So, is a husband to "bring up" his wife? Does that mean he should treat her as one of the children? The answer, in a special sense, is yes. But he is not to think of his wife as a child. Nor is he to relate to her as a child. She is his partner. She does not need to be brought to maturity the way a child does. But the Bible is teaching here that a husband is responsible for his wife's ongoing spiritual, mental, and emotional growth. She is in his care, and he is to shepherd her.
Now, we think of nourishment in physical terms. We provide nourishment for someone when we give him healthy food to eat. The word ektrepho carries that same meaning. But Paul expands on the idea. A man should not only nourish his wife by being a provider who makes sure there is healthy food for her to eat, but he should also nourish her soul. For his children, he nourishes them in the discipline and admonition of the Lord. He knows that man does not live by bread alone.
The old Puritan preachers knew this well. They would remind men that failure to provide for the physical needs of their families made them worse than the pagans (see 1 Tm 5:8). But what good does it do, they would ask, if we care for their bodies but neglect their souls? Should we work diligently to satisfy their material and physical needs in this life, and to take no regard for their souls, which will live forever?
Paul reminds husbands that we are quick to satisfy our own need for nourishment. We rarely neglect our own bodies. Our care for our wife's needs should be just as acute. We are to labor to provide nourishment for her body, and we are to strive to provide nourishment for her soul.
Charlie's Sunday morning breakfast quite literally provides his family with nourishment, while it sets the tone for their corporate worship of God later that same morning. While he is meeting his wife's physical need for nourishment, he is also nourishing her emotionally and spiritually by sacrificing for her. Each week, as he takes this one day and frees her from her normal routine, he is honoring her.
But a wife is not only to be nourished; she is also to be cherished. Once again Paul uses a unique word, thalpo. It shows up only one other time in the New Testament, in Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians. There, he reminds his readers that he and his fellow missionaries had "proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares (thalpo) for her own children" (1 Thes 2:7).
A husband, then, is to tenderly care for his wife in the same way that a mother gently and tenderly cares for a new baby. As a father of five, I've had a lot of opportunity to observe the special bond that grows between a mother and her child. After each child was born, I would watch as Mary Ann spent hours caring for our new son or daughter. She could sit for what seemed like forever to me, stroking his hair with her hand, talking to him, reacting to every coo or every facial gesture the baby would make. Even in the middle of the night, when the child had awakened her from a few precious hours of rest, she would gently care for, nurse, and talk to her baby. Her regular routines were interrupted, but it didn't matter. Nothing would get in the way of caring for the new little life in our home.
