Introduction

Hebrews 13:4, “Let marriage be held in honor by all.”

Marriage must be honored. Elsewhere in the New Testament, this word for “honor” is translated as precious. So we read of “gold, silver, and precious stone” (1 Cor. 3:12). We read of the “precious blood” of Jesus (1 Pt. 1:19) and the “precious and very great promises” of God (2 Pt. 1:4). Marriage is honored because marriage is precious. Just like you wouldn’t approach the grave of a departed loved one casually, neither should you approach marriage casually. It is worthy of honor. It should be esteemed because it’s holy matrimony.

How do unmarried people who are looking for a spouse hold marriage in honor? It starts with refining their search criteria to the standards of scripture. Young Christians are sometimes counseled to compile a roster of qualities they desire in a spouse and begin beseeching the heavens for a match befitting their catalog. This is an intriguing idea if the list mirrors God’s blueprint and shuns the things celebrated in Hollywood’s latest Rom-Com. Lists of this kind are helpful if the person’s catalog features all the things God has revealed in Scripture. But if the list prioritizes preferences as the immutable creed guiding their pursuit of a mate, then people chase unrealistic expectations like a hallucinating wanderer chasing a phantom in the arid expanse of the desert, forever beyond grasp.

What should a man look for in a wife?

Since wives are supposed to submit to their own husbands (Eph. 5:22), a woman who adores Gloria Steinem should be avoided. And since a husband’s job is to love his wife sacrificially, a man needs to find someone that he can love sacrificially for the rest of his life, even on the days when his dear wife isn’t lovable. This is love, that one lays down his life for another. Loving his wife also means loving her like his own body (Eph. 5:28), which means he is committed to nourishing and cherishing his wife (Eph. 5:29). The woman he marries needs to be someone he can nourish and cherish, even when they get old and wrinkly. And since the expectation is that this marriage will form a household with children, a man should be cautious of prospects who are all about careers and not much interested in children.

What should a woman be working toward in preparation for a husband?

If the husband’s job is to love his wife sacrificially, nourish and cherish her, and lead her like Christ leads the church (Eph. 5:23), then a woman looking for a husband needs to cultivate at least four things.

First, she needs to become the sort of person that a man will love sacrificially. She shouldn’t be devious (Prov. 14:2) or have party-girl friends (Prov. 13:20). She shouldn’t be greedy (Prov. 1:19) or love money more than wisdom (Prov. 3:13-14). She should practice discretion with sensitive information (Prov. 2:11) and develop a strong work ethic (Prov. 26:13-16). She should fight for joy (Prov. 10:28) and humility (Prov. 11:2). In other words, the woman who wants to be loved by a man should aim to be lovely (1 Pt. 3:1-7).

Second, she needs to be the sort of woman that a man can nourish. For a husband to nourish his wife is to take the trouble to give her what she needs to thrive spiritually. So, women should want to be nourished by their husbands and be open to them when they take the trouble.

Third, she needs to be the sort of woman that a man can cherish. If a woman wants to be treated with tenderness and affection, then she should behave in a way that invites her husband to hold her dear. The first sentence of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina is “All happy families resemble one another; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” This mirrors a French proverb that says, “Happy people have no history.” In other words, when life is filled with high drama and cataclysms, the more unhappy life will be. When a woman is filled with histrionics and exaggeration rather than serene patience, the more difficult it is for a man to cherish her (1 Pt. 3:4). It’s one thing when hard providences make life difficult. It’s another thing when it is self-inflicted from within the family. All happy families have the absence of quarreling (Prov. 17:1, 14, 19; 18:19; 19:13; 20:3; 21:9, 19; 22:10; 25:21; 26:20f; 27:15) and women should learn to avoid it. Pleasant words are as the honeycomb, sweetness to the soul, and health to the body (Prov. 16:24).

Fourth, she needs to be the sort of woman who wants to follow her husband. This is part of the role of submission. She is coming under her husband’s mission. She is helping him accomplish his mission. When wives are “submissive to their own husbands” (Titus 2:5), they are following the example of Christ, who willingly submitted himself to the mission of the Heavenly Father. That means she should look for a man who has a mission and willingly submit to it when married.

What should a woman look for in a husband?

Wives are told to respect their husbands (Eph. 5:33) and submit to them (Eph. 5:22-25). These things go together. A wife will never submit to her husband if she doesn’t respect him. If the role of a wife is to respect her husband, what should women be looking for in a man? Respectability. If she respects him, and if her parents and pastor respect him, then that enhances the chances that she can respect him for the rest of her life.

A woman might desire her husband to be a certain height, make a certain amount of money, or take her on dates that resemble some paradise location on The Batchelor. But God’s standard is that she respects him. What is God’s definition of respectability? It starts with the book of Proverbs. A respectable man seeks the council of others (Proverbs 11:14; 12:5, 15; 13:10; 15:22; 19:20; 24:6; 27:9), keeps good company (Proverbs 13:20; 14:7; 16:29; 17:4; 18:24), works hard (Proverbs 6:6, 11; 10:4-5, 26; 12:11, 14, 24, 27; 13:4; 14:23; 15:19; 18:9; 19:15, 24; 20:4, 13; 21:5, 25; 22:13; 24:30-34; 26:13-16; 28:19), pursues knowledge (1:5, 7, 22, 29; 2:1-5; 4:13; 10:13f; 11:9; 18:15; 19:2; 21:11; 23:12; 24:5), and guards his tongue (Proverbs 4:24; 6:12; 8:13; 10:8, 10f, 19-21, 31f; 11:12f; 12:6, 17, 18, 19, 22, 23, 25; 13:3, 11, 22; 14:3, 25; 15:1, 2, 4, 7, 23, 26, 28; 16:13, 21, 23, 24, 27, 2; 17:9, 20, 27, 28; 18:2, 6, 7, 8, 13, 20, 21; 19:1; 20:15, 19; 21:23, 28; 22:4, 12, 18; 23:9, 16; 24:2, 26, 28; 25:9, 11, 12, 15, 23; 26:22f, 28; 28:23; 29:5, 20). A woman can settle for someone who doesn’t meet her ideal height, but she can’t settle for someone who lies (Proverbs 19:5, 9, 28; 20:17; 21:6; 25:18), who is tempted by the prostitute (Proverbs 2:16-19; 5:3-14; 5:20; 6:24-26, 32-34; 7:5-27; 9:13-18; 22:14; 25:27f; 29:3), and who isn’t much interested in growing in righteousness (Proverbs 2:21; 4:18; 8:20; 10:9, 23; 11:3, 30; 16:7; 20:7).

It's not that her future husband has to be perfect. Young men are subject to common frailties, which means they are far from finished products. In the categories given in Proverbs, young men will be rough around the edges. Women must consider men beyond the state in which they find them. What is their trajectory? What is their potential? Are they making preparations (Prov. 24:27) for marriage (Prov. 18:22; Prov. 19:14)? Do they have a teachable spirit (Prov. 9:7f; 10:17; 12:1) and people in their life to teach them the things of God (Prov. 13:10; 18:1; 19:10; 27:9)? Do they respect the Word of God (Ps. 119:9)? If the honest answer to these questions is “Yes,” then the young man’s arrow is pointing up.

What should a man be working toward in preparation for a wife?

If it is the wife’s job to respect her husband, and if she is going to look for someone to respect, what should men be working toward? Respectability. Not respectable in the eyes of the world, but in the eyes of God. The young man looking for a spouse should start being respectable now. That means don’t talk about sports endlessly. Don’t exaggerate beyond the truth. Don’t turn every moment into a joke opportunity. Don’t act like you know everything. Don’t play video games. Don’t look at porn. Don’t jump like Pavlov’s dog every time your phone buzzes. Instead, keep a prayer journal and pray through it regularly. Read your Bible every day and good books in between. Learn to sing hymns with boldness. Abandon your callow youthfulness and find men more mature than you and spend time with them. Then imitate them. Young men must strive with all their souls to be something more than persons who have had fewer advantages than themselves.

Husbands must love their wives sacrificially. Selflessness is a learned habit. Imagine an unmarried man who has spent the better part of his years serving only himself. Are we expecting him to undergo a strange and frightful transformation into a completely new set of self-sacrificing habits when he says, “I do”? Can we expect the accumulated habitudes of selfishness to abruptly transform into noble patterns of sacrificial love? Unmarried men must begin now gallantly pursuing the love of their neighbor.

Loving sacrificially is combined with nourishing and cherishing her. The Apostle Peter provides a model of what this love must entail. After Jesus restored Peter, he announced three evidences of Peter’s love for the Messiah. First, Peter would feed his sheep (John 21:17). Second, Peter would pick up his cross and die to himself (John 21:18-19). Third, Peter would follow Christ. Those same three things are how a husband loves his wife. He will spiritually nourish her, he will be willing to die for her, and he will lead his family by following Christ.

Conclusion

Let marriage be held in honor by all, including those men and women looking for a spouse. The purpose of dating and/or courting is to find out if the other person is marriage material according to God’s revealed standards. When people think about dating, they usually think about romance, which is thought of as a passionate love affair. But the word romance comes from the Old French word romanz, which means a “narrative poem.” So, the real romance is a story of adventure and beauty. That is why the best stories of man and woman meeting and falling in love can’t be disconnected from the future family to come.

The top 40 love song creates unrealistic expectations when it disconnects romance from marriage and marriage from children. The Rom-Com writes an ugly story when it's merely a whirlwind romance that is about my pleasure, my flattery, my getting doted over. The most meaningful experience is never a selfish one. But the kind of love between a husband and wife should beget the love of parents to children. Romance and family are real experiences that find completion when they harmonize the different shades of love.