As a disclaimer, anything that is to come is not intended to bash men or women, rather, it's to point up how jacked up things are in this life and in our natural patterns of behavior.

A few years ago I first came across the book, Love and Respect. It's a marriage book based on a mix of Ephesians and sociological research and, it proposed, the couples act in a love and respect cycle.

Basically, there's some solid research out there that reveals that men, on the whole, really want to be respected (you could say that for me, respect = love), while women, on the whole, really want to be loved. So, the love a respect cycles basically says that when a man acts lovingly, then a woman will act respectfully, and when a man acts unlovingly, then a woman will act disrespectfully. Obviously both of these actions then feed into the other so you either end up with something stable or something that's completely jacked.

When I first heard this idea I really liked it, but, as I'm watching more and more relational dynamics unfold, I don't think it's accurate. Rather, I think, when a man acts lovingly, there is something inside a woman that asks, "Is he being loving because he loves me, or because I did something respectful?" In other words, she wants to know that she's truly and unconditionally loved (a desire that isn't a bad thing).

Now, I don't think the next step is necessarily malicious or intentional, but the only way to find out if the love given is based on her actions or because she is unconditionally loved, is to act disrespectfully and discover what the man does ... does he prove himself loving or does he grow cold?

At this point there's two options. The man can do what's right and continue to act lovingly (which I've seen result in more disrespect and, essentially, a lifetime of having to prove himself ... a move which eventually emasculates him), or he can act unlovingly, an action that, based on my observation, often prompts a woman to act respectfully in an attempt to regain a sense of being loved (only to have the cycle restart once things are stable again). Of course, in time, a guy figures out that if he wants her to act respectfully, that he needs to keep her constantly on edge so she's always trying to doing something that will give her a sense of being loved (of course, this will ultimately wear her out as well).

Thoughts? Is the revamped model accurate? What needs to happen so couples can break this dysfunctional model and return to a healthy love and respect cycle?

I have a few friends who occasionally shoot me emails and ask random Bible questions, often because someone asked them and they weren't sure, so they ask me. I received one of these the other night: In both Exodus and Deuteronomy it talks about the 10 commandments and refers to not coveting your neighbors wife. Why doesn't this refer to spouse? The problem the individual who originally asked the question had, was that it's sexist by only addresses men coveting women. So, how do I address this?

First, I think we need to ask, "What's the context of the Law, from the 10 Commandments on down to the final details in Numbers to the second giving in Deuteronomy?"

In Exodus to Numbers, the Law is what God gives to his people at Sinai after he's taken them up and out of Egypt. The giving of the Law begins with a statement of this Gospel action, then moves on to the 10 Commandments, and then on to the rest of the Law. In Deuteronomy, it's a reminder of this Law being given to the people before they enter the Promised Land.

So, why does this matter? Quite simply, because the Law, in both cases, is being given to a group of people who are categorized by their ethnicity and history. They are descendants of Jacob who were brought out of slavery in Egypt (either personally or their direct ancestors). This means that, literally, the 10 Commandments don't apply to you and me.

Now, before anyone loses it, take note of that word, "literally". Because, in a way, the 10 Commandments do apply to you and I. They are, after all, a solid framework for understanding God's will, especially when we follow Jesus interpretation of them as opposed to the interpretation of the Pharisees.

So, for our purposes here, the key for you and I isn't the letter of the 10 Commandments, but their heart ... and that heart doesn't include sexism.

But this still leaves us with the problem that, in the original giving of the Law, God gave the command specifically to men so, "Was God being sexist? Shouldn't God have said that you shouldn't covet your neighbor's spouse?"

In response to this, my mind flashed to Matthew 19 and Jesus teaching on divorce. In short, he doesn't think divorce is a good thing, which makes sense because I've never found anybody who thought divorce was something they were just dying to experience. Challenging Jesus anti-divorce stance, the Pharisees point back to Deuteronomy 24:1-4, part of the Law, which gives permission for a man to divorce his wife because, "he has found some indecency in her".

How did Jesus respond? He says that the Mosiac Law is something less than God's design and is, in a sense, scaled back because those God was giving the law to, had hard hearts. In other words, could their be sexism in there, absolutely, but not because God desires it, but because God recognizes the human condition. I'd say the same thing goes for all those men in the Old Testament who had multiple wives.

If you expand this same heart of God beyond this one issue, it's actually a very good thing that God is aware of our condition, and is willing to work with us in our weakness to accomplish his much larger purposes.