Open Door Invitation

You husbands, likewise, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with a weaker vessel, since she is a woman; and grant her honor as a fellow-heir of the grace of life; 1 Peter 3:7

Open Door Invitation

Grant Her Honor – The word for “grant” is aponemontes.  It means “to assign, to bestow or to give”.  All of these terms are expressions of recognition of position.  You cannot grant honor to someone whom you do not hold in the highest regard.  In addition, the biblical idea of granting honor has an interesting twist (doesn’t it always?).   What does it mean, biblically, to grant honor?  Well, we should notice that granting always begins with God.  I cannot grant to you what God has not first given to me, because God is the owner of all and the final authority.  So, giving of honor to my wife begins with God’s perspective on the matter, namely that she is the ‘ezer.

Secondly, granting honor is an expression of recognized exaltation.  We aren’t left in the dark with this one. The word for “honor” is timen.  Peter uses this word when he describes the final revelation of our faith at the return of Christ.  Obviously, this is a word of some importance.  We do not grant honor or assign honor to those whom we consider inferior.  Clearly, Peter has no notion of superior and inferior ranking.  The two words together indicate recognition of proper position – a position that is worthy of honor.  The husband is to deliberately give honor to his wife.  The full range of meanings for timen includes respect, value, dignity and worth.  In the context of Peter’s letter, the Old Testament image of honoring God must have been on the minds of his readers.  Furthermore, such a word would recall the commandment “Honor your father and mother”, an ethical stipulation that carried tremendous weight in ancient cultures.  We are immediately driven to the Hebrew word kaved, the root word in the fifth commandment.

The word picture of kaved is the open hand offered into the door or pathway.  You can imagine someone extending a welcoming hand to you while ushering you into their home.  Honor is an invitation to come in.  When we honor God, we extend an invitation for Him to come into our lives.  When we honor our wives, we invite them in.

Let that sink in a bit.  You don’t honor your wife by putting her on the pedestal, buying her diamond rings or sending her flowers unless those acts are accompanied with an invitation for her to enter into your life.  To honor her is to recognize her place in your world – a place where you let her into every aspect of who you are.  In fact, you dishonor her when you endorse or maintain any agenda, status or hierarchy that does not promote the two of you becoming a single entity – one flesh – before your Maker.  Peter knew exactly what he was talking about.  And it wasn’t about separating husband and wife in some artificial relationship of superior and inferior.  Honor erases all that!  Honor is an open door policy.

Do you, husbands, honor your wives?  Have you really let them in?

Topical Index:  Honor, kaved, grant, timen, aponemontes, wife, marriage, ‘ezer