mgpcpastor's blog

Those facebook or twitter status updates from Christian pastoral equivalents of Bear Grylls (just wrote three new sermons from the Greek text alone, had ‘daddy dates’ with my four daughters, led three discipling sessions, coach junior sporting teams what include my children, am roasting the flesh of some animal I tracked and humanely killed, and now intend to spend some time intoxicated by the beauty of my bride who is the hottest woman on the planet, after which I’ve got an even busier afternoon… sort of thing) made me feel some sense of empathy with this post from Jon Acuff:

I’m going to lose readers on this one. Even as I start writing this post, I can hear metaphorical car doors slamming shut and tires peeling away from SCL into the vast blogosphere in search of better posts to read. But I have to make a confession, and I can’t hold it back any more.
It weirds me out a little when a guy refers to his wife as his “bride.”
Unless it’s your wedding day, telling me, “I need to go see my bride,” sounds a little strange to me. If it’s your big day and you’re about to go down the aisle, bride it up. Say bride all day long like it was your J.O.B. Go bride wild. I’ll even get in on the action and say things like, “Your bride looks beautiful today.” Or “It’s going to be amazing for you to see your bride walk down the aisle!” I’m 100% down for calling your wife “bride” on the day you get married.
The day after your wedding? I’m not so sure. Here’s why:

1. Ladies never do the equivalent.
I see guys on Twitter and Facebook talk about their brides all the time. A friend once said to me, “Please tell your bride thanks for sharing you with us this weekend when you came and spoke to our church.” But I have never, ever seen a lady call her man her “groom” after the wedding. I’ve never heard a girl say, “I need to get home to my groom. I’ve been really missing my groom.”
2. It feels a little medieval.
Whenever I hear someone say, “My bride and I have a really full weekend planned,” I instantly imagine, “Of course you do. Probably going to do some jousting, eat a giant turkey leg, maybe pull a sword from a stone. Big weekend planned. I’m not sure if you and your fair lady will have time for Bed Bath & Beyond this weekend.”
3. It feels a smidge too fancy.
It would feel way too formal if I was ever at a dinner party and someone I worked with said, “Hey Jon, come here, I’d like you to meet my bride.” My first thought would be, “Wait, am I at your wedding right now? She’s wearing shorts and flip flops, but I must be at your wedding if I’m meeting your bride.”

As I researched this idea, in my head mostly, I felt like there were two possible reasons to call your wife your bride. The first is that it’s biblical. Isn’t the church called “the bride of Christ?” It’s not called the “wife of Christ.” So using “bride” could be a throwback to the Bible. So maybe saying “bride” is like answering the question, “What Would Jesus Do?” He’d say bride. OK, I get that.
The other reason I could see you using this word is that your wife loves it. If my wife wanted me to call her my bride and that made her feel loved, the title of this post would be “People who don’t call their wives their brides are stupid.” So maybe that’s why you do it.