THE HOME SERIES 1 – THE DUTIES OF THE MAN

I must first apologize for been offline for the past two weeks as I was involved in our National Easter Leadership Conference which took place from 2^nd to 5^th of April, 2015 and shortly afterwards had to travel for the burial ceremony of the Late mother of my father in the Lord Dr. James Iruobe. These two events left me with no time at all to attend to any form of constructive writing.

Now that I am back on the block, I will like us to examine the duties of the man in the home. In doing this we shall be examining what God’s original intention was of the man vis-à-vis his relationship to his wife and the home.

Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. ¹⁶ The LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; ¹⁷ but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die."
¹⁸ Then the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him." ¹⁹ Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. ²⁰ The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. ²¹ So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. ²² The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. ²³ The man said,
"This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man." ²⁴ For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. ²⁵ And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.  Gen 2:15-25 (NASB)

The first thing we see is that God gave man a job first to do before he provided him with a wife. That is to say that the man is expected under divine order and arrangement to be the PROVIDER for his home. Anything outside this is an anomaly and an aberration from God’s perspective. Therefore, all the clamour for equality in the home falls flat against the backdrop that God made the man busy before making the woman as his helper. If any woman finds herself in the role of the provider she is actually helping out rather than fulfilling a primary responsibility. In a nut shell the primary responsibility of a man in the home is to be the provider. 

Unfortunately, the economic realities sometimes makes it practically impossible for the man to play this role but truth be told, it does not in any way absolve him of that responsibility. As the saying goes in Management Sciences “You can delegate authority but you cannot delegate responsibility”.

It is the responsibility of the man to be the bread winner and when a man shirks this responsibility Paul say he is worse than an infidel (unbeliever). 

 But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. 1 Tim 5:8 (NASB)

Man was essentially created to work and many men find their essence in their work. Women must realize that to attempt to fight your husband because he is a workaholic is to fight a lost battle ab-initio. Men by nature are workaholic! Imagine God asking Adam to name all the animals that exist and he did so – the share enormity of the task will take only a workaholic to achieve. 

It is also interesting to note that while the man was busy he did not realize his need for a helper until God intervened. What this tells us is that many men tend naturally to neglect even their homes when they are engrossed in their jobs. While I am not endorsing this habit, I am trying to point out this reality that it would appear that most men tend to “value” their jobs more than their homes. 

The wife most understand this reality and rather than pick issues she should try to help the man find a balance so as to ensure that he does not pursue his ambition to the detriment of the home. That is why God created the woman to help the man redirect his focus from his work to his home. Until the woman appeared on the scene all that mattered to the man was his work.

To say a man loves his work more than his home is to state the reality. So wife, stop quarreling over his work and find ways to assist his focus on the home also. 

Femiimevbore@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/officialecc?ref=hl
www.lifebuilder.ecwid.com

www.elshaddaicovenantchurch.org