Esteem Other Better

The Vine

Paul names two specific motives to avoid, strife and vainglory, both of which tend to drive marital conflict more than the actual disagreement itself. Strife seeks to win. Vainglory seeks to be seen as right. Both turn a disagreement into a contest, with one spouse’s esteem rising only at the expense of the other’s.

The alternative Paul offers is demanding: esteem other better than themselves. Not merely equal consideration, but a deliberate posture that places the other’s standing, in your own estimation, above your own. This is difficult in ordinary friendship. It is especially difficult in the close, repeated friction of marriage, where old grievances accumulate and make esteeming the other easily feel unearned.

This does not mean ignoring genuine wrongs or treating yourself as worthless. It means actively resisting the strife and vainglory that turn ordinary disagreements into contests for who is esteemed more highly, choosing instead to esteem your spouse’s standing even in the middle of a disagreement you may genuinely believe you are right about.

In your next disagreement, whenever it comes, notice whether strife or vainglory has entered the room, quietly turning the conversation into a contest. Choose, deliberately, to esteem your spouse better than yourself in that exact moment, not because you are wrong, but because this is what love, according to Paul, actually requires.