What Does God Expect Of A Pastor’s Wife?

Where do you go to find God’s expectation of a Pastor’s Wife? Must be the Bible!

She definitely has to be in there, in the Scriptures, with a full description of her required character and responsibilities in the life of the church.

The Pastor’s Wife plays, and is expected to play, a vital role in the life of the church; so she had to be included in Scripture somewhere.

So to the Scriptures I went.

I was looking for the Pastor’s Wife but really I was looking for myself.

I wanted to find myself in the pages of my Bible so I would know who I was and what I was meant to be doing.

I found myself to be drowning under the weight of both real and perceived expectation - the expectation I placed upon myself, the expectation I thought my husband had of me, those I thought God had of me and the expectation our congregation had of me.

As a result of all this I came to feel that I, the Pastor’s Wife, was right there alongside Wonder Woman.

If not Wonder Woman then definitely the sixth fold ministry gift to the church, the five-fold (Eph 4:11) plus the Pastor’s Wife.

What does God expect of a pastor’s wife? What does God say about the Pastor’s Wife?

Imagine my amazement when I couldn’t find her on any of the pages of my Bible.

She isn’t there.

I found the deacon’s wife (1 Tim 3:11) and basically she was to be a woman on integral character.

Also I found the top two commandments (Matt 22:37-39 : Love God and love your neighbour) as well as Paul’s instruction (1 Cor 12) to use the gifts you have been given by God.

So from what I could see by combining these four together: God’s expectation of me as a Pastor’s Wife is to be a woman of character, love Him, love my neighbour and activate the gifts He has given to me according to His good pleasure.

When I discovered these truths a freeing feeling of relief flooded through my soul and the great burden of my imagined God expectation lifted off my shoulders, leaving me with a ‘Now I can do this, I can be the Pastor’s Wife’.