustrated. It's okay that I might have that emotion, but I need to kind of kind of figure out how do I soften it and come back to her and say, hey, this you know frustrated me or upset me. Maybe silly might not like seem like much, but at least need to let you know.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

Yeah. Um yeah, and and I think that's a much better way to go than to be frustrated or angry or whatever, right? This that fixes problems and that shows her love. When you're tired, it's hard to love, you know. It's a you know, we get tired and and all the business and all the things you're doing, but you can't let that baggage of your work and all those things not let you love your wife well. So don't come home from work bringing all your work baggage home because you're frustrated with that or because something's happening there that you don't show your wife love. You gotta come home, and now it needs to be about her. And I think that's a really important thing. And then I think when it's not reciprocate, when they're not showing you respect or love, it doesn't really matter because we are to serve and we are to love like Christ loved the church. He loved the people that were nailing him to the cross. Right? He so we don't get to say, well, I'm justified because she's not respecting me. No, we are to love sacrificially, even to the point of death, and that's where men kind of fall off.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

That's that's sacrificially is definitely one we all have to work on and we can get better at. Um I think we're running out of time, but I think one more example I can probably give, just kind of thinking about personally in my life, is that again, trying to love Brooke well is that Brooke likes to work in the yard and garden. I don't particularly like to work in the yard or garden. I used to do that and I and I stopped doing it and realized, well, I actually don't really like this, but she likes to do it. So I want to help her. I want to help to do that. But one of the things I learned or realized recently was that Brooke's also, she likes things organized and neat. And for me, you know, when I would work in the garden, I I my engineering really even neat mind was perfectionist and and it would get frustrating at times when things weren't. Yeah. But for her, it was it was a lot about getting it organized and getting it, you know, getting the bushes trimmed, getting the weeds done, it was getting that completed. So what we actually realized is that she actually liked to do the trimming, but she didn't like to clean up. Um when I did the trimming, I would get, I would just like I would go nuts because it's like, oh, this isn't perfectly sweet. I can't get it perfectly square. And it was and that would frustrate me. So it was like, oh, wait a minute. I let her do the trimming, and it's cleaned up good enough, and then I clean up all the all the trimmings. And because she doesn't like that part, and I'm like, you know what? I can I can brute force that, I can clean up the trimmings. Yeah. But it was a silly thing that that you know took me several years to figure out that when I was doing it, I would get frustrated because I wasn't having square corners. But she was quite happy to do it, get it done, look nice, and then I could come back and clean up the trimmings, and she was happy because she hated cleaning up.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

Well, you're you're helping each other on your weaknesses or the things you don't like, and you're doing it together, which is kind of cool.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

Yeah. Yeah. So it's a maybe a silly example, but it's an example in our life, and and I think it's a hey, it's also one that took us years to figure out.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Yeah. So if you're if you're listening to this, I would just encourage you to look at some of the things that are not benefiting your marriage. Some of the things that, you know, listen to your wife. She's gonna probably be saying things, and maybe not in a nice way, but she's gonna be giving you signals of things that are not what she loves or what she likes. And so we have to instead of getting defensive about those things, start to recognize, okay, what am I doing wrong here? And have a communication about it. Be vulnerable with your wife, you know, and say, hey, I'm not feeling like I'm loving you well. Can you help me to do that? Man, she's gonna love to hear that. And she's gonna probably give you a laundry list and then try to try to knock those things off one by one until um until you're really good at loving her, and then you'll see a change in her step, you'll see a change in how she treats you, you'll see a change in her smile, how she treats the kids. It's just a very different thing, but it takes a lot of intentionality, a lot of time and effort, but it's so worth it.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Yeah, that's that's so great advice. And I could I would just add, hey, keep trying. You might not always get it right. Try, try again, get back up, try again, and do it again. So let me uh let me pray for us, and we'll close out. Dear Lord, we just uh we just thank you so much for your word. Your word here in Ephesians 5.33. Help us to understand uh what it means to love, love our wives with unconditional love, Lord. Love our lives, our wives the way Jesus loved his church, Lord. Let us help understand the things we can do that make them feel loved, Lord, not just the things that we think would make make us feel loved, but what actually would make her feel love. So Lord, fill us, fill us with the wisdom there. Help us to be perceptive and proceed and to watch and to study our wives so that we can love them better and grow our marriages, Lord. And also help us to push down our our selfish nature, the Lord, so we can act on that love. And we just just pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. So I'm Chris and he's Sean. We're uh with Love for a Lifetime and the Authentic Marriage Podcast coming to you from the, I guess, the guy's garage. Uh, we hope you enjoyed this podcast and we'll look like a garage. Does it look like a garage? I think maybe we need to go to a garage next to the garage. So, anyways, we look forward to you joining us next time. Uh we'll see you real soon.