In the book of Ruth there is a man who stands out for the way he treated a woman. His name was Boaz. He was wealthy, he had authority in Bethlehem, and he could have taken advantage of a poor foreign widow who came to glean in his fields. He did exactly the opposite. He protected her, ordered his young men not to touch her (Ruth 2:9), guarded her name and, when the time came to take her as his wife, he did it openly, before witnesses, at the gate of the city (Ruth 4:1-10).
The Bible also tells us of other men who did the opposite. Shechem saw Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, took her and defiled her, and only afterward tried to set things right by asking for her in marriage (Genesis 34:1-4). Amnon, son of King David, claimed to be in love with his half sister Tamar, and once he got what he wanted, he hated her (2 Samuel 13:15). Three men, three ways of treating a woman, and three very different endings.
Many of us reach marriage without understanding what it is about. We marry because we like the bride very much, and there is nothing wrong with that, but we do not really understand what our duties are. We find out later, sometimes the hard way, when we finally go and consult the Bible.
That is why, in this part of the series, I want to speak directly to the man. To the young man who has already set his eyes on a young woman and wants to walk toward marriage in a way that honors God and honors her. God expects a great deal of us as men, and He wants to teach us to love our wives before the damage is done. I will explain it step by step, in the order in which these things are usually lived, and at each step we will see what Scripture says.
Before you approach her, look at yourself
The first step has nothing to do with her. It has to do with you.
The psalmist asked a question that still stands: "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word" (Psalm 119:9). The question is not whom the young man will marry, but how he walks. Before asking a girl to trust you, you need to know whether your life is in order before the Lord.
Ask yourself honestly whether you are seeking God on your own or only go to church because she goes. Whether you have a hidden sin that you will drag into the relationship. Whether you are ready to make a man's decisions or are still waiting for others to sort out your life.
This includes something very practical. God put Adam in the garden to dress it and to keep it before He gave him Eve (Genesis 2:15). A young man who is thinking about marriage also has to think about how he will support a home. You don't need to be rich, but you do need a direction. Paul said it very firmly: "if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith" (1 Timothy 5:8). And Jesus spoke of the man who wants to build a tower and first sits down to count the cost (Luke 14:28). Count the cost in money, and count the cost in the heart as well.
Speak clearly from the beginning
Some relationships never quite get defined. Two young people text each other every night, sit together at every meeting, and when someone asks what they are, they answer that they are just friends. Meanwhile, her heart is getting entangled and he is enjoying the attention without committing to anything.
That is not fitting for a man of God. The Lord taught: "let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay" (Matthew 5:37). If you are interested in a young woman with marriage in view, tell her so with respect and clarity. And if you have no such intention, do not play with her emotions.
Speaking clearly also means being honest about who you are. If you have debts, a past that weighs on you, or struggles you are still overcoming, the time will come to tell her. "He that walketh uprightly walketh surely: but he that perverteth his ways shall be known" (Proverbs 10:9).
Come to her house through the front door
Scripture commands us to honor father and mother (Exodus 20:12), and that applies directly here. That young woman has a father and a mother who raised her, prayed for her and cared for her for years before you showed up. They have a right to know you, and if your intentions are good you have nothing to hide from them.
When Abraham sought a wife for Isaac, his servant did not take Rebekah away in secret. He went into the house, spoke with Laban and Bethuel, explained why he had come and waited for their answer (Genesis 24:33-51). Rebekah herself was even asked whether she wanted to go, and she answered: "I will go" (Genesis 24:58). Everything was done in plain view of the family.
Boaz did the same. He could have settled the matter privately, but he went to the gate of Bethlehem, gathered ten elders and arranged everything publicly (Ruth 4:2). That is how a man behaves when he has nothing to hide.
If her father is not present, or is not a believer, still seek the counsel and backing of people who are mature in the faith. Do not walk this road alone. "In the multitude of counsellors there is safety" (Proverbs 11:14).
Treat her as a sister before you treat her as a girlfriend
Paul wrote to Timothy, who was a young man, to treat "the younger as sisters, with all purity" (1 Timothy 5:2). Before she is your girlfriend, she is your sister in Christ, and as long as she is not your wife, that is what she remains.
In practice, it means you will take care of her the way you would take care of your own sister. A good question to ask yourself is this: would I like another young man to do with my sister what I am doing with this young woman? If the answer is no, there is your limit.
The Bible is very clear about sexual purity: "this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour; not in the lust of concupiscence" (1 Thessalonians 4:3-5). The next verse adds something that is hardly ever mentioned: "that no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter." When a young man takes from a girl what does not yet belong to him, he is robbing her, her family and, if the relationship does not end in a wedding, the man who will one day be her husband.
The story of Amnon is a serious warning. He claimed to love Tamar so much that he fell sick for her (2 Samuel 13:2). But what he felt was not love, it was desire. When he forced her, the Bible says that "the hatred wherewith he hated her was greater than the love wherewith he had loved her" (2 Samuel 13:15). Desire that is not submitted to God builds no one up. It consumes and then discards.
That is why the one responsible for setting the limits is you. Do not wait for her to say no. Avoid being alone with her in places where temptation comes easily. The Word does not tell you to resist youthful lusts, it tells you to flee from them (2 Timothy 2:22). Joseph did not stay to argue with Potiphar's wife; he left his garment and ran (Genesis 39:12).
And all of this begins in the eyes. Job said: "I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?" (Job 31:1). What you feed in your mind when you are alone will come out when you are with her. If you have a problem with pornography, face it now, with help, before you carry it into marriage. Jesus said that looking at a woman to lust after her is already adultery in the heart (Matthew 5:28).
Guard her name as you guard your own
There is a beautiful detail in the story of Boaz. When Ruth came to the threshing floor at night, he protected her and the next morning sent her away before it was light, because he said: "Let it not be known that a woman came into the floor" (Ruth 3:14). Nothing improper had happened, but her reputation mattered to Boaz.
A young man who truly loves guards the testimony of his girlfriend. He does not expose her on social media, does not show her off in front of his friends, does not tell her private matters and does not put her in situations that give people something to talk about. Peter tells husbands to treat the woman "giving honour" (1 Peter 3:7). That honor does not begin at the wedding. It is learned from now.
Learn to lead by serving
Some young men confuse leadership with giving orders. They think that being the head means deciding everything, controlling who she talks to or checking her phone. That is not what Scripture teaches.
The model God gives is Christ: "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it" (Ephesians 5:25). Christ leads by giving Himself. He washed His disciples' feet (John 13:5). He put others first. That is the kind of man you have to start becoming during your courtship.
Leading at this stage means taking the initiative in spiritual things. Praying for her, suggesting that you read the Word together, encouraging her to grow in her relationship with God and not to depend on you. It also means taking the initiative in the hard conversations: what you each think about children, about money, about each other's families, about where you will attend church.
And leading means being patient. Love "seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil" (1 Corinthians 13:5). If you notice that you get angry with her easily, that you pressure her or that you always need to be right, pay attention to that. A ring will not fix it on its own.
Do not awaken love before its time
In the Song of Songs the same warning appears three times: "that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please" (Song of Songs 2:7; 3:5; 8:4). There is a time for everything (Ecclesiastes 3:1), and romance has its time too.
This has to do with the pace of the relationship. Some people, after only a few weeks, are already promising eternal love and talking about the children they will have. Those words bind a girl's heart, and if the relationship does not work out, the damage is great. Do not promise what you cannot yet fulfill.
Do not drag out the courtship without reason either. A courtship of many years with no date, no plan and no direction wears both of you down and makes temptation grow. Paul acknowledges that "it is better to marry than to burn" (1 Corinthians 7:9). Jacob worked seven years for Rachel, it is true, but he knew exactly what he was working for, and the Bible says those years "seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her" (Genesis 29:20). He had a clear goal.
When the engagement comes, take it seriously
Asking for a young woman's hand is not a moment to show off on social media. It is the beginning of a covenant. Speak first with her parents, tell them what your intentions are and how you plan to care for their daughter, and listen to what they have to say to you, even if you do not like all of it.
When she says yes, remember that the engagement is not permission to relax. Being engaged is not being married. In the law of Moses, a betrothed young woman was already treated with the respect due to a wife, but the union was not consummated until the wedding day (Deuteronomy 22:23-24). Purity remains the same until then.
Use this time to prepare seriously. Seek guidance from people who are mature in the faith and talk about the practical things: where you will live, how you will handle money, what each of you expects from the other. And prepare yourself for what Genesis 2:24 says: "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." You are going to form a new home. That means cutting certain dependencies and giving your wife the place that belongs to her.
What happens when no one taught us
Some time ago I walked alongside a couple. She had been raised to make the most of her beauty. He grew up among macho men. They married very young.
When their first child was born, what naturally happens, happened. The wife poured herself into caring for her little one, and for a time her emotional needs, and his, were pushed into the background. That brought a certain distance between the two. It was a temporary separation, typical of a stage almost every marriage goes through, but he did not see it that way. His way of protesting was to convince himself that there was another man. From there he came to believe he had a right to his own happiness, and he looked for another woman. His wife found out and did the same.
From that moment on each of them went their own way, and every step led in the opposite direction. The gap grew wider every day. The matter reached the courts, and the authorities ended up issuing restraining orders.
In the middle of all that, he sought God and came to me hoping I would solve all his problems. But every piece of biblical counsel became a challenge for him. When I spoke to him about honoring his wife, about attending to her, about caring for her, he always answered the same thing: that it was neither possible nor fair for him to give all that without receiving anything in return.
That argument sounds reasonable, but it is not the argument of the Gospel. Peter tells husbands: "dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel" (1 Peter 3:7). "According to knowledge" means with understanding. To love your wife with knowledge is to study her and understand her, to know what she needs at each stage, including when a newborn takes up her days and nights. And the command comes with no conditions. Christ did not wait for the church to love Him before He gave Himself for her. "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). Jesus said it plainly: "if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye?" (Luke 6:32).
For a young man raised among macho men, that was completely new. He had been taught that the man receives and the woman adapts, and the Word was asking exactly the opposite of him.
The influence of older men
This story made me think about the terrible influence that we older men have on the young. That young man did not invent his way of seeing women. He learned it from the men who raised him. What he saw in them was what he repeated in his own marriage.
Scripture places that responsibility on us. Paul asks Titus that the aged men be "sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience," and that he exhort the young men to be sober minded, showing himself "a pattern of good works" (Titus 2:2, 6-7). Young men learn more from what they see us do than from what we tell them. If we older men treat our wives with contempt, with coldness, or as if they owed us something, that is what we will pass on to them.
And there is something more. We live in a time when God is sought only when desperation is extreme. We come to Him hoping He will erase from our wives' memory all the harm we have caused them, like someone asking the genie of the lamp for a wish. But God is not a genie. He forgives and restores, that is true, but He also calls us to live differently. "Seek ye the LORD while he may be found" (Isaiah 55:6). And Paul warns: "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap" (Galatians 6:7). What a man sows in his marriage, sooner or later he reaps.
That is why everything we have seen in this article matters so much before the "yes." What a young man does not learn during courtship does not disappear with the wedding. He carries it with him into marriage, and it often comes to light when the children arrive and the pressures increase.
In closing
Scripture ends the story of Isaac and Rebekah with a simple sentence: he "took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her" (Genesis 24:67). Behind that sentence there was prayer, the blessing of a family, a question asked with respect and a yes given freely.
God expects a great deal of us as men. He expects that through the way we love, our wives may come to see something of His face. The blessing God gave Israel said: "The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee" (Numbers 6:25). A husband who loves as Christ loves, who cares, who honors and who gives without keeping score, becomes a reflection of that face inside his own home.
Boaz cared for Ruth before he married her, and that is why he could marry her with his head held high. Amnon used Tamar and ended up despising her. The difference was not in what they felt, but in whether they were willing to obey God.
"Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD" (Proverbs 18:22). She is a gift, and God's gifts are to be treated with reverence. God can teach you to love your future wife, if you let Him, starting now.