Ephesians_5-25: Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it

Years ago, dear Christian friends of my wife and I explained why they had gotten divorced by writing, “We exhausted our spiritual resources.” It was one of the strangest explanations I had ever heard, especially from two Ph.D.’s and Christian educators who knew very well that God’s spiritual resources are inexhaustible. Apparently, they were unwilling to admit what had really happened and to say, “We quit trying.”

More recently, another close Christian friend, a Ph.D. in New Testament studies no less, and a long-time educator, left his wife for another woman, who herself was seminary trained and a pastor, by saying to his wife, “I haven’t loved you for the last seven years.” What he meant, of course, was that he didn’t have the same kind of feelings he once had for her…