What Not to Say to Your Wife (Part 3)
"You son of a perverse, rebellious woman!"
I'll give you three guesses who said this line. HINT: It was a father to a son.
If you turn your Bible to 1 Samuel 20:30 you will see this line being yelled out in anger. King Saul was fuming mad at his son Jonathan because Jon had a deep friendship with David. That is the David who was to be king of Israel one day. Saul's jealousy drove him mad, literally. He went coo coo for coco puffs. Crazy.
Saul expected his son to treat biological family ties as more important than righteousness. Pleasing your earthly father is to trump pleasing your Heavenly Father. Well, we still do this today, but that is a subject for another time and place. For now, let me just close out this three part blog series with these words:
Men, never, ever, insult your wife backhandedly while yelling at another person!
The New Living Translation renders Saul's mad fit like this: "You son of a whore!"
Gulp. I can only imagine how icy Saul's bedroom became after that cold, cruel, thoughtless comment. Irony is, he was really only insulting himself. After all, he did choose to marry that "perverse, rebellious woman." The remark spoken in anger said far more about Saul than it did his wife.
The same holds true for our words spoken in anger, my brothers.
"The anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God" (James 1:20).
"And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell . . . no human being can tame the tongue" (James 3:6-8).
Dear Lord, only You can tame our tongues. Please help us, O God. Help us own our angry, unrighteous, hurtful words. Help us confess and repent and seek forgiveness from those our words have bludgeoned. Make us like Jesus. Help us speak words of blessing and inspiration and value over our wives, our children, our friends and church family. For the sake of Christ's Word in and among and through us. Amen.
by Keith McWhorter