By studying Genesis 2, we can see at least 4 biblical indications that mean a man is ready to have a wife.
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1. You Are Ready for a Wife When Your Relationship with God Is Right
When you study Genesis 2, Adam was right with God still. He communed with him daily. It was in this state that God brought Eve to Adam.
Likewise, if you are rebelling against God and not living life as he designed you to live, you should not expect the Lord to bless you with a godly wife. A wife is not meant to save you from your problems, to right your wrong road, or to fill an emptiness in your soul.
When God said it was not good for the man to be alone (Genesis 2:18), this did not mean Adam’s relationship with God was not good. Adam was right with God, which meant Adam could then be right with a woman. We can’t be right with anyone else if we are not first right with God.
Thus, it was not good for Adam to be alone not because he was unfulfilled in God; rather, it was not good for Adam to be alone because he was fulfilled in God. When you are full of the love of God, you need other people to share in that love. The only way to maximize your joy in Christ even more is to share it with others (1 John 1:4).
So the first step to being ready to have a wife is to first be right with God through Jesus Christ.
2. You Are Ready for a Wife When You Are Working
Notice the sequence in which Genesis 2:15-18 lays out the information:
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’”
Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’”
Notice that word “Then” at the beginning of verse 18. Before God gave Adam a woman, he first gave Adam a job. One of the primary roles of a husband is to provide for his family. To do that, a man needs a job.
You don’t need to be wealthy to get married. You don’t even need to be able to support a woman so she can be a stay-at-home mom, although I think that’s best when possible. All a man needs to get married is to be able to be self-sufficient. If you can’t provide for yourself yet, you are not ready for marriage. When you are responsible for yourself, biblically, you are then an adult and free to get married.
3. You Are Ready for a Wife When You Know the Word of God
Let’s go back to Genesis 2:15-18. After God gave Adam work to do, he then gave Adam his word to live by.
Notice, however, that God gave Adam the commands to live by before Eve was even made yet. God entrusted Adam with teaching Eve these commandments, which was one of Paul’s points in 1 Timothy 2:11-14. God calls pastors to be men because from the beginning this was one of the husband’s roles. And since church is full of families, the men should be leading.
All that to say, if you don’t know the word and you are not living by the word, you are not ready for a wife. You don’t need to be more biblically knowledgeable than the woman you marry. You don’t have to be more spiritually mature. You don’t have to have been a Christian longer than her. But when you get married, you are called to lead your wife spiritually. And to do that, you have to first be leading yourself and submitting to God’s word.
In love, let me tell it to you straight: If you are reading your Bible once a week, you’re not ready for a wife. You need to be reading your Bible every day, seeking to live by his word, and letting it guide you in every decision (Psalm 19:7-11). A godly man lives by the Scriptures (Joshua 1:8-9).
4. You Are Ready for a Wife When the Lord Brings the Right Woman to You
I’ve heard Genesis 2:18 being used as justification for passive men to sit there and “just wait” for God to bring his future wife into his life. That is not at all what I mean by stating a man is ready for a wife once the Lord brings him the right woman. As we have already discussed, there were many things Adam was doing before God brought him Eve.
Additionally, when God brought Eve into Adam’s life, Adam still pursued her and took her as his wife. Likewise, while God will have to bring this woman into your life, you must also pursue her once he does bring her to you.
Nonetheless, none of us are ready to have a wife until the Lord brings about this blessing for us. As Provers 18:14, “House and wealth are inherited from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the Lord.”
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