“An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who shames him is as rottenness in his bones.” (Proverbs 12:4, NASB)

What comes to your mind when you hear the words “excellent wife?” When I was a young man, it conjured up an image of someone who was pretty, had a shapely body, and knew how to cook well. I no longer think of it that way. My search for an excellent wife took a long journey, going up and down, down a winding path, and with much joy and sorrow. It finally led me to meeting my wife, and I thank God for her. How about you? I can fully identify what Solomon was trying to say in today’s passage. He writes,

“An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who shames him is as rottenness in his bones.”

To me, my wife truly is like a “crown” on my head. She brings out the best in me, and even the worst in me becomes something God uses to correct and shape my character. I am not saying that she is perfect or never does wrong. Rather, she is marked by goodwill, shows me respect, and genuinely seeks to help me become the best version of myself. By contrast, I have also known many who reflect the second half of this verse. Though outwardly beautiful, their motives, attitudes, words, and actions became like rottenness in my bones. I didn’t know it at the time because my values were out of place, and I also shared their worldly values. Some of the girls I knew were deceitful, making it hard to trust them. Others were motivated by her need for popularity and attention, as well as greed and selfishness. My relationship with them felt like two porcupines trying to get along. We all had thorns in ourselves, and the more we tried to love one another, the more we hurt each other. It wasn’t until I met Christ that I came to understand what sin is, how God has forgiven us, and how we should forgive one another.

Among many Christian values my wife holds, I love that she fears the Lord. To me, this is the most beautiful thing about her, and it is why I can trust her with anything. If a woman fears the Lord and does her best to please Him, I know she will never intentionally harm her husband. Proverbs 31:30 perfectly sums it up: “Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised.” To me, this is the foundation for becoming an excellent wife. It is also the foundation for becoming an excellent husband. It is the foundation for becoming an excellent man and woman of God, period. When a person has this kind of relationship with God, it will naturally overflow into one’s relationships with loved ones, friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, and even enemies.

The word “excellent” in Hebrew is “Chayil,” which can be translated “an army, wealth, virtue, valor, or strength,” and it is reflected in the result of or display of. The word “shames” in Hebrew is “buwsh,” which means “make, bring to, put to, with, act shamefully, or be put to confusion,” which also reflects something that happens as a result of action. In other words, in a relationship, whether a husband is honored or put to shame happens as a result of the wife’s actions. Vice versa, a wife’s joy or heartache comes as a result of her husband’s actions.

To crown one’s husband or to bring joy to one’s wife are difficult in a relationship, as both husband and wife are sinners, prone to sin by default. For this reason, God commanded husbands to love their wives and wives to respect their husbands. Ephesians 5:33 instructs, “Let each individual among you also love his own wife even as himself; and let the wife see to it that she respect her husband.” If we could do this naturally, there would be no need for a command to do it. Furthermore, with this command to love and respect one another, God provides an example of how we are to do it. For wives, they are to respect their husbands “as to the Lord” (Eph.5:22), and for husbands, they are to love their wives “as Christ loved the church” (Eph.5:25). By drawing closer to each other in Christ, we are able to fulfill this command to love and respect each other. In turn, wives can be a “crown” to their husbands, and husbands can be a joy to their wives. In my search for an excellent wife, I discovered that no one fits that description. However, I have discovered that as we draw nearer to Christ, we can be an excellent husband and wife to each other.

• What is your definition of an “excellent wife” or “excellent husband?”
• As husbands, what does it mean to love our wives “as Christ loved the church?”
• As wives, what does it mean to respect our husbands “as to the Lord?”