The Weekly Perspective
by Burke Shade, Associate Pastor
Continuing last week’s theme..
Doug Wilson subtitled his men’s book Fidelity “What it Means to Be a One-Woman Man.” That’s a great subtitle because it puts the responsibility for faithfulness squarely on the shoulders of men, and rightly so, because men lead, and wives respond to husbands. Men look to their calling out in the land, and wives look to their husbands as his helpmeet (Genesis 2; Proverbs 31). But when men look out into the world to exercise dominion, it is not license to look at other men’s wives. That’s what his book is all about: all the sins and lusts and deviancies that must concretely and purposely be avoided by Christian men as they live and work in the world and lead their wives in purity.
Men are lookers; that’s how God made them. To look for the task, arrange to do it, and then get it done. And in doing so, they will see other women who are loose morally or are beautiful. The loose ones they should detest and thank the Lord their wives are faithful and pure; the beautiful ones they should note as beautiful, praise God they are beautiful, and say a prayer for the husband that has her or will as his wife. There is nothing wrong with noticing truth, goodness, and beauty, even in women by men other than her husband. But that woman’s total beauty is never as deep and lasting as that shared with his wife; she is his own, intimate, and covenantally beautiful woman. He is only intoxicated with her love (Proverbs 5:19). Sons and daughters should see this easily as it emanates from dad.