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Having lived in different areas of this country over the years, I have heard this word love used in many different ways. Women and men alike, remark that they "love" their pastor, especially if they work with him on any type of a basis outside of just hearing him preach, or even sometimes when that is the only relationship they have with him.    Maybe he has helped them through his preaching to such an extent that he has straightened out an area in their lives that was quite a struggle.....or perhaps through counsel in his study he has helped this person and their spouse to a better place in their marriage. There are also cultural differences that exist within this country, where people use the word love more freely than others. Sort of like the way you say, "Oh, I just LOVE peach pie", or "I just LOVE that dress you’re wearing". I doubt very seriously any of you mean you have a deep abiding love such as Christ has for His church, for that dress or that piece of pie.

I do not think Paul would have instructed the older women to teach the younger women to love their hubands if there had not been a problem even in that day and age. The Bible is still God’s word for today, is it not? Then it follows that the principals within it still stand, and are there for our edification and example.   

Many of the New Testament men left the home for years at a time to fight in wars, leaving the women at home to "hold down the fort". What did these women do while the men were away at battle? I believe we see in Bible stories and even in world history that these women had social gatherings of some type on a nearly daily basis. As I stated in the introduction to this site, they were seen gathering at rivers to wash, or collect water. They were together at the market place to buy their daily supplies. They met often in each others homes for what we would call Bible Studies. The book of Acts alone shows us how the early church went about it’s daily business and much of that business was conducted in each others homes, or together at a service for the local church. 

God made men and women different. Women are referred to as "the weaker vessel" (I Peter 3:7), and I have been taught that means not only in physical strength, but in emotional strength as well. Men are strong and manly and if they are anything like my husband, SEEMINGLY void of emotion or feeling. Yet we as women are highly emotional creatures and need to share those emotions with others. I think men POSESS these feelings, they are just not as willing or able to express their feelings, due to the way God made them. Can an unemotional man understand what an emotional woman is trying to get him to understand?

Let me use this as an example from my own life. MANY years ago, I had this discussion with my husband. "Honey, I think my hair is really starting to show the gray, do you think I should color it?" His response, after staring at me in unbelief, was, "I don’t care." Now, we women know that hair color and getting older is a very emotional topic for us. And "I don’t care" is NOT what I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear, "Honey, I can’t see the gray in your hair, I think you are beautiful, why, you look even younger than the day we married, but if you feel like you need to color your hair, go ahead, I think it would look nice." Well, after the cold water response I got from my husband, I mentioned the same subject to a close friend of mine a few days later, a woman close to my same age. Her response was, "Oh honey, don’t you know I have worried about the same thing for a long time now....I thought it was just me, that I was aging quicker than anyone else.....hey, why don’t we go down to the drugstore and buy some hair color, and I’ll do yours, you do mine and if we don’t like it, we can color it back, okay?"

Now which was the emotional response? Of course my female friend, who wanted to empathize and go through this aging process of life together. Did my husband’s response mean he didn’t care, he didn’t love me any more, or he was going to trade me in for a younger model???? NO! But when he FIRST gave me his response, I was hurt. When I spoke to my friend, I was comforted.   

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