Week 1 of 4
Love that will not study her is not the love Peter commanded.
You husbands, in the same way, live with your wives according to knowledge.
1 Peter 3:7
Peter tells husbands to live with their wives kata gnosin, according to knowledge. Not according to assumption. Not according to your mother’s marriage. Not according to a speech you heard. Knowledge means you have paid attention to this woman: how she processes fear, what she hears as contempt, what actually rests her, what you keep misreading as anger. Men will study a route, a craft, a box score, and remain strangers to the person they vowed to know. That is not strength. It is neglect with a confident voice.
Formal study reading, written for this series
Formal study reading, written for this series
Husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.
Dwelling with her is a skill, and the skill is knowledge.
By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; by knowledge the rooms are filled with precious and pleasant riches.
A house is built by wisdom, and wisdom begins by learning.
Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless.
The next verse is for the whole church, and it starts at your table.
NASB, the Amplified, and the ESV open on Bible Hub. The Legacy Standard Bible opens on its own reader. Close, Expanded, and Easy on this page are original study readings. WEB is the World English Bible, public domain.
Gnosis here is not secret information. It is the knowing that comes from paying attention, the way a man knows a road because he has walked it. Peter has just told wives to hope in God in a hard marriage. He does not then tell husbands to enjoy being misunderstood. He tells them to learn her. The weaker-vessel clause, as in the other study, is a call to honor, not a theory of her mind being smaller.
The prayer line is the sanction. God treats a husband’s ignorance, when it is willful, as a spiritual problem. You cannot neglect the joint heir all week and then expect an unhindered audience. Understanding her is not a personality gift some men lack. It is obedience.
Ask questions you cannot answer from memory. What tires you that I call small? When do you feel dismissed? What do you need from me when you are afraid, rather than what I prefer to give? Write what she says. Men remember what they write.
Do not turn the conversation into a defense of your intentions. She is telling you her experience. Knowledge starts by receiving it.
Stays on this device. No account.
Father, I have been quicker to explain myself than to know her. Give me knowledge that is patient and honor that is specific. Do not let me hide laziness behind “I’m not good at this.” Teach me to live with my wife according to knowledge, so that my prayers are not a performance in a house I have not bothered to understand. Amen.
Save a copy of your devotionals and week notes, or put a saved copy back. Nothing leaves this device until you save the file.