The first passage of today’s post, comes from the book of Malachi:
13 And this you do as well: You cover the Lord’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor at your hand. 14 You ask, “Why does he not?” Because the Lord was a witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. 15 Did not one God make her?[d] Both flesh and spirit are his.[e] And what does the one God[f] desire? Godly offspring. So look to yourselves, and do not let anyone be faithless to the wife of his youth. 16 For I hate[g] divorce, says the Lord, the God of Israel, and covering one’s garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So take heed to yourselves and do not be faithless.
This passage meshes well with this verse from the first letter from St. Peter:
Husbands, in the same way, show consideration for your wives in your life together, paying honor to the woman as the weaker sex,[a] since they too are also heirs of the gracious gift of life—so that nothing may hinder your prayers.
Reviewing both of these passages, one from the Old Testament and one from the New, we can see that God will consider a man’s prayers in light of how he treats his wife. The second passage gives a glimmer of understanding in why this is so: because they are the weaker vessel, a wife has been entrusted to her husband’s care. A woman who marries becomes subordinate to her husband, who has authority over her. But if he should abuse his authority, then he is not only abusing himself, but is flagrantly disobeying God as well. If the third servant who hid his talent was stripped of his wealth and cast away, then what fate awaits the servant who should actually lose or diminish that talent? The message is clear: with great power comes great responsibility, and a husband who abuses his power will find his prayers unanswered.
The second passage is from St. Paul’s Letter to the Colossians:
6 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives[b] in him, 7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
8 See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe,[c] and not according to Christ. 9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority. 11 In him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision,[d] by putting off the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ; 12 when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God[e] made you[f] alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, 14 erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed[g] the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.
16 Therefore do not let anyone condemn you in matters of food and drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or sabbaths. 17 These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. 18 Do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, dwelling[h] on visions,[i] puffed up without cause by a human way of thinking,[j]19 and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows with a growth that is from God.
The parts that I have put in bold are the ones I found most relevant. As you can see, Paul was warning the church in Colossus that they needed to beware of worldly thinking. Human tradition infecting the church is not a new phenomenon, it had already begun to infect the church only a few decades after the death of Jesus. Paul’s words seem very timely right now, because worldly philosophies, Feminism being paramount, have replaced Christian Tradition inside most churches. And that second part in bold seems a perfect description of modern day Churchian Women, who are “puffed up” with notions that they are Daughters of the King and the like. Instead of nourishing ourselves with the food of life, we instead fill ourselves with poisons, both worldly and spiritual. Given all of this, it is no wonder that the Church, and our general society, is sick and possibly dying. Until we renounce the world and embrace God, things will only continue to get worse.
Donal Graeme 
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While the second passage commentary is good, you (ironically) walked right into the false feminist interpretation in the first one (you specified it almost to the letter). Malachi 2 along with the other passage you presented enables women to claim that a husband that demands anything of them, especially godliness, is a “tyrant husband” and is therefore abusing his wife against the dictates of God. If Eve’s sin were entirely laid up in Adam’s blame as many of the feminists that run around dictate because he didn’t stop her, these same feminists would claim Adam to be a tyrant husband if he did.
In short, this interpretation serves to enable the rebellious wife. If you want to paraphrase your commentary, the godly man “abuses his authority” by completely abdicating it by not bringing the wicked woman to the just end that she deserves. Now to correct the interpretation (highlighting the important parts):
The passage is simply and purely about divorce. The prophet was speaking against the habit that the Israelites evidently had of casting aside the wives of their youth, who they married by witness before the Lord for foreign wives. The correct parallel passage is Nehemiah 13:23-31, though we can run to NT passages as well as other OT passages.
v13 – evidently the cast aside wives were running to the altar in tears crying to God about the injustice done them. God regards the tears of the oppressed more than the sacrifices of the oppressed.
v14 – the injustice: These men made a covenant before God with their wives and broke it and proved themselves utterly faithless in the covenant. (Matthew 19:6; Genesis 31:49-50)
v15 – a restatement of Matthew 19:4-6, and God’s will for marriage.
v16 – God hates divorce. This Scripture can more adequately be used against the frivorcing feminist “Christian” women and male enablers who follow after Adam in his sin. Since man and woman are made into one flesh, it is an act of violence to separate the marriage, akin to cutting an appendage off of another person.
Now we can save the linkage to 1 Peter 3:7 in this way, as the wife needs to be given consideration in the sight of God. Not in her sight, not in the sight of other men. We need to go to Ephesians 5:25. The command is not to make wives feel loved (for in the feminist economy, refusing a wife makes a husband a tyrant), but to love them as Christ loves the Church.
As the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastens those he accepts (Hebrews 12:6), the husband disciplines and chastens the wife in the love of the Lord (Proverbs 27:5-6), and does not accept her wickedness. The good husband before the Lord listens to the Lord before his wife, and hearkens to the Lord’s voice instead of his wife’s. The good feminist husband who is threatened in his godly authority as a tyrant if he dare exercises it allows his wife to ride roughshod in rebellion over him against God.
In the name of “feeling loved”, it is more acceptable to kiss the wife as an enemy than faithfully loving her by caring for her soul before the Lord. Caring for her soul before the Lord makes a husband into a tyrant. Can’t have that.
Until we renounce the world and embrace God, things will only continue to get worse.
I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard this, or variants of it. “We need to follow Jesus!” or “People need to start following the Bible!” or “Love Jesus!” or “Embrace God!” or whatever is the flavor of the month. What is rarely addressed: practical solutions to the current crisis, or what is unacceptable behavior (sin) in all its many forms.
I’m not trying to be critical (the post is good overall) but I confess I have gotten to the point where I bristle at vague Christian platitudes. I hear them so much, yet I never ever hear hard traditional teachings. Modern Christianity is a place where everybody “loves” but it is never time to suffer for that love.
Thanks for the response Ballista. Going to need to think on that for a while. The one thing I would add is that what you have explained is only a problem if the wife, or the women in church, or women in general, determine what abuse is. Without getting in a Prot-Catholic/Orthodox war, this is why having a central hierarchy with the authority to determine that really helps. Especially when it is run by men.
@ mdavid
I know you aren’t being critical, but much of the rest of my blog is directed at practical solutions and/or what constitutes unacceptable behavior.
Again, the passage only applies to divorce. To apply it to any notion of abuse or how the husband treats the wife daily within the marriage is to misapply it. As I pointed out, this is exactly what the feminists are doing to enable the wife’s rebellion.
@ Ballista
It is true that that specific passage from Malachi is referring only to divorce, but it is part of a general scriptural message to men to take care of/honor/be faithful to their wives. Which is why I included 1 Peter 3.
Again, I see where the feminists can go with it (or rather, where they do go with it) but that doesn’t detract from the accuracy of my interpretation. Divorce is an evil thing in the sight of the Lord, for many reasons. But it is not the only evil that a man can do to his wife.