The Voice of a Wife - Part 2
Just as a wife's voice can be used for a husband's good it can also be used to drive him nuts! Scripture says..
... a quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping. Proverbs 19: 13
Have you ever laid in bed at night and heard a drippy faucet leaking in the other room? Drip, drIP, dRIP, DRIP! The longer you listen to it the LOUDER it gets. It's annoying, it drives you nuts, you can't sleep or think of anything else until you stop that leak! This is the comparison Proverbs is using to paint the picture of a wife who constantly quarrels with her husband over matters.
A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day; restraining her is like restraining the wind or grasping oil with the hand. Proverbs 27:15
The Hebrew word for ‘quarrelsome’ means a ‘contest‘. I was trying to think through why the original language would use the word ‘contest’ for quarrelsome. I thought perhaps it was like a sports game where you have two contending parties where each one is determined to win. So it must be with a quarrelsome wife. She is determined to have her own way no matter what the cost. Solomon said in this Proverbs that it was better to live in the smallest space in the whole house than share it with a quarrelsome wife.
Better to live on the corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife. Proverbs 21:9
Oftentimes, a wife will quarrel with her husband in the name of godliness. She thinks that if she voices her concerns JUST ONE MORE TIME that he will finally open his eyes and stop what he is doing. Most likely he has shut his ears somewhere around the umpteenth time you mentioned it.
I think this was the first Scripture my husband memorized years ago when we first married. Pretty sad commentary on the kind of wife I used to be. I still have to watch this tendency. I think the enemy uses fear more than any other emotion to tempt me to try and persuade (I like that word SO much better than NAG!) my husband. I think I am doing a ‘good thing’ by talking to my husband about a concern and to continue talking about it even past the point that it is still effective. I convince myself that it's for his good. But, this type of ’voice’ can lead into quarrels.
Delilah knew this art of nagging. She nagged Samson until he was so vexed that he wanted to die!!
Judg 16:16: With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was tired to death.
Genesis 3:16 exclaims that part of the curse of the fall was that the woman would want to master and rule her husband but that he would rule over her. Women from that day until now have had to deal with that strong desire to control and rule their husbands. Wives want their own way! We think we know what is best and we push and contend with our husbands until we get it. What an unhappy and ungodly home this makes. Not to mention what it teaches our children about how to respond in submission under authority.
A wife must always remember, although she is to use her voice for good towards her husband, she must never use it to continually beat him over the head. There is a place in a Christian marriage for a wife to appeal, exhort and sometimes even rebuke her husband (1 Thess. 5:14, Rom. 15:14, Col. 1:28) in a godly manner but she must be careful not to enter into a quarrelsome or nagging mode if she sees no results from her words.
... starting a quarrel is like breaching a dam: do drop the matter before a dispute breaks out. Proverbs 17:14
Once we have encouraged our husbands to obey God we must then set it before the Lord and ask for His help in changing their hearts.
2 Tim 2:24-26 - And the Lord's bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses {and escape} from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.
| 
