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A Brief Guide for Learning to Interpret a Whole Book of the Bible

Note: I wrote this with the interpretation of New Testament epistles in mind, but most of it applies to other parts of the Bible, too.

1. Read through the book in its entirety, seeking to understand it as a whole and trying to follow the line of thought. As you read the whole book, be aware if you see things you haven’t noticed before or if you recognize parts that may not have been emphasized in your prior exposure to the book. Also, does reading the whole give you have a sense of the basic structure of the book?

2. What clues do you discover about the rhetorical situation and aims? That is, can you find evidence for the occasion that gave rise to the book, or what situation the writer is addressing? Do you find information about the original audience and their circumstances? What clues does the book give about the writer? What rhetorical aims do you find? That is, where and how does the writing express what the author was seeking to accomplish by writing this book?

3. What primary themes stand out? Look for literary devices like repetition of key nouns, verbs, images, phrases, and ideas. Look for “book ends”, where a theme stands out at the beginning and end of the book. Try to trace how the author develops the main themes. Making an outline of the book will help you follow the flow of thought and the way the themes develop. Where and how do the key themes intersect? As you read this book of the Bible, keep asking what the main thought is and where it changes.

4. In light of your attention to the book as a whole, what have you come to understand about the theological perspective of the book? What seem to be the most important beliefs, and how are they described?

5. What perspective on the Christian life do you find? How does this piece of literature describe the inner dynamics and outward behaviors of the Christian life? What are the Christian’s resources for living in this way? Try to figure out and describe how the Christian life works, according to this document.

6. This is optional but possibly clarifying: How do your observations regarding numbers 5 and 6 compare with what you’ve seen in other books of the Bible? Does the comparison help to distinguish the particular perspective of this book?

7. In light of all that you have discovered above, how does this document speak a living word to you personally, and how might it speak to your church or to others you know?

8. If you are writing an essay, teaching a class, or preparing for a preaching series that will interpret the book as a whole, read and dwell with your observations until you can develop a way of organizing your discoveries in a meaningful way.

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If Jesus overcame temptation by quoting Scripture, why does the same thing not work so well for us?

Or maybe I should only presume to speak for myself: Why hasn’t the same thing always worked for me?

Remembering truth from Scripture helps us to overcome temptation, but from my experience, I’m not sure it’s the whole solution. While the powerful forces at work in our souls require Scripture, they may also require other factors to be in place before we can overcome as Jesus did. I’d like to explore one such factor.

When we see Jesus quoting Scripture in the face of temptation, it’s easy to miss another element in the story: what happens to Jesus just before the temptation. He hears God’s voice, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17). Scripture did its work for Jesus when Satan tempted him, but the context of the passage tells us that Jesus went into those temptations grounded in the love of the Father.

What if we went into times of temptation fully assured of God’s love? What if, like Jesus, we were firmly rooted in our identity as children of God?

To overcome temptation, in addition to Scripture, we need what the apostle Paul describes in Romans 8:16: “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” When we cultivate our relationship with the Spirit of God who lives inside us, we get more firmly rooted in the reality that we are God’s beloved children. And then we have a better shot at loving our Father more than the sin that entices us.

In the letter to the Ephesians, just before we get to the chapters that tell the believers how to live, we find a prayer that they will be strengthened by the Holy Spirit in their inner being, that they will be rooted and grounded in love, and that they will know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. Those last few verses of chapter 3 prepare believers for the commands to live the Christian life in chapters 4 to 6. The Christian life works best – and perhaps only – when it’s lived as a response to God’s love.

As Jesus overcame temptation, so can we. But part of how he overcame was by being grounded in God’s love. Let’s pray to hear the Spirit telling us we are God’s beloved children, so that we, too, are rooted and established in the love of God.

I’ve offered something that I think can help in overcoming temptation, but much more could be said. Feel free to share more that can reinforce our stand in the face of temptation.

Posted on by Dustin Ellington · 3 Comments

Who is responsible for temptations and trials?

A pastor friend and former student asked me a question: Do trials and temptations come from God or from Satan? And does the word in Greek (peirasmos, peirazō, in Arabic ELTAGROBA) say if it’s God or the devil? Here is a reply, but feel free to add to the discussion.

The first part of the question isn’t easy to answer, because the New Testament describes God, Satan, and the human heart – all three – as involved, but it doesn’t say that God actually tempts us to sin. Here is a quick survey of ways the New Testament uses the Greek word (peirasmos, peirazō) behind the English word “temptation”: Matthew 4:1 is difficult, because the Holy Spirit leads Jesus to a place to be tempted by the devil. This shows God’s involvement, though he does not actually tempt. In Luke 4:13, temptation comes from the devil. Hebrews 11:17 is an interesting case, because it implies that God tests Abraham’s faith. But it’s not temptation to sin; rather, a test of his faith comes from God. That may be the clearest time that this word is used with God as the implied subject. In 1 Cor 10:13, God does not allow us to be tempted beyond what we can bear. So he is involved, making sure that the temptation is not more than we can handle. 2 Peter 2:9 teaches that God is the one who rescues us from these trials. Revelation 3:10 teaches that God is able to keep us from a time of testing (the same idea is behind Jesus’ encouragement to ask that God not lead us into temptation). But honestly, I’m not sure why the Lord’s prayer asks God not to lead us into testing (Matt 6:13). Frequently it’s the human heart that is the problem, such as 1 Tim 6:9 says with respect to wealth. James 1:2 states that Christians face trials; it doesn’t say where they come from. James 1:13 clarifies that God tempts no-one toward evil, but that our own desires bring temptations (1:14). 1 Peter 1:6-7 and James 1:2-4 teach that very good fruit can come from these trials, which suggests that God is involved, but not that God tempts us toward evil. 1 Peter 4:12 says we shouldn’t be surprised by tests, and the next verse suggests they come because of our relationship and union with Jesus Christ.

To conclude, I would say God never tempts us to sin, but he is involved in our being put into places where we will be tempted and tested by our own hearts and by the evil one. He gives us a way to avoid sin. And when we overcome, this strengthens our faith, which is God’s desire. So, in a way, God does use Satan’s ability to tempt us, though he does not tempt us himself.

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Thorn-Incited Prayer (Based on 2 Corinthians 12:7-10)

“Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me” (12:8). Paul’s thorn drove him to prayer. No matter the identity of Paul’s thorn, and no matter what the shape of any thorn is which we may carry, it can drive us to speak to our Father, the one 2 Corinthians 1 calls the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. And Paul shows the Corinthians (and us) that through prayer, as we speak to our Father, weaknesses and difficulties get transformed, so that they’re not just things that are negative. The wounds and difficulties of ministry act as signposts pointing us to prayer, prayer that takes us to Jesus himself, who gives grace to sustain us. And so the hard things we go through, and the wounds we receive, also open doors. They open gates to the grace and power of Christ. Thorn-incited prayer leads us to the grace of Christ which is sufficient for anything we can face.

Instead of taking the thorn away, Christ met Paul right where he was and gave him grace. And through the experience, Paul gained principles not just for his life but for the church as a whole.

One is the principle that weakness, vulnerability, and wounds drive us to God and open our lives to the grace and power of Christ.

And another principle is that God is more interested in filling our lives with grace than in getting us out of all our difficulties. Filling us with grace is more important than removing us from hardships.

God responded to Paul’s prayer, but in a way quite different than he expected. Sometimes God doesn’t meet our expectations. Sometimes God refuses one request but grants something different. Sometimes God wants to empower us with grace that makes us able to stay right where we are, in the face of the same challenging circumstances.

In a life of ministry, the experience of difficulty and weakness is unavoidable. We can’t do ministry without getting wounded. But this passage shows us that we can take this reality and make it work for us. We can allow the wounds of ministry to drive us to God in prayer. And through prayer we find contact with Christ who speaks to us and holds out his grace to us. He empowers us with grace, grace that’s sufficient for us, grace that can make us able to pass through anything that comes our way.

As we look toward the future, we don’t need to fear weakness or disappointments. They may be unavoidable, but we can choose now that we’re going to let these things drive us to God. And as we go to God in prayer, honest about our need, Christ will say to us: “My grace is sufficient for you.” So that we can say with Paul, “When I am weak, then I am strong.”

Posted on by Dustin Ellington

Grace moves through us, but not without pain and vulnerability

Here’s another principle concerning how grace works: The extension of grace through us tends to involve us in vulnerability and difficulty, which then opens us up to receive empowering grace again.

That part about vulnerability and suffering needs some explanation. The paradigm here is Christ himself.

2 Cor 8:9 — “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.”

There has never been a greater catalyst for grace than Christ’s incarnation and death. And these events meant suffering for Jesus and self-emptying so that others could be filled. He became poor and weak so that we might be enriched with grace.

That’s a paradigm. It was true for Christ, and it’s also true for us. Christ suffered so we could have life. But Scripture also teaches that, like Christ, people who minister suffer difficulty, and as a result, others can receive grace and new life.

Consider 2 Corinthians 1:6 –“If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.”

Paul saw that the difficulties he walked through turned into comfort and even salvation for others.

2 Cor 4:7-15 is important for this principle.

In 4:7 Paul says we who bring the treasure of Christ and the gospel to others have the experience of being clay. We’re like fragile clay jars.

He goes on to say he’s hard pressed on every side. He’s persecuted. He gets struck down. But look at what he says in verses 10-12. As he goes through these hardships, he sees these experiences as a carrying around in his own body the suffering of Jesus, and as a result, Christ’s life gets revealed to others. Paul’s pain is others’ gain. He goes through difficulty, but others see Christ in his life.

And then he says in verse 12, “So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.”

We who do service and ministry sometimes feel like the ministry is going to do us in. Sometimes obedience and ministry feel like death. Paul says in 1 Cor 15:30, “I die every day.” But the result is life (and I would add grace) for others.

2 Corinthians 4:15 — All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.

This experience of difficulty and weakness also has a special result for the ones doing the ministry. This takes us back to the principle of 2 Cor 12:9 “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” Difficulties in ministry put us back in the position of readiness for the grace that’s sufficient for us. The weakness and difficulty become the thorn that pierces us but that also opens us up to the grace that’s sufficient for us.

Obedience to God in ministry involves us in weakness, difficulties, disappointments, and pain – but these are all are doorways, entries, to the grace and power of Christ. And then that grace which we receive empowers us again. It’s like a cycle, a grace cycle.

Posted on by Dustin Ellington

God’s empowering grace moves through us

When we minister to others, we participate in the movement of God’s empowering grace, grace that extends and abounds from one person to another.

In 2 Cor 1:15 Paul says he hoped to visit the Corinthians again, so that they “might have a second grace” or “have grace twice”. The translations tend to water that down and translate grace as benefit or favor. But Paul had no doubt that human beings are vessels and vehicles of grace. Grace moved with Paul; it came when he visited people. He wanted to visit the Corinthians so they might get a fresh measure of grace.

Maybe you know people like that. It reminds me of my grandfather. When he was around, grace also showed up. I could see it in his face. I could see it in how he talked with me and in how other people responded to him. When he was around, grace was contagious. The grace and joy in his life made me want to be a Christian.

Paul also believed a group of believers could extend grace together. In 2 Cor 2:7, when writing about a believer who had been disciplined by the church for his sin, he tells them, “So now you should show grace to him and comfort him”. This was so that the believer might not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. A group of believers can act together, in concert, to deliver grace. As Christ’s body, together we can embody grace for one another and for the outside world. Our actions can impart grace and leave people empowered to move forward.

Grace has a way of extending and increasing through people to others. One reason this happens is because it’s the nature of grace to be on the move. 2 Corinthians 4:15 says, “All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.”

When we obey Christ in ministry, we participate in the movement of grace.

We find some good examples of this in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9.

8:1 — “And now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches.” That’s a really interesting use of the word “grace” in verse 1. Paul labels the Macedonians’ opportunity to serve believers in Judea as grace which God gave to the Macedonians. It’s an opportunity to participate in the movement of grace, and it’s a gift to them to have this ability and opportunity.

The word “grace” in Greek fills 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, even though the English translations don’t mention it as often.

For example,  8:4 – “They urgently pleaded with us for the privilege (grace) of sharing in this service to the saints.” In the original language, the opportunity of service, the privilege of service, is grace.The Macedonians pleaded with Paul for the grace of sharing in this service to the saints. When we minister, when we serve someone else, we are a vessel of grace. And when grace moves through us to others, we’re also receivers. We get touched by grace. This is one reason Paul can call an opportunity to minister a “grace” for the ones doing the service.

Acts of ministry and obedience are entry points for receiving grace and extending it to others. And so Paul can say in 9:8, “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.”

This verse ties God’s empowering grace to us, and our abounding in good works, very close together. Grace gives us what we need to do good works. Good works and ministry place us right along God’s abundant supply chain of grace. And in the process, our lives are touched by grace as we minister to others. That gives us joy in ministry, and it changes us. That’s probably why my grandfather had so much joy.

Sometimes I think we really see this, and so ministry feels like a joy. We experience grace as we minister, and we see it transforming us and making us to be the people God has called us to become.

Other times, though, ministry and service are very hard. That may be because our attitude needs an adjustment. But there can also be something else going on, and that takes us to another principle of how grace works. The movement of grace tends to involve vulnerability and suffering on the part of the vessel (see next post).

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Empowering Grace

Grace is a power that can help us become the productive, fruitful, and contributing people God created us to be.

1 Corinthians 15:10 — But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them– though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

We don’t want to live in vain, to live lives that are unproductive or void of significance. Paul believed he became what he was by grace. Grace had real effects in his life, and one was that it empowered the way he lived his life and what he did in his ministry.

Paul learned to let grace into his life. He learned to receive it, he learned to work with it, he learned to rely on it, and he learned to share it. We can learn these things, too.

Usually when we think of grace, we think of God’s free, unmerited favor, especially shown to us through Jesus on the cross. That’s a big part of what grace is. But it is also more than that. Paul says God’s grace to him was not in vain. It empowered productivity in the things of God. For Paul, God’s grace is the true subject, the real doer, of the work he did. Grace played such a big role in what he did that he could say, “It was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”

His comment about working harder than all the other apostles is a little defensive and polemical. It seems Paul struggled with comparing himself to other Christian leaders. In 1-2 Corinthians he accuses other leaders of making comparisons and participating in rivalry, but he seems to have struggled with these things himself. He wanted to be the very best, and he probably was. But even if he had some mixed motives, and cared too much about being better than other leaders, we can learn from what he recognized about relying on grace for making progress in his life and ministry.

And no-one can doubt that Paul lived a productive life, starting churches and strengthening first-century churches all the way from Judea to Rome. He says in 1 Corinthians 3:10, “According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation.” Grace was the power that made possible his work and his influence. Grace made him the master builder that he was, laying the church’s foundation from city to city.

We can learn about how grace worked in his life as a route to learning the same strength for our own lives, so we can say with Paul, “By the grace of God I am what I am.” And, “It was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”

It’s a principle: Grace is a power that can help us become the productive, fruitful, and contributing people God created us to be.

Posted on by Dustin Ellington

Interpreting a Passage of Scripture in Depth

My seminary students have appreciated this, and I hope it can be helpful to others. I wrote it with the interpretation of New Testament epistles in mind, but you may also find it helpful for other parts of the Bible.

1.  Read the passage very closely, several times, to see what’s in it. Try to read it in more than one translation. (If you’ve studied Greek, use it, but this guide doesn’t assume knowledge of Greek.) What questions come to mind in regard to the passage? As you read the passage, try to follow the train of thought. Describe the line of thought as best you can.

2. Notice the key repeated words and ideas. What role do they play in the passage? What is the main theme(s)? Describe the transitions from one theme to another. Describe what you think these verses are really about.

3. If at all possible, read the whole letter to look for insight into your passage. This will help you take advantage of the literary context. When you find connections between your passage and other parts of this book of the New Testament, describe the links and record the verse references. What can you say about the stage of the overall book where your passage occurs? Does reading the whole letter give you information about the rhetorical situation? (By rhetorical situation, I mean the circumstances of the author and audience that led the author to write as he did.) Has reading the whole letter helped to answer your questions regarding the passage? What insights into your verses have you gained in light of the whole-book context?

4. Now that you have made many observations, review your notes, think through them, and draw connections between the things you have seen. How would you summarize the focus of the passage? What conclusions can you draw regarding the role and function that your passage plays in the book as a whole? How do these verses help to shape the theology of this book of the Bible? What conclusions can you make about this passage’s teaching regarding the Christian life?

5. If you have not already done so, ask yourself: How does what you see in the text relate to your life? How do you see yourself in these verses? How do you see your church or your society in and through this passage? How is God speaking to you, and how might God wish to speak to others through the passage?

6. This is a good stage to look at a commentary, if you have access to one. Now that you know what you think about your passage, you’ll be able to tell the difference between your own thoughts and what you find in the commentary. Does it offer insights that correct your perspective or persuade you of a different point of view? Do not assume that the commentary has all of the right answers. (A commentary is just an informed conversation partner.) Does the commentary give you historical or cultural information that adds insight into your passage? Be careful at this stage to keep a clear distinction between what the commentary says and what your own observations are, and keep a clear record of page numbers if you take ideas or quotations.

7. Have key themes or questions stood out that might help you organize an essay, teaching, or sermon? Organize the information you have found as well as you can until the basic outline of your presentation develops. If you’re writing a paper for a class, now is the time to write. Then proofread and edit it. Read it aloud to make sure each paragraph and sentence says exactly what you wish to say.

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Communion and Mission

Much can be said about the Lord’s Supper. I want to share about it as a way that God makes the good news of Jesus real and tangible for us, so that we can be ready to make it real and tangible for others.

Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19). And the apostle Paul said, “For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Cor 11:26).

In the Lord’s Supper, we remember the story of Jesus’ death, and what we do proclaims the Lord’s death for us in a picture. But we don’t just remember it as a historical event. We remember that the event of Jesus’ death happened for us. As Jesus said, “This is my body, which is given for you” (Luke 19).

The Lord’s Supper is a symbolic memorial, but it’s also the case that something happens when we take the supper. Communion happens between Christ and us. Paul says, “Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a communion (sharing/participation) in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a communion (sharing/participation) in the body of Christ?” (1 Cor 10:16 ).

The Lord’s Supper is more than a retelling of what happened, and it’s more than a picture. It’s a means that God uses to work the good news of his grace into our lives. It’s true that this can happen through our daily life as we commune with Christ through prayer and as we live in his presence and obey him. But it also happens in an ongoing, special way through taking communion. Communion is a means for God to work his grace and love into the fabric of our lives. God wants the good news of Jesus to become part of who we are. Communion helps us to become, in a deep and tangible way, people of the gospel.

Jesus gave us a symbolic picture through the bread and cup (his body, his blood). We take that picture into our hands. And, audacious as it is, we eat and drink the picture. We consume the pictures and symbols, and they literally become part of who we are. It’s as though we take the raw elements of the good news into our bodies. The Lord’s Supper works the good news into us. It’s something God uses to make the gospel part of who we are. In a deep and tangible way, the treasure of the gospel lives in the earthen vessels or clay jars of our bodies (see 2 Cor 4:7).

Why does God do this? God does all of this because he loves us. He wants his love and forgiveness to be real, tangible, something we can get our hands on, trust, and believe in.

Yet there’s also another reason God does this: Communion makes the gospel real and tangible to us that we might receive what we need to go make it real and tangible to others. God wants to prepare us to embody the good news for the world around us. Communion is something Christ has given us that helps us to be his body in the world.

I appreciate how 2 Corinthians describes our role of embodying the gospel for the world. 2 Cor 2:14 says that God manifests through us the aroma of the knowledge of him. 2 Cor 3:3 says that we show that we are a letter from Christ. 2 Cor 4:6 says that God has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of his glory that’s found in the face of Christ. In 4:7, we carry around a treasure (Christ and the gospel) in clay jars, the earthen vessels of our bodies. In 4:10, 11, the life of Jesus is revealed through us as we walk through difficulties. 2 Cor 5:18 says that God has put inside us the message of reconciliation. Two verses later, we read that we are ambassadors for Christ. In 5:21, we learn that God made the one who knew no sin, Christ, to become sin so that we might become the righteousness of God. We become a sign on the earth of God’s righteousness. (God’s righteousness is his power to save – Rom 1:16, 17.)

Christ became like us, and died, that we might become like him, and live. And so we’re able manifest the good news to the world through our lives. When we take communion, it helps to make all of this possible.

Posted on by Dustin Ellington

Looking to Get Married?

Recent conversations here in Zambia brought to mind this message I spoke to young single men who were seminary students in Egypt. I wrote it in English but spoke it in Arabic at a chapel service of the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo (April 22, 2009). It was written for the Egyptian context, which is unique, but some things carry over to other cultures.

I’ve noticed there’s a topic that we haven’t focused on in chapel, even though it’s one I hear about in many conversations here at our seminary. The topic that I hear about is finding a suitable young woman and marrying her. I’m not going to talk exactly about that, though, but about something closely related. I notice that students tend to give a big effort to find someone to marry. And of course that challenge deserves focus and effort—it’s extremely important! But the truth is that that is only part of the challenge. There’s another part that also deserves focus and a big effort.

The first verse we will read is Colossians 3:19a: “Husbands, love your wives …”

And the second is from Ephesians 5:25, 28: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her”. Verse 28 says something similar “In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.”

It’s very easy before one marries to think that the big challenge is finding a suitable girl who will agree to marry him. The truth is that we need to place beside this another goal and challenge. And it is this: that we give the same effort to become ready for our roles as husbands. It won’t do to assume that we are already ready for this role, and that the one thing left to do is to find a wife. I believe the command that we love our wives is present in the Bible because it is not something that we naturally do without thinking about it. And so the Bible reminds us to concentrate on it.

One reason we need to focus on it is that your role as a husband will be a very big role that you will play in your life. And another reason is that our marriage has a big effect on our ministry. I’m convinced that we minister not only with skills and gifts but also by the kind of life we live. And how we live our life in our marriage is a big part of the kind of life we live. Our marriage can make God’s love become tangible and real to the people around us.

In Col 3:18 and in Eph 5:25, 28 the Bible says, three times, that we’re to love our wives, and the Greek verbs are in the present tense. The idea is that this is something we do continually, day after day. Our main role in our marriage is to love our wives. That’s the foundational part of our role. So we need to become able to love our wives.

We tend to assume that the big challenge and goal is finding a girl who is suitable and agrees to marriage. Because of this, a guy tends to think there is progress or no progress in this matter according to whether or not he sees a potential wife on the horizon. And if there’s no one in view, he feels that there is no encouraging news. And there can be a lot of frustration as he waits on God to provide the young woman. He feels there’s little he can do except wait. But I want to clarify that this perspective is mistaken.

It’s not correct because the second goal and the second challenge are as important, or more important, as the first one. There are many things that the guy can do toward the second goal and challenge. I mean this: You don’t have to focus only on finding a suitable wife. You can focus on becoming suitable. That is, focus on becoming someone who is able to love another person.

The question, “Are you suitable for marriage?” is as important as the question, “Have you found the one that you’ll marry?”

Are you ready for marriage? I mean: Are you doing things to grow so can became a husband who really loves his wife? What will happen if you find the girl but she sees that you aren’t mature and don’t have the ability to think beyond yourself and love another person? If she thinks that you will love her and show care to her day after day, that will make a big difference and help her to choose you. And after you marry her, if you become successful in your role, you will also increase her ability to be successful in her role as a wife. She will love you better if you are able to love her well.

Let’s change our main focus from looking for spouses to becoming people who will be successful in our roles as husbands. Focus on becoming men who can love another person continually day after day, in good times and in difficult times. The Bible speaks somewhat rarely about our role as spouses, so why not concentrate on becoming quite good at what it does mention, even now, before you marry.

But how can you get yourself ready now, even before finding your wife? By focusing on loving others now, especially in your close relationships. Take for example your family or your friends at the seminary and the guy you share a room with. Of course, there are differences between these relationships and marriage! But there are also important similarities.

When you marry, you will live out your life very, very closely with another person, closer to one another probably than in any other relationship. Your marriage will be a place of Christian fellowship. Your marriage will be a piece of the body of Christ. And this is not very different from your life here at the seminary. What you can learn through your experience in fellowship here you can apply in many ways to marriage. This seminary and your marriage—both—are places of growth as disciples. The life you live here can prepare you for marriage. You can do things now and here to make your marriage happier in the future, if you focus on becoming a person who is able to love someone else.

For example, if you have a problem between you and a friend, you can learn to talk about a problem with him and solve it with gentleness, from start to finish. And if you learn how to handle your anger and sadness in ways that don’t hurt a friend, this also will help your marriage. You can also practice giving practical help and support to your friends. And you can learn to be polite, honest, and unselfish in your relationships. If you learn how to do these things, you will have a better marriage.

So, whether you can see your future wife on the horizon or not, there are important things you can do right now that will help your marriage. If you do them, you will grow, and in the future you will give a beautiful gift to your wife. You will be a husband who can love his wife day after day. She will thank God for you.

The challenge is this: Shift perspective, from finding a wife to becoming ready to be a husband who loves his wife.