Recently, I was looking up one of my favorite verses and made an interesting discovery. As you know Ephesians 5:22 says, “Wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord.” I’ve always liked that verse and have not only underlined it and highlighted it in my Bible but I also did the same thing in my wife’s Bible. Anyhow, I like to check that verse once in a while just to make sure it’s still there. I also find it’s good to check in on 1 Timothy 5:23 because of my stomach and my frequent illnesses. Where was I? Oh, right, I discovered that after Paul talks about wives submitting to their husbands, (and I mean to tell you he doesn’t just mention it in passing like “baptizing for the dead” he gives it a whole three verses), he talks about husbands loving their wives. Now, guys we all know what that means right? Nudge, nudge, wink. And you gotta send her flowers, too. And buy her chocolates. And you say she looks nice in that new dress she really likes. You can score big points with those ones.

But being a Biblical scholar, I like to really study a verse in depth before I jump to any conclusions and you know what? Paul doesn’t say anything about flowers and chocolate! He doesn’t even mention taking her fishing. Instead he says we should love her like Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. He says we should love her as we love our own bodies. Actually that one stumped me a little bit since I’m not exactly “in love” with my body. But it seems pretty obvious that he means that we are concerned about it and take care of it. So, I remembered a book I read called The Five Love Languages and it said everybody likes to be loved in different ways. And also everybody expresses their love in different ways. Some people like it when you say nice things to them. Others like a hug. Others like it when you do something nice for them. What’s amazing is that when it comes to expressing love, most men like to do it through physical touch (duh!) and women express their love by doing something nice for you. Now here’s the kicker, if you really want to wow your wife you have to use her love language back on her! I know this is getting pretty deep and intellectual but I’ll try to explain. My wife expresses love through “acts of service” so if I really want her to feel loved I should do what? You got it! Acts of service! Now, this is the really tricky part. How do you find out what you can do for her? I mean, I come home after a long hard day at work and sit in my easy chair and start thinking, “What ‘act of service’ can I do for my wife?” She’s in the kitchen making dinner and banging pots and pans around so much that I can hardly think. So I go out to the utility room, but the washer and dryer are whirring and shaking and there are laundry baskets full of clean clothes all over the place and so it’s hard to think in there too. So then I go out to the garage. What a great place! It’s quiet. And it smells really nice, like motor oil and sawdust. I sit on a stack of snow tires and put my chin on my fist just like that statue. Then it hits me! Why don’t I ask my wife what I can do to help?!? But, men, you all know that this can be tricky. If you just walk up to your wife and say, “Need any help?” She’s liable to just glare at you from behind a large pile of laundry and say something sarcastic. Now, thanks to lengthy and dangerous experimentation, I have discovered the magic phrase to find out what you can do to help her, and thus love her in her “love language.” The magic phrase is “What can I do to help you?” You have to use the phrase word-for-word without omitting any part of it. For one thing, as a woman she is probably unaware that laundry really doesn’t need to be folded. I went for years without folding my laundry and bam! as soon as I’ve got a wife in the house she’s actually sorting things into piles and folding them instead of just leaving them in the laundry basket. So, when you are folding laundry you are doing it for her (that’s why you include the word “you” at the end of the phrase). Another thing is, you have to make this a question, because she assumes that you actually know what you can do to help and are just ignoring it. Well, sometimes that is true, but most times guys just look around and everything looks OK.

But be warned if you’ve never volunteered to help your wife before, this might be a bit of a shock to her system. Make sure she’s not holding any sharp objects in case she faints. There’s something in the “men are from Mars and women are from Venus” book that says that men like to be asked for help whereas women just like to jump right in and do something. All I can say is it’s a good thing that neither of us was from Pluto!

Ever since discovering this magic phrase I have seen a miraculous improvement in relations around the house. Not only is my wife happier and feeling more loved, but I don’t have to sit around like a doofus wondering what I can do to improve my marriage. And another side effect is that the more I use that phrase during the day, the more expressive my wife becomes at using my love language at other times of the day.

Just goes to show you what a helpful book the Bible is. Not everybody agrees on how to apply Ephesians 5:22, but we can all understand and take advantage of the wisdom in Ephesians 5:25.

OK, guys, now go find your wife, look her in the eye and say the magic words, “What can I do to help you?”

Lingamish Lenses:
Bible Study + Bible Translation + New Testament Greek