For the Ladies: Wife

A Threefold Identity: Helper, Lover, Follower

For the woman, the calling of being a wife is so vast, that I will only be able to skim it. My aim here is to simply point out the three main identities of the wife as seen in Scripture. This will simply serve as an overview and is vital to every woman, married or unmarried. For the single woman, not only will this help you prepare for your identities in a possible upcoming marriage, it will also help you speak truth into your married friends’ lives. For the married women, it will act as a foundation to pursue a restored understanding of your calling as wife. As you understand this call according to Scripture, you will be able to lay your heart bare before God, asking Him to transform you into the wife you were created and designed to be.

Following immediately after a woman’s Gospel identity as a follower of Jesus is the woman’s role as wife. A married woman’s most important relationship next to her relationship with God is her relationship with her husband. Her primary human relationship is with her husband; therefore, there is quite a bit of value placed on that relationship. God designed marriage for the husband and wife under the paradigm that they would function as one. Marriages where the husband and wife function as one are inspiring. These marriages challenge us to believe that as we seek transformation in our lives we get to walk into restored marriages that reflect God’s design. There are three identities through which the wife is called to function, and when she functions in those roles as God designed her, she contributes to the potential oneness of her marriage.

Helper

Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him." (Genesis 2:18)

She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life. (Proverbs 31:12)

The wife was designed to first and foremost be the helper to her husband. This role of helper is no small feat. When God looked at the man He created, He commented that it was not good for the man to be alone. He went on to create a helper specifically for the man. The “help” God intended for man was specifically related to the man’s aloneness. God saw that man needed a counterpart in his life to help in the context of his very soul, so that he would not be alone. God saw that men needed help. God’s plan for helping men was designing the husband/wife relationship. Consider the man to whom you are married. He needs your help. This is a profound calling.

Your role as helper is more about your husband’s heart, his soul, and who he really is than it is about just the practical things you do for him. In fact, those practical things actually come into a woman’s calling much later under the title of “homebuilder.” So, for the moment, let’s set the chores and the tasks aside of being a “wife” and simply look at how you are called to help your husband at a soul level.

The word used for “helper” (or “helpmeet”) is ezer kenegdo in Hebrew, which roughly translated means “a companion or counterpart who comes through for you when you desperately need it.”* Do you realize the weight of your role as helper? You were designed and called to be the one who comes through for your husband throughout his life. This concept of “helper” is also seen in other places referring to God when He is desperately needed.* Do not let yourself be deceived into believing that being a “helper” is small or demeaning; rather, embrace the truth that you are needed to come through for your husband as a reflection of how God comes through for us.

You are called to know your husband, to be his companion, to speak truth into his life, and to be there with him through all the life throws his way. How you will do this for your husband will be specific to who he is; therefore, it is vital to get to know him, to ask him how he needs you to help him, to learn his heart. Each husband is different, so how I help my husband may not be how you need to help your husband. You will have to study your own husband and discover how he most needs you to support him, his heart, and how to be there for him in his most desperate times. Do not get caught up in learning all the “right” ways to help your husband according to marriage books or marriage studies; rather, find out how your husband needs you to help him.


Lover

And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. (Genesis 2:25)

Song of Solomon (the whole book)

The second role of the wife as communicated in Scripture is that of a lover. The wife is called to be a lover. I am not sure why we don’t talk about this more. God’s design of sex as a gift for married couples is all throughout Scripture. When looking at the Song of Solomon, the wife is pictured as a highly sensual woman. In Proverbs, God talks about the wife’s body being satisfying to her husband. In contrast, God also warns about the harlot calling out to men and tempting them into sexual perversion. God’s amazing design for sex is for it to be between one husband and one wife. Within that context there is much freedom. In 1 Corinthians 7:5, God talks about married couples maintaining frequent intimacy, abstaining only for a season of agreed upon prayer.

After grasping the freedom and purity of God design of sex for the husband and wife in marriage, the woman can then fully embrace her role as a lover. Her call as lover is for her husband, it is for their marriage, and it aids in their oneness. To broaden your understanding of your identity as lover, set aside some time to read through Song of Solomon. Then spend some time in prayer, reflecting on your relationship with your husband and your identity as his lover. Let God bring to the surface any lies you believe about yourself, your husband, or your sexual relationship. Then ask God to begin to restore and bring renewed life to your sexual relationship, enabling you to embrace your God-given identity as lover.


Follower

…submit to your own husband as to the Lord… (Ephesians 5:22)

…submit in everything to their husbands… (Ephesians 5:24)

…submissive to their own husbands… (Titus 2:5)

…subject to your own husband… (1 Peter 3:1)

The third and final identity in the role of wife is that of “follower.” We hear this often in church teaching as instructions to respect and submit, but we often miss the fullness of this concept. It starts back with the fall of humanity in Genesis as part of the curse on the woman…that her desire will be to rule over he husband. So to live in a restored manner, the woman would release that desire to rule over her husband and instead let him lead her.

We see throughout the New Testament the call for the wife to respect her husband and to submit to her husband. This is more than being respectful and more than just “doing whatever the husband says.” The husband actually feels respect from his wife when his wife trusts him. As the husband and wife live life together, the wife’s call is to trust her husband with her whole life. This is also expressed as submitting to her husband. Submitting to her husband means giving all of herself to her husband. This means that she shares her insights and wisdom with her husband. This means that she submits all of her strengths to her husband for the betterment of his and their life together. This submission is not silence nor is it obedience. It is an active and powerful giving of self from the wife to the husband, with the wife ultimately trusting the husband to lead their life together. She is actively entrusting her insights and strengths to her husband, allowing him to lead them with the benefit and resource of who she is.

It is imperative that the woman understand first her Gospel identity as a follower of Jesus to every truly be able to live well as a follower of her husband. Knowing how to follow Jesus sets the woman up to be able to follow her husband. In her Gospel identity, the woman responds to the love of Jesus for her by giving her whole life to Him. Similarly, the woman responds to her husband by giving all of herself to him. She does not hold back her strengths and gifts and insights, but offers them to her husband to benefit him. She also does not try to step on her husband taking over his role of leading them; she does not use her strengths to put him down and incapacitate him. She instead entrusts herself to him and his leadership.



* From Captivating, by John and Stasi Eldredge (p. 31 - 32).