Category: Family Leadership

In this seventh month of the year, we continue to explore the Seventh Commandment, “You shall not commit adultery.”  This commandment is about the purity of marriage and the commitment made during marital vows, “to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.”

As I contemplated marital commitment, I turned to Pastor Tony Evans, who is founder and senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas.  He formerly served as chaplain for the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys and currently serves as chaplain for the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks.  His Christian radio broadcast, The Alternative, is broadcast on nearly 1,000 Christian radio outlets across the nation daily.

In 2010, Dr. Evans wrote a short book entitled For Married Men Only: Three Principles for Loving Your Wife.  Now, we’ll explore those three principles and practical applications for each of them.

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The Seventh Commandment is a simple, unqualified, irrevocable, negative: “thou shalt not.” No argument is used, no reason is given, because none is required.  This prohibition is designed to guard the sanctity of the home, for strictly speaking “adultery” is a crime which none but a married person can commit.

God instituted the ordinance of marriage “to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband” (1 Corinthians 7:2).  The intimacy of the marital relationship is to be guarded fiercely, so husbands are called to be a “one-woman man.”

To live effectively, we men need to cultivate a habitual sense of God’s presence, knowing “the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good” (Proverbs 15:3).  We must be like Job, who said, ““I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a young woman” (Job 31:1).  Finally, we must focus our energies and not be idle since idleness often proves fatal.

For more help, we can turn to Darin Freeman’s The Responsibilities of a Christlike Husband: A Marriage Guide for the Christian Man.

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