(Audio/Video and Text Available)
Title: Objecting to the Premise/Embracing the Promise
Intro:
When preparing a sermon, I often think of you…I try to put myself in your shoes, hearing these messages Sunday after Sunday, knowing most of you well, and what I try to do is anticipate objections or reactions to some of the conclusions or applications we come to in the flow of the text.
This is not a novel concept, all good orators, preachers, public speakers, do this regularly.
Most of the time, when I think of these potential objections, I try to weave my counter-points into the conclusion of the message, but today I want to address that up front, so that it does not become a distraction in the course of the message.
So let’s read our text today, and then I’ll elaborate as to this objection.
Because the issue is such a blight to our society, we are going to deal exclusively with this objection up front today, and then next Sunday we will move into the proper application of the text as it was intended.
(read/pray)
28 So husbands also ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; 29 for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, 30 because we are parts of His body.
Now, can anyone, after reading this passage, guess what the objection might be to this line of thinking? (Especially when we take today’s American culture into account?)
Is there a way the secular world might read this and say: I disagree with the presumptions Paul is making as he presents his argument here?
“For no one every hated his own flesh…”
Two ways this is not true in American society today:
Physiologically:
We have such a ridiculous ideal of what we should look like, how skinny we should be, what our skin should look like, that we often fall into despair and hate our own bodies.
See: Instagram filters
From Mental Health Foundation (UK)
One in five adults (20%) felt shame, just over one third (34%) felt down or low, and 19% felt disgusted because of their body image in the last year.
Among teenagers, 37% felt upset, and 31% felt ashamed in relation to their body image.
Just over one third of adults said they had ever felt anxious (34%) or depressed (35%) because of their body image.
One in eight (13%) adults experienced suicidal thoughts or feelings because of concerns about their body image.
Just over one in five adults (21%) said images used in advertising had caused them to worry about their body image.
Just over one in five adults (22%) and 40% of teenagers said images on social media caused them to worry about their body image.
Physically:
In some cases this can actually lead to self harm, especially amongst teens. The pressure of the world has made them feel numb, and the pain of self harm makes them feel something.
One analysis of self-injury across more than 40 countries found that:
About 17% of all people will self-harm during their lifetime
The average age of the first incident of self-harm is 13
45% of people use cutting as their method of self-injury
About 50% of people seek help for their self-harm but only from friends instead of professionals
-The Village Recovery
PB’s Response to this Objection:
The Premise that Paul is arguing with is presuming the natural state of human kind. Not the perversion of self hate that we deal with today.
In other words, what Paul is saying is this: “It is not NATURAL for a person to hate their own flesh. It is natural for us to preserve, care for, and protect ourselves. That is the basis of every human instinct we have, as we were naturally created.
(The same logic can be applied to argue against homosexuality.)
Why should husbands love their wives as their own body?
Why does one who love his wife love himself?
BECAUSE they are ONE flesh. (more on this in coming weeks…)
Teasers/Conclusions:
The wife being made one with her husband (not in a natural, but in a civil and in a relative sense), this is an argument why he should love her with as cordial and as ardent an affection as that which he loves himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, v. 29
-Matthew Henry
“The Apostle puts it in this form in order that a husband may see that he cannot detach himself from his wife. You cannot detach yourself from your body, so you cannot detach yourself from your wife. She is a part of you, says the Apostle, so remember that always.”
-Martin Lloyd-Jones
“The husband must realize that his wife is a part of himself. He will not feel this instinctively; he has to be taught it; and the Bible in all its parts teaches it. In other words, the husband must understand that he and his wife are not two: they are one.” -Martin Lloyd-Jones
This means for that success in the marriage relationship, we must think and understand. The world relies upon overly romantic ideas about love and upon feelings to make marriage work, and never really makes a person think and understand about marriage.
-Dave Guzik
Ultimate Conclusion:
You are the one who is going to benefit from your showing your love to your wife.
-Chuck Smith
Pray/QA