Paul writes these words to the church in Colossae, a small city in the Lycus Valley of Asia Minor, sometime around the early 60s AD while imprisoned for the gospel. In a world where husbands held legal and social power over their wives, most men were never challenged on how they spoke at home or what their authority felt like to the women under their roof. Paul steps into that culture and doesn’t just tell wives how to relate to their husbands; he turns and speaks directly to men, insisting that their love must be real, and that harshness has no place in a Christian marriage.

The command is straightforward and theologically loaded at the same time. When Paul tells husbands to love, he is echoing the kind of love he spells out elsewhere: patient, kind, not rude, not irritable, not keeping a record of wrongs. Refusing harshness means more than avoiding physical aggression; it includes biting sarcasm, cold withdrawal, raised voices, and the kind of criticism that crushes instead of builds. God’s character is consistent throughout Scripture: he is powerful, holy, and yet “slow to anger and rich in faithful love,” and husbands are called to mirror that steady strength and restraint inside their own homes.

As a husband reading this, you are being called to audit the way you love your wife in the ordinary hours. It confronts the way you respond when you’re tired, disrespected at work, or stretched financially, and your wife asks a question or makes a comment that hits you wrong. Loving her means choosing a calmer tone when you want to snap, staying in the conversation when you’d rather shut down, and remembering that your strength was given by God to protect her heart, not to intimidate it. On a day when culture talks about flowers and dinners, this scripture pushes you toward repentance where needed and a more intentional, gentle presence that your wife can rely on on February 14 and every other day.

A husband comes home late after a long shift, shoulders tight, mind still chewing on something that went sideways on the job. His wife meets him at the door with a question about a bill and a comment about how late it is again this week. He feels heat rise in his chest and the first words in his throat are sharp, ready to defend himself and push back. He remembers this short command, pauses at the kitchen counter, lowers his voice instead of raising it, and says, “I know this has been hard on you. Let’s look at this together after I take a quick shower.” The tension doesn’t evaporate magically, but the night moves in a different direction because he chose love over harshness in that exact moment.

Colossians 3 carries a whole pattern for life in Christ, and this line sits right in the middle of what Paul calls “clothing yourself” with the new nature. It’s worth slowing down in that chapter, paying attention to what comes before and after this command, and letting the Spirit show where your own habits at home align with Jesus and where they need to be put to death.