Contentious or quarrelsome husbands are just the same...

From this week's Bible readings:

A continual dripping on a rainy day and a quarrelsome wife are alike; to restrain her is to restrain the wind or to grasp oil in one's right hand. (Proverbs 27:15-16)

If you've ever been around anyone who argues to "show up" a spouse, or to be "clever" while playing the spouse as less than so, or, in order to, by their words, set a group against a wife or a husband, you know exactly what these verses are addressing.

It's serious business. (And like many serious passages of Scripture that use vivid or exaggerated imagery, these verses make their serious point hilariously.)

But more to the point of Proverbs 27:15-16, there's good reason to wonder whether spouses like the ones described here are really married. By that I mean that I wonder how committed to their marriages and to the persons to whom they're married people like this really are.

One reason I wonder is that the eighth commandment, with its proscription against gossip, in Martin Luther's phrasing, calls us to "fear and love God so that we do not betray, slander, lie, or gossip about our neighbors, but defend them, speak well of them, and put the most charitable construction on all they do."

If all of this applies to our neighbors everywhere else in the world--from the person next door to the occupant of the White House--how much more does it apply to married people treat the neighbors with whom they share a bed?

Contentious and quarrelsome spouses, in breaking the eighth commandment with repeated impunity, as I have often observed, also break their marriages in ways that bring misery to Christian spouses who take both the eighth commandment and their marriage vows seriously. "My husband [or, my wife]," they may think, "isn't married. But I am." And so they feel compelled to stay in their non-marriages and make the best of their lives. It's sad and it's brave all at once.

Maybe we pastors would be well advised to use Exodus 20:16, where the eighth commandment appears, along with Proverbs 27:15-16, applying the latter to both quarrelsome wives and husbands, for our next wedding sermons instead of 1 Corinthians 13.

It might catch someone's interest and warn some newlywed husband or wife to seek God's help in refraining from being like incessant dripping on a rainy day, unrestrained in their never-ceasing nastiness.

It might even stop some non-marriages from happening in the first place.

Just a thought.

40-Days to Servanthood: Day 18

Don’t overlook the service of guarding others’ reputations.

A woman once visited a monk in medieval times. He was admired for giving holy, sensible advice. The woman realized, she said, that she had become a terrible gossip, the purveyor of hurtful words. What should she do? The monk told her to go through the village and bag all the goose feathers she found. Then, she should lay a feather at the doorstep of every person about whom she had gossiped. After that, she should return to the monk.

The woman dutifully did what the monk directed her to do and returned to him. The monk said, "That's wonderful. Now go back to each of those doorsteps and collect the goose feathers you left behind. Then, come back here." When the woman returned for yet another visit to the monk, she reported that all the feathers had been blown away by the wind.

"That’s the point, of course," the monk told her. "We can be forgiven the sin of gossiping about others. If you repent for it, God surely will forgive you. Those you have violated may do the same. But no matter whether you are forgiven or not, the damage will have been done. Gossip spreads as though carried aloft by the wind and you can't bring it back."

The eighth commandment tells us, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” In his explanation of it in The Small Catechism, Martin Luther writes, “We are to fear and love God so that we do not betray, slander, or lie about our neighbor, but defend him, speak well of him, and explain his actions in the kindest way.” Refraining from lying about our neighbor is just the beginning of God’s intentions in this commandment. He intends for us to be guardians of others’ reputations.

Servants of the God we know in Jesus Christ look for ways to build up others’ reputations and to help them be understood and appreciated even when we may disagree with them.

Don’t overlook the service of guarding others’ reputations.

Bible Passage to Ponder: “Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show every courtesy to everyone” (Titus 3:1-2).