Does a husband need to love his wife more than anyone on earth? Even his children?<\/p>\n\t
The question implies there is a set quantity of love that a person can give. It also assumes that love for, say children, is at odds with loving your wife.<\/p>\n
The greatest commandment is loving God, the second is loving our fellow man (Mark 12:30-31). This isn’t saying that we give God 80% of our love and men 20%. When we love God, we naturally love our fellow man. Because we love God, we follow His command (John 14:15), and a part of those commands is to love your fellow man. “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome<\/em>” (I John 5:2-3).<\/p>\n Love for your wife is not at odds with loving your children. They mesh together in perfect harmony because over all of it is our love for God. When you show love for your fellow Christian, it doesn’t mean you love your wife or children less. It all fits together because of our love for God. Your wife and your children are probably easier people to love because their love is being returned to you, but it doesn’t mean you can’t love others at the same time.<\/p>\n “And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all, just as we do to you<\/em>” (I Thessalonians 3:12).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Question: Does a husband need to love his wife more than anyone on earth? Even his children? Answer: The question implies there is a set quantity of love that a person can give. It also assumes that love for, say children, is at odds with loving your wife. The greatest commandment is loving God, the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[173,65,64],"class_list":["post-26788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-family","tag-love","tag-marriage"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":29490,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-jealousy-always-wrong\/","url_meta":{"origin":26788,"position":0},"title":"Is jealousy always wrong?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 11, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Doesn't the Bible say not to be jealous? But then in more than one place, it says God is a jealous God. Answer: Jealousy means \"Vigilant guarding of a possession.\" It is the desire to hold on to what is yours for your own personal use. Sometimes we wrongfully\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":28611,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-is-a-work\/","url_meta":{"origin":26788,"position":1},"title":"What is a work?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 26, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I'm a little confused by works. I understand that faith and works go hand in hand. But I'm the type of person who needs concrete examples. Is reading my Bible considered a work? Is, say, giving turkeys to the poor on Thanksgiving considered a work? Is praying a work?\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18759,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-thinking-about-a-girl-constantly-be-idolatry\/","url_meta":{"origin":26788,"position":2},"title":"Can thinking about a girl constantly be idolatry?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 27, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Could you help me understand what idolatry is according to the Bible?\u00a0 I know it seems like a simple concept, but I have heard so much conflicting information on the subject.\u00a0 For example, I heard one preacher complaining that being devoted to American Idol constituted idolatry (how about that?).\u00a0\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":89505,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/commandment-keeping\/","url_meta":{"origin":26788,"position":3},"title":"Commandment Keeping","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 17, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Kevin Cauley There are those in the religious world today who ridicule the idea of keeping commandments. They claim that keeping God's commandments has nothing to do with our salvation today. If someone objects and says that we must keep God's commandments to be saved, the charge of legalism\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9761,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/if-i-obey-god-even-though-i-dont-want-to-is-that-proof-that-i-love-god\/","url_meta":{"origin":26788,"position":4},"title":"If I obey God even though I don’t want to, is that proof that I love God?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 16, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Good day, When I do something because it's a commandment from God, and even if I don't want to, is that not proof that I love God? So there are things I don't like to do but because I love God I do it anyway. And on the other\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":19693,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/when-we-love-god-how-do-you-define-love\/","url_meta":{"origin":26788,"position":5},"title":"When we love God, how do you define love?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 30, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I have been writing a paper on what it means to love God.\u00a0 I have some parts and to love God you follow his commandments; if you don't, you don't love God. But how do we define love? I have been thinking about it for a long time. It\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26788\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}