Notes on the book,
 Love and Respect, by Emerson Eggerichs

The Title Tips the Hand

First of all, the title of the book tips Eggs’ hand, “The Respect He Desperately Needs.”  Desperate? Really? Now the man is positioned as being desperate? This is a back-handed insult and sets up the relationship between the woman who “most desires” and the man who “desperately needs.”  No, I’m not being picky, overly sensitive, or unreasonable.  Desperation insinuates the person is in a situation out of their control and is frantic about getting what they need. If there is any truth to that, it points to the woman who is so out of line of respecting her husband, that it is her who is desperate for knowing God’s requirements of her. Her husband is simply paying the price.   
Look, words mean EVERYTHING.  Words are what God chose to reveal Himself –His will. Those who want to be sloppy in their words (written or spoken) cannot be expected to read the Word and get what is intended to be communicated. They will not recognize the truth conveyed in the Bible.  So, please, don’t tell me that I am being picky about the words selected by the author for the title of his book.  “Desperate” is intentional. And if he really didn’t mean to convey the qualities of desperation, then he shouldn’t even have written the book.

First Chapter, First Paragraph

(p. 7) In the first paragraph of the first chapter, Egg demonstrates exactly what is the problem with many Church leaders (pastors, authors, counselors, etc).  He sets up a straw man of sympathy for the woman and a straw man condemnation on all men.  Here again, consistent with what we hear throughout our modern culture, the husband is deficient and needs enlightening.  Verbatim, “Was there some way I could help wives motivate these husbands to love them more?”  Yes, Egg is saying that husbands need saving from themselves by their wives!  The wife needs to motivate her husband. He’s too dumb and unable to communicate what really needs to happen, so she needs to step in.  Does that sound like it really lines up with the rest of scriptural teaching about the husband’s and wife’s disposition and predisposition?
In the second paragraph, he continues his manipulation by citing his personal childhood experience. by pulling the reader in through sympathy. Egg consistently throughout the book uses his own experiences to connect with the reader  –‘Hey, I’m one of you!’  This is a common approach by pastors, admitting that they too are sinners.  It is a way to connect through empathy.  A legitimate tactic in communicating and connecting with your audience.  However, Egg seems to use his personal anecdotal experiences as a basis for his system. 

In each of his personal situations with his wife Egg frames his points in a peculiar way. 

p. 9  The Jeans Jacket incident. The tense interaction between the two (“great perplexity”, “Adamant”, “sternly repeated”, “shot back”) began with and was fueled by Sarah’s presumptuous expectations based on her self-centeredness.  She projected how she reacts onto Egg and when he didn’t respond the way she thought he should, she challenged him instead of seeking to understand him.   
Egg states, “I felt judged for failing to be and act in a certain way. I felt as if I were unacceptable.”   No, Egg, you didn’t just feel unacceptable, she, in reality, did not accept how you acted.  Do you see what Egg has done?  He’s taken at least partial ownership for her bad behavior –what was hers to own.
p. 11 Egg justifies her behavior in the You Can Be Right But Wrong at the Top of Your Voice incident with “her outburst was caused by her desire to help me.”  Egg is making an excuse for her bad behavior.  It sounds more like Sarah was uncomfortable with his ways and felt he should change. That is a selfish motive.  If Sarah had a heart for Egg, she would have seen that his ways could have been inhibiting what Egg was trying to accomplish. From there, her approach could have been one of a “help meet,” with a calm disposition, seeking to help him.  The Biblical lesson in this account is that Sarah had enough integrity to listen to Egg, accept his criticism, realize her destructive behavior, and modify it going forward. She did what any Christian should do when they offend someone –repent. She modified her interactions with Egg to be aligned more with a “meek and quiet” spirit that submitted to the counsel of her soon-to-be husband.

p.12  The “Forgot Her Birthday” situation Egg describes is a bit frightening.  This resembled more of a “shit test” than anything else.  The premeditated intent of Sarah was an attempt to test the man. She went out of her way to remove any evidence of her birthday.  How much more could someone do to set up another for failure?  If she had a heart for him, she would not have allowed him to fail. She already knew he was a bit aloof in these matters and was gambling that he was going to forget her birthday.  Rather than setting him up for failure, a “help meet” would have done otherwise. She would have said something to remind him ahead of time.  Something to set him up for success.  

Egg says “what she did was not done in a mean spirit.”  No, that was mean-spirited!  To set up her husband up for failure was mean-spirited.  That is what some call a “shit test.”  It is to place your loved one in a situation to see if they pass or fail your arbitrary standard.  It is to know that if they fail, they will be in a bad light in your eyes and likely cause them to feel bad about themselves.  Why would anyone who professes to love another let that happen?  This is not consistent with the character of a Christian wife.   This is not consistent with a “whole” person.

Again, Egg takes ownership where it isn’t his to own.  If Sarah had not manipulated the situation with her “shit test”, then Egg should take ownership. However, her premeditation changed the situation.  Her actus reus made it about her.  She changed the liability when she acted on her darker side.
Egg is buying into the fallacy of our culture that the man must meet arbitrary hurdles or deliver certain tokens to prove his “love” for his wife.  This is the furthest thing from Biblical love in marriage. When a woman plays the relationship this way, she is acting to her darker character to which God said she is  predisposed. (Gen 3:16  “. . . thy desire shall be to thy husband . . .”)  Egg, like many church leaders today, is teaching with presuppositions that are contrary to the Biblical view of the woman’s predisposition.
p. 13  Egg says, “After all, I was a pastor who was paid to be “good”.  How could I justify all my little slip-ups that were “good for nothing”?”    Here again Egg is taking complete ownership for the three incidents he describes in the previous four pages, the Jeans Jacket, Wrong at the Top of Your Voice, and Forgot Her Birthday.  He continues with the “wet towels”.  He does it again with the “coughing”. 

I think I’m seeing a pattern here of excusing bad behavior. Instead of holding her to a standard of accountability for how she talks and treats him, Egg is using a few techniques to skirt the real issue.  Egg describes his future wife when he met her as “whole and holy.”  What does he mean by “whole and holy?”  Nobody is perfect.  His case studies (the Jeans Jacket incident and the “Wrong at the Top of Your Voice” incident) clearly demonstrate that Sarah, as much of a nice person as she may have been, was not “whole” (and still is not whole).  WE ALL SIN.  We all offend our spouses at one point or another.  Egg’s case studies, as much he wants to prove his claim of “love and respect” as the magic bullet, is revealing what we all know already, but what pastors, authors and counselors, with heroic efforts, try to avoid:  Wives have predispositions that make them NOT whole.  Wives are just as susceptible to sin as their husbands and are responsible for their own sins and offenses.  Stop the excuses and the skirting. It’s time that pastors, authors, and counselors treat wives as the adults they are supposed to be.

Egg’s “Secret” hidden in Ephesians 5:33

(p.14) I am cautious when anyone takes a Biblical topic from one verse and creates an entire system from it.  That is exactly what Egg admits to doing.  Egg capitulates to the secular religions when he cites combining his twenty years of study, a PhD in family studies, and his “reading scientific research” as a way of explaining why he chose to narrowly focus on Eph 5:33 –his hidden secret.  His attraction for citing Eph 5:33 is the same so many others flock to the Ephesians 5:21-33 verses –it equalizes the husband-wife relationship in a way that cannot be found in the rest of scripture. It is used to divert attention from the rest of scripture that is offensive to our modern culture.  Focusing on Ephesians 5:21-33 myopically aligns scripture with the post-modern culture where the “old” church teachings are no longer in favor. Talking about the wife submitting to her husband is met with hostility, even within the church. It has become a third rail –pastors avoid the topic and refuse to address the woman’s obligation.  To get around the third rail, Egg has reduced submission to “respect.”  The problem is that he didn’t just change the term, but he’s also modified the marriage relationship to where it is not consistent with the rest of scripture. 
The King James version uses “reverence” instead of “respect”.   The Greek word used is phobeo.   It can mean “to frighten”, “to be alarmed”, or “to be in awe of, i.e., revere. 

G5399 (Mickelson's Enhanced Strong's Greek and Hebrew Dictionaries)
G5399 φοβέω phobeo (fob-eh'-o) v.
1. to frighten
2. (passively) to be alarmed
3. (by analogy) to be in awe of, i.e. revere
[from G5401]
KJV: be (+ sore) afraid, fear (exceedingly), reverence

Root(s): G5401
[?]

The term “respect” is close, but it does not have the same meaning as “to be in awe of.”  
The root of reverence is “revere”.  To revere is to regard with awe, deference, and devotion.
re·vere   (rĭ-vîr′)  To regard with awe, deference, and devotion.
Egg claims, “the love and respect connection is the key to any problem in the marriage.” (p.15)  He continues by saying that “the need for love and the need for respect play off of one another.”  What Egg is getting at is partially correct.  The issue is that he doesn’t tie it into the larger Biblical context.  He is misrepresenting what is the real destructive dynamic that occurs in marriages. He avoids it because it requires chastising women.  He is capitulating to what the cultural bullies demand.  The cultural bullies include those who have reduced the necessity and value of the Biblical construct –the Biblical foundations of the marriage relationship.

Maybe Egg is right. With the dumbing down of the population general, they may not be able to handle more than a simplistic, non-offensive platitude.  I get it. If submission is offensive, let’s drop it down a notch and call it something different.  That is an effective and sometimes appropriate strategy in communicating.  There are a couple of concerns with what he’s done along with shifting the lexicon.

p. 18 para 2
Egg says that because God is not pleased with the husband who is not saved or is a “carnal Christian”, he does not “deserve” his wife’s respect.  However, Egg says she is to respect her husband regardless –that it is unconditional.   Egg has it correct that God is not pleased with the husband who is not saved, however, where does Egg get that the husband doesn’t “deserve” his wife’s respect? What scriptural basis does he have to make that claim?  What value is there in making that claim?  Egg is again kowtowing to his women audience. He’s allowing them to say, “See, he doesn’t deserve my respect, however, I will show him respect anyway.” He’s appealing to their victim/martyrdom tendencies.  Egg is permitting wives to hold disdain in their hearts while acting to the contrary.  Scripture is replete with matters of the heart and outward expressions.  How did Egg miss these in his “20 years of study?”  Matt 7:15 “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.”  Matt 6:6  “But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.” Matt 5:28 “But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”  Matt 12:34 “O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” Matt 12:35 “A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.”

Egg and many other Christian pastors, authors and counselors miss one of the most important teachings in scripture, especially in regard to the marriage relationship –it is about the person’s heart.  If their heart is not right, any outward expression is empty.  When their heart is in the right place, every outward expression will show it.
pp. 32-34
All the talk of blue and pink glasses/hearing aids seems to be a construct that distracts from Biblical teaching.  It is a diversion from the 5 Foundations.  It seems to be a gimmick or red herring. It is no different than the “women are from Venus, men are from Mars” mentality.  Where is the Biblical support for these views? This mind-set is non-Biblical and sets an antagonistic tension between the husband and wife.
p. 35

Egg cites Gottman’s view of “contempt” as the “most corrosive force in marriage” and that “Love and Respect” are the anti-dotes for this contempt.   Contempt is a broad term.  It is more general than what scripture defines as the state that the husband and wife each are predisposed to.  Go back to Genesis 3:16 to understand the wife’s predisposition – “Unto the woman he said . . . thy desire shall be to thy husband . . .”  The woman will, by her nature, desire her husband’s position in the relationship and it will manifest by her lack of submission.
Using the term “contempt” equalizes the separate predispositions to which husbands and wives are susceptible.  Husbands and wives are susceptible to different predispositions. The effect of equating the Biblically defined predisposition of the husband and wife is to equate one offense to the other. By equating the offenses, the remedies must also be equated or complemented. One cannot be any more or less than the other. However, that is not what scripture emphasizes.  Scripture emphasizes the wife as the one who is to yield, i.e., submit.
Egg’s approach waters down the idea of the wife’s submission. He’s folded to the culture –the distaste our culture has developed for Biblical submission by the wife.  Like so many others, Egg has avoided the third rail (submission) and in so doing has not only missed the true Biblical message, but he has perpetuated the redefinition of the marriage relationship. The culture has conditioned him to not look at Biblical submission as the true solution.  His watered down version is all his audience will tolerate.  While this will gain him more acceptance and sell more books, it is compromising the truth of the scriptures.
For as many times as scripture requires the wife to submit, why is that not captured in the same proportion in Egg’s book?
Egg is presenting a Ying/Yang approach to the marriage dilemma.  While he is correct in saying that husbands must love their wives and wives must respect their husbands, he omits a clear pattern in the scriptures where the wife is the one required to yield, i.e., submit (oooh, there’s that word again). 
Scripture overwhelmingly requires the wife to submit, to yield.  There is a reason for this required submission.  It models the Christ – Church relationship.  The Church yields (submits) to Christ. When a Christian offends God, they are required to confess their sins and make it right. When a Christian does not confess their offenses to God, a gap pursues.  The gap is not because God is moving away, but it is because we have pushed away from Him and refuse to yield. 

This is not to say that the husband does not need to seek forgiveness from her for his offenses against her.  However, when the couple locks into a stand-off (what Egg calls the “Crazy Cycle”) it is the wife who is to yield.   That is what scripture requires; and for good reason.   It is being obedient to the requirement on her part to submit to him, it affirms his headship, and it opens the door for reconciliation. Any good-willed man will accept his wife’s move to make right the relationship.   No, the man is not being childish or un-Christ-like.  This is the dynamic of a true Christian marriage. It is consistent with a “meek and quiet spirit” and it is the manifestation of her submission to him. 

The woman who refuses to submit is cutting her nose off in spite of her face.  Her sinful pride has overtaken her.  Can we not call this for what it is?  Prideful rebellion. The same sin that sent Lucifer to the pit.

If you doubt what I am saying, take a look at the growing number of books and blogs where women have discovered for themselves the power of submitting to their husbands (unconditionally).  They most often manifest in the sexual relationship where the woman no longer denies her husband.  They all speak of the transformative affect their change of heart has had on the entire marriage relationship. They all speak of their amazement of how the marriage became what they had always hoped for, once they changed their hearts toward their husband.  (The usual legalese qualifier:  This assumes the man and woman are both good-willed individuals who are within the bounds of morality.)
The husband – wife dynamic is supposed to be identical to the Christ – Church dynamic.  The move to right the relationship rests on her.  Yielding to her husband has the same affect on her as it does on the Christian who yields to Christ. It closes the gap that would otherwise continue to grow.  We have all experienced “gaps” in our own marriages during the “Crazy Cycles.”
For as many times scripture requires the wife to submit, why is that not captured in Egg’s book?

The numerous admonitions in scripture make it abundantly clear that the wife is the one who is to yield.

Yielding to her husband opens the relationship up for reconciliation.
Once she yields (submits) to her husband and she has placed herself willingly before him, he is obligated to accept her repentance. Just like Christ has promised to forgive us when we come with heartfelt repentance to Him.

p. 48, I still believe that women want love far more than respect and men want respect far more than love.
It is not that women want love more than respect or that husbands want respect more than love.  Eggerichs’ exaggeration creates a false dichotomy. The real point of that scripture verse in Eph 5 is speaking to the shortcomings of each . . . their predispositions to neglect or overlook what they should be providing to their spouse in the context of their gender-specific roles and duties in the marriage.  Yes, the real meaning of the love-respect verse must be placed in the larger context (that was established in Genesis and is thematic throughout the Old and New Testaments) of headship and submission.

Respect is not some fickle need that the man has.  Respect from the wife is a demonstration of her submission to him.  Her disrespect is outright rebellion, a manifestation of her heart. If she does not respond to his corrections when she is disrespectful, she is in sin.  This is what God in Genesis told her she would struggle. It is rebellion.  Rebellion against God and her husband.

Our culture is so far off of what is Biblically required by the wife, authors and pastors like Eggerichs have created an entirely different view of the relationship.   Eggerichs started with his answer and is backing into Scripture to fit his answer.  This is to his own admission at the beginning of his book. He has been influenced by the modern feminist culture as much as anyone.  His writing, like many other authors and preachers, couches the issues to avoid sounding like he is chastising women for their predisposed shortcomings.  He dilutes the message that women should be hearing. 

The word respect should hardly be mentioned. True respect happens in all she says to him and does with him and for him. It is silly to think that all a wife needs do is tell her husband how much she respects him, like there is a magic phrase that he will respond to like a Pavlovian dog.

Overall Eggs book is fair (C-). What he is essentially doing is couching a woman's obligation to submit to her husband in the weakened term "respect."  It is a sleight of hand.  But, hey, if it moves the woman’s heart across the line, why not?   Unfortunately, this is just a loud statement of where our Christian community has slid.

Yes, I know, a lot of couples have gained from his book and have been able to move their marriages to a much better place.  That is pragmatism, not Christianity. It doesn't invalidate my points and it doesn’t negate his error.

Titus 2:3-5 KJV 1   3 The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;  4 That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,  5 To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.

His underlying presumption places love and respect on two rails that never meet; that love is one thing and respect is completely different.  Granted, they are not the same thing. However, in a marriage one cannot be divorced from the other.  Respecting the other person is to love them.  Love is the broader term that should have within its many expressions, respect.  Respect for another includes many things: seeking forgiveness, listening to them, considering the other’s opinion, preserving the other’s dignity (even when challenging their behaviors or views), to not misrepresent them or what they say, and on and on.  This “respect” that Egg speaks of goes both for the wife and the husband.  It is what we do with those we love. So, when Paul says that wives should respect their husbands, he is speaking not to the “desperation” (Eggerichs’ word) of the husband, he is speaking to the sinful predisposition of the wife.  Paul does not prescribe some magic phrase. Paul is speaking to the disposition of her heart and how it manifests in what she says to her husband and how she treats him.

p.42. “When I talk to wives, they have no trouble grasping the concept of unconditional love. After all, they are wired that way. But when I mention showing unconditional respect for husbands, it’s a much harder sell.”
The idea of being “wired that way” is a screen. It is a lazy way to gloss over the predisposition of a woman and neglect the instruction and admonishment they require. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that a woman is wired to love. That is a fabricated idea that roots in secularism. It is used to gloss over the woman’s responsibility. Love is a heartfelt expression of goodwill that manifests for the good of another. It is to help them, build them up (in a healthy way), provide for them physically, emotionally, socially, and in any other way that is meaningful to the recipient. There are plenty of women who fall far short of loving their husbands. The belief that women are wired to love is one of the most egregious errors in our culture and the church.

p. 44  para 3
“The husbands think  . . .”  Only husbands who have bought into the idea that they have to earn a woman’s respect (offer arbitrarily required tokens) think the way that Egg describes.  This is yet another straw man that Egg sets up to artificially substantiate his point. The book is riddled with them.
p. 45 para 1
“We think so differently. I don’t  even relate to what he considers respect (or the lack of it).”  This is why 1) she is to submit to him, and 2) she is to be taught by the older women to love her husband.

p. 52
Egg goes over the edge in placating the modern women. Yes, husband and wife are equal as they stand before God. However, Scripture is plentiful in its evidence of the man’s headship in marriage. It is evident especially in the woman’s requirement to submit to him. Anyone who is objective and has made even a cursory attempt at studying the topics of the man’s headship and the woman’s submission cannot claim that, within the marriage relationship, they are equal. It just isn’t so. Egg is peddling a lie that has been perpetuated over the last half century.

p. 53. Para 2-3
Egg’s entire explanation here is a fabrication in his own mind. Prince and princess? His attempt to use Nehemia as a  bridge to say that “a man longs for his wife to look up to him” is weak, if not downright irrelevant. His rationalizations are efforts to neutralize the roles –to erase the headship - help meet dynamic.

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