Paul continues his instructions for husbands in Eph 5:19: Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but NOURISHES and CHERISHES it. Here, Paul goes to the world of tender care for infants for an analogy, using two words loaded with meaning. The first is nourish. The Greek word is EKTREPHO, from TREPHO to rear, to feed, primarily used of children + EK from or out of. The heart of a wife needs to be regularly fed with the ingredients required to nourish her heart just as an infant is dependent upon its mother’s breast milk.

Today, we begin a new series, Loving Our Wives Well Because We Understand the Needs of Their Hearts. Here is a quiz. How would you summarize these statements made by women as to why they were divorcing their husbands?

My husband is no longer my friend.
The only time he pays attention to me is when he wants sex.
He is never there for me, emotionally, when I need him most.
I hurt all the time because I feel alone and abandoned.
We’re like ships passing in the night—he goes his way and I go mine.
My husband has become a stranger. I don’t even know who he is anymore.

What these wives were starving for was heart intimacy with their husbands. It is a heart need of wives that wasn’t even on the screens of these husbands. However, this foundational need of wives for heart intimacy with their husbands is spelled out in at least 5 biblical texts, which this episode explores.
It should not surprise husbands who thoughtfully read of the creation of Eve that a wife has a profound heart need that he doesn’t experience nearly as strongly—the need to feel connected to her husband. After all, she is designed FOR relationship. Adam is created for the ground, from the ground, given a name that means ground, tasked to work the ground, and his sin brings a curse upon the ground. No wonder he loves the earthy part of connecting to his wife! But Eve is made for the man, from the man, given a name that means “out of the man,” assigned to assist the man, and her sin brings a curse upon her relationship with the man. No wonder a lack of heart connection to her husband would be so excruciating to a wife!
This feminine longing for heart intimacy is a foundational part of God’s marriage design. In Genesis 2:24-25, we read, A man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed Notice that the goal of marriage is loving intimacy (vs 25) to be “naked and unashamed.” Such loving intimacy happens by joining lives, “a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife,” and by joining bodies, “they shall become one flesh.” As husband and wife join their lives, they share their ideas (mind), their decisions (will) and feelings (emotions). This union of hearts, minds, and wills is then celebrated by the joining of bodies in sex. The marriage commitment is to regularly join hearts and bodies. Most men love joining bodies but are clueless about the fact that equally important to God, and usually more important to wives is connecting two naked hearts. Peter seems to have understood this reality, for he commands husbands:
1. Meet Her Need to Feel Understood. Live with Your Wives in an Understanding Way (I Pet 3:7)
“Your wife’s first need” says Peter, “is for you to understand her, which means discovering what is going on in her heart.” Literally this text says, dwell-together according to knowledge. Dwelling together refers to sharing everyday life. The Greek word for “know” is not the word for observing objective facts. Rather, this particular word indicates a relationship between the knower and what is known that progresses into deeper understanding. Peter seems to recognize what psychologists have discovered—that one of the deepest of human needs, especially among women is to feel understood. An astonishing number of men, including ME, entered marriage clueless about this fundamental dimension of marriage—connecting two naked hearts, i.e. emotional intimacy. Steve Arterburn and Fred Stoker, in their book, Every Woman’s Desire, observe:

84% of women feel they don’t have heart intimacy (oneness) in their marriages.
83% of women feel that their husbands don’t even know the basic needs of a woman for emotional intimacy (oneness) or how to provide it.
A large majority of female divorcees say that their married years were the loneliest years of their lives.

Let’s sharpen our picture of heart intimacy. Christian counselor Barbara Rosberg in, The Five Love Needs of Men and Women, cowritten with her husband, explains:
“The word, ‘intimacy’ comes from a Latin word that means ‘innermost.’  What this translates into for those of us in the marriage relationship is a vulnerable sharing of our inner thoughts, feelings, spirit, and true self…This support is achieved through listening, empathy, prayer, or reassurance.”
“Heart intimacy” to a wife means feeling so thoroughly loved and accepted that she easily and constantly shares with her lover what is going on in her heart. To a wife, the heart intimacy she craves is having her husband be her best friend—who loves to talk with her about everything—because that is what best friends do. Rosberg describes one wife’s yearning for heart-to-heart connection: “Melody’s idea of intimacy is sitting on the love seat with Dan, a couple of cappuccinos beside them, a roaring fire in front of them, no kids around them, and plenty of time for a good, long, heart to heart talk” (Ibid). While many Christian men look back on their wedding day as the beginning point for having regular sex, their wives look back upon it is the day they married their best friend. Romance is icing on the cake for them. The core of the relationship is being such close best friends that they stroll through life, arm in arm, sharing the secrets of their hearts, knowing that those secrets will always be valued because their husband loves them unconditionally. The next three biblical truths show how to build and maintain that intimacy.
2. Know What’s Happening in Her Heart. Husbands Should Love Their Wives as Their Own Bodies. He Who Loves His Wife Loves Himself. (Eph 5:28)
Paul recognizes two characteristics of men: 1) they take care of what belongs to them and 2) they default to taking care of themselves. In the deepest possible way, our wives are worthy of special care and devotion because their body so thoroughly belongs to us that to love them is to love ourselves. Here is the point:  Men pay constant attention to their bodies. When my body aches, I groan. When my body is hungry, I eat. When my body is tired, I rest. When my body craves sexual release, I pursue my woman. When my body is wounded, I care for the wound. When my body is sleepy, I nod off. We are so united to our bodies that we cannot ignore them for long. They get our continual attention.
Men default to treating our marriages like our cars or lawnmowers: so long as they keep running, we take them for granted; it is only when they breakdown that they get our attention. Paul says, “Men, take the opposite approach. Your nervous system tells you immediately when your body is in pain. You should be so vigilant to know what is happening in your wife’s heart, that you know right away what she is feeling. Your connection with your wife’s heart should be so strong that it is like the nervous system of your own body.”
Intentional attention to her heart requires skillful listening to help her open it to us. Christian Counselor, Paul Tournier writes “In order to really understand, we need to listen, not to reply. We need to listen long and attentively. In order to help anybody to open his heart, we have to give him time, asking only a few questions, as carefully as possible, in order to help him better explain his experience” (To Understand One Another).
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 Flavel was flexible, resilient, and persevering amid suffering. When he could not preach, he wrote. For example, during the persecution of Nonconformists in the 1670s and early 1680s, Flavel published at least nine books, including A Token for Mourners, The Touchstone of Sincerity, The Method of Grace, and Treatise on the Soul of Man. Flavel’s Mystery of Providence is perhaps the best book ever written on the doctrine of divine providence. It comes from the pen of a man who experientially knew suffering in the crucible of affliction.

John Flavel was born in the town of Bromsgrove, England. He was the son of Richard Flavel, a pastor who died (along with John’s mother) during the Great Plague of 1665 while imprisoned at Newgate for nonconformity. After receiving an education in the Scriptures from his father, John began his studies at the University of Oxford, where he was a remarkably diligent student. After receiving ordination from the presbytery of Salisbury in 1650, Flavel settled in Diptford, where he honed his gifts. In 1656, he accepted a call to minister in the seaport town of Dartmouth. This position earned a smaller income than he had received in Diptford, but his work was more profitable. Many were converted through his ministry.
Government officials ejected Flavel from the pulpit in 1662 for nonconformity but he continued to meet secretly with his parishioners for worship. Once he even disguised himself as a woman on horseback to reach a secret meeting place where he preached and administered baptism. Another time, when pursued by authorities, he plunged his horse into the sea and escaped arrest by swimming through a rocky area to safety.
After the Five Mile Act went into effect in 1665—prohibiting pastors from teaching within five miles of their pastorates—Flavel moved to Slapton. There, he continued to minister to many in his congregation. He secretly preached in the woods, sometimes until midnight. Once, soldiers rushed in and dispersed the congregation. They apprehended and fined several fugitives, but the rest brought Flavel to another wooded area where he continued his sermon. Flavel preached from other unique pulpits, including Salstone Rock, an island submerged at high tide.
After King Charles II gave Nonconformists greater religious freedom in 1672 by issuing the Declaration of Indulgence, Flavel returned to Dartmouth. When officials canceld the indulgence the following year, Flavel once more secretly preached in homes, secluded neighborhoods, or remote forests. In the summer of 1682, he sought safety in London, where he assisted in a friend’s congregation. Flavel returned to Dartmouth in 1684, where he continued his ministry under house arrest. He preached there every Lord’s Day and on many weekday evenings to the gathered crowds. He was faithful even in the face of opposition from the government and hostile townspeople (who burned his effigy in a mob). Yet he wrote concerning his beloved Dartmouth, “Oh, that there were not a prayerless family in this town!”
In 1687, King James II issued another indulgence for Nonconformists that allowed Flavel to preach publicly again. His congregation built a large chapel to herald his return to the pulpit.
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While it is certainly possible (and even probable) that lots of different kinds of cultural expressions will be present in the worship of heaven, there is no Scriptural proof of this, and there is certainly no proof that all cultural expressions will be there. For one thing, it is at least instructive to note that at least one aspect of cultural diversity is eliminated in this heavenly picture—their clothing (Rev 7:9). All of these people from various tribes, peoples, and nations are wearing the same thing: white robes. Where is the cultural diversity in that?

A passage often cited by evangelicals to prove that every cultural expression is legitimate since people from every nation will be admitted into heaven is Revelation 5:9:
And they sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe [phylēs] and language [glōssēs] and people [laou] and nation [ethnous].1
Here John uses four terms related to ethnic identity, but it is important to recognize that John uses the terms not to emphasize cultural distinctions between various people groups but rather to signify all peoples without national or cultural distinctions. For example, Mounce states of the terms in this verse, “It is fruitless to attempt a distinction between these terms as ethnic, linguistic, political, etc. The Seer is stressing the universal nature of the church and for this purpose piles up phrases for their rhetorical value.2 Likewise, Thomas argues, “The enumeration includes representatives of every nationality, without distinction of race, geographical location, or political persuasion.3
In other words, terms like ethnos, (“nation”), phylē (“tribe”), glōssa (“language”), and laos (“people”) do not refer to the culture (behavior) of people, but rather to the people themselves, and ethnic distinctions among people in heaven will be absent.
MacLeod summarizes common definitions for such ethnicity-related terms:
(1) The word “tribe” (phylē) denotes “a group bound together by common descent or blood-relationship.” In the New Testament most references are to the tribes of Israel. In Revelation 5:9 the word includes the redeemed from the Gentile world, which also includes tribal groups (Christian Maurer, “φυλή,” in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 9 [1974], 245–50, esp. 245, 250).
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