A third hindrance to submission is fear. Fear might be expressed in this way, “I don’t think my husband can be trusted with my life, the lives of my children, and the future of our family. I am afraid he cannot handle the responsibility if I really submit to him and help to establish him as the leader of our home.” In submitting to her husband, a woman recognizes that she is submitting to God and trusting Him as the power behind her husband.
Another fear might be expressed like this: “I am afraid if I really yield myself to my husband, I will lose my life.” True life and purpose is found when we live to please and serve another. A marriage relationship should be the place we model “dying to self to live for another.” Only this attitude, which should first be modeled by the husband, can manifest in selfless behavior. Desperately holding on to your life by refusing to submit to your husband means missing the life and glory God has for you.
The fourth hindrance to biblical submission is individualism. The spirit of individualism, or independence, is everywhere in the world today, and many Christian women have imbibed of it. It is a very subtle thing, and can be seen in a woman’s desire for a career apart from her husband (nothing wrong for a woman to work), or her desire to keep her maiden name after marriage, and can even masquerade as a personal “call” to a particular ministry.
The “pride of life” to which Eve succumbed in the Garden of Eden was really nothing more than this spirit of individualism, this desire to be something apart from God and His divine order, to be wise, to know all that God knows. Its fruit is a delusion, for the promised independence is nothing more than submission to a different head—Satan. We are all “slaves to whom we obey, whether of sin and death, or of obedience to righteousness” (Romans 6:16). 1 Peter 2:19b says, “For a man or woman is a slave to whatever has mastered them.” Eve discovered slavery to sin (independence) much more demanding than obedience to God and His law.
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Monday, July 24, 2006
Family Matters: Hindrances to Submission (Part 1)
21Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Ephesians 5:21-24
The first hindrance to submission is godly leadership is so rarely modeled by husbands in our society today. We are all influenced by the situations we grew up in or the paradigms we have experienced. Unfortunately, a majority of young women had a father who was lazy, selfish or too busy to spend time with the family. They might have had a father who was verbally or physically abusive to their mother. Also, many single women have married friends and have observed how their husband does anything but love them and serve them like Christ. Bad examples of leadership can be a real hindrance to submission.
The second hindrance to submission that a wife must face as she attempts to obey God and submit herself to her husband is the prevailing feminist culture of our day. Every day she is bombarded with voices from every quarter telling her to be her own person, seek her own life, have her own career, and be independent of her husband. Examples of successful career women who answer to no man are held up as the only women who are being fulfilled as persons. Those who preach this message fail to understand that being under proper functioning authority actually frees a woman to develop all the gifts and abilities God has given her in a way that will preserve her feminine uniqueness as a woman. Once again, there is nothing wrong with a woman who works a job. However, this should not be done at the expense of fulfilling your roles as a wife and mother in your family.
The first hindrance to submission is godly leadership is so rarely modeled by husbands in our society today. We are all influenced by the situations we grew up in or the paradigms we have experienced. Unfortunately, a majority of young women had a father who was lazy, selfish or too busy to spend time with the family. They might have had a father who was verbally or physically abusive to their mother. Also, many single women have married friends and have observed how their husband does anything but love them and serve them like Christ. Bad examples of leadership can be a real hindrance to submission.
The second hindrance to submission that a wife must face as she attempts to obey God and submit herself to her husband is the prevailing feminist culture of our day. Every day she is bombarded with voices from every quarter telling her to be her own person, seek her own life, have her own career, and be independent of her husband. Examples of successful career women who answer to no man are held up as the only women who are being fulfilled as persons. Those who preach this message fail to understand that being under proper functioning authority actually frees a woman to develop all the gifts and abilities God has given her in a way that will preserve her feminine uniqueness as a woman. Once again, there is nothing wrong with a woman who works a job. However, this should not be done at the expense of fulfilling your roles as a wife and mother in your family.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Family Matters: Misconceptions of Submission (Part 2)
Another misconception many women have is that submission is a contest, “If he is stronger than I am, I will submit to him. If he is not, I won’t.” Strength of will is not exclusively a male characteristic. Women often have a stronger will than their husbands. However, they can establish their husbands as leaders by their willingness to submit to them. They can make it easy for their husbands to lead, or they can make it extremely difficult, depending on their understanding of their biblical role. Submission is not a contest, with leadership going to the strongest marriage partner.
A final misconception is that submission is dependent on right decision making. “I will submit to him as long as he is right, but if he makes a stupid decision, I reserve the right to make the final one.” Submission is not a matter of right or wrong. His decisions should be the ones that God has decreed, and should determine the direction of the family. If he is wrong, God will hold him accountable and deal with him. His wife must trust the Lord to guide her husband. This requires faith in God. The husband and wife should pray and discover God's will for the family together. The wife can be a valuable source of discernment and wisdom in decision making.
I want to emphasize that as we submit to God’s delegated leadership, we can trust that the Lord will work all things out for good. God is a God of order and his delegated leadership should bring his will and way in the different positions they serve. We can trust God that if his leadership is not fulfilling their duties properly, God will remove them from their position. We can trust because God is just. What is so important in this process is the understanding of our roles as husband and wife. I hope this has helped you work as a team in your marriage.
A final misconception is that submission is dependent on right decision making. “I will submit to him as long as he is right, but if he makes a stupid decision, I reserve the right to make the final one.” Submission is not a matter of right or wrong. His decisions should be the ones that God has decreed, and should determine the direction of the family. If he is wrong, God will hold him accountable and deal with him. His wife must trust the Lord to guide her husband. This requires faith in God. The husband and wife should pray and discover God's will for the family together. The wife can be a valuable source of discernment and wisdom in decision making.
I want to emphasize that as we submit to God’s delegated leadership, we can trust that the Lord will work all things out for good. God is a God of order and his delegated leadership should bring his will and way in the different positions they serve. We can trust God that if his leadership is not fulfilling their duties properly, God will remove them from their position. We can trust because God is just. What is so important in this process is the understanding of our roles as husband and wife. I hope this has helped you work as a team in your marriage.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Family Matters: Misconceptions of Submission
21Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Ephesians 5:21-24
Just as we respond to Christ’s love for us, a wife who wants to obey God will respond to her husband if he is leading properly. Built in her by God is a desire to give herself to a strong, decisive man who is laying down his life for her. Unfortunately, much of the emphasis on a wife’s submission has neglected the husband’s responsibility to love and lead his wife. God can require our submission to his will because he is love and righteous. This means his motives and his actions are always right. Husbands are to model their leadership after Christ. Their motive should be love and their actions should manifest in service to their wives.
Today, there are many misconceptions as to what submitting to your husband means. It does not mean being a doormat for a physically or verbally abusive man who is using his wife for himself. If the situation at home becomes unbearable, or there is a reason to fear for safety of family members, the wife should say to her husband, “I love you and want to be your wife, but not under these conditions. When you have gotten some help and can lead well in our family, I will return.”
Leaving is often the only thing that will get the attention of the abusive husband, and properly done is far more biblical and effective than verbally badgering him. Obviously, the details of how this will work vary in every situation. Still, the principle is that a woman does not have to remain in an untenable situation because of some ill-conceived notion of “submission.” The husband should be held accountable to fulfill the vows he made to God and his wife. When he no longer fulfills his vows to lead, love and serve his wife, he forfeits her responsibility to submit and follow.
Just as we respond to Christ’s love for us, a wife who wants to obey God will respond to her husband if he is leading properly. Built in her by God is a desire to give herself to a strong, decisive man who is laying down his life for her. Unfortunately, much of the emphasis on a wife’s submission has neglected the husband’s responsibility to love and lead his wife. God can require our submission to his will because he is love and righteous. This means his motives and his actions are always right. Husbands are to model their leadership after Christ. Their motive should be love and their actions should manifest in service to their wives.
Today, there are many misconceptions as to what submitting to your husband means. It does not mean being a doormat for a physically or verbally abusive man who is using his wife for himself. If the situation at home becomes unbearable, or there is a reason to fear for safety of family members, the wife should say to her husband, “I love you and want to be your wife, but not under these conditions. When you have gotten some help and can lead well in our family, I will return.”
Leaving is often the only thing that will get the attention of the abusive husband, and properly done is far more biblical and effective than verbally badgering him. Obviously, the details of how this will work vary in every situation. Still, the principle is that a woman does not have to remain in an untenable situation because of some ill-conceived notion of “submission.” The husband should be held accountable to fulfill the vows he made to God and his wife. When he no longer fulfills his vows to lead, love and serve his wife, he forfeits her responsibility to submit and follow.
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Family Matters: The Result of Disobedience
In part four of family matters I want to study how the curse for Adam and Eve's disobedience has affected the husband and wife relationship.
(16) To the woman God said, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” (17) To Adam God said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. (18) It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. (19)By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” (Genesis 3:16-19)
For Eve, the first result of the curse was increased pain in childbirth. The effects of the family have even impacted my family today. My wife Cindy just gave birth to our third son Noah. All three of her pregnancies have resulted in c-sections, with this last one being a classical c-section. As a result, she now has an upside down T on her stomach. Her scars remind us of the fact that through pain our children came into the world. Because of the three c-sections and the pain involved, we are not sure if we are going to have any more children. The scars could be the determining factor. Both Cindy and I feel that having children has been the greatest blessing of our marriage. I wish we could have experienced birthing our children without the scars. However, the scars make us appreciate them even more.
After telling Eve she will have pain in childbirth, God says, “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” (Genesis 3:16) The Hebrew word for “desire,” teshugah, is used another time in the Bible, and that is in the next chapter of Genesis. God warns Cain before he kills his brother Abel, “And, if you do not do well, sin lies at the door, and its desire is for you, but you should rule over it” (Genesis 4:7)
Sins desire was to control, or capture, Cain, and indeed it did. In the same way, as a result of God’s curse, a woman can be tempted to control her husband, to contest his leadership, to run the family if she can.
Biblical history records several instances of this feminine penchant for control; Sarah’s attempt to use Hagar to “help” God fulfill His promise to Abraham (Genesis 16); Rebekah’s deceit in tricking Isaac into giving his blessing to Jacob instead of Esau (Genesis 27); Rachel and Leah’s manipulations of Jacob and Laban (Genesis 30,31); and Jezebel, the wife of King Ahab, who led her husband into idolatry, and in essence ruled Israel through him (1 Kings 16:29-34,19,21). In Revelation 2, Jezebel is again mentioned, this time as a feminine religious spirit who has gained control, and who has led astray the church in Thyatira. In the 21st century, when people are very open to spiritual matters, a book like DaVinci Code is written to promote the worship of the sacred feminine.
How did the curse affect the leadership role of the man? It is interesting to note that “painful toil” was the curse given to Adam. In our society today, think about how many men are consumed with their jobs in the “dog eat dog” marketplace. They spend so much of their strength at work, they don’t have the time and energy to effectively love and serve their wives at home. Their wives become frustrated, hurt and bitter because they now have to fulfill two roles in the family. For women, this fuels the fire for control in the family.
The “curse of painful toil” that produces a passivity and neglect of family leadership in men fits together with the desire of a woman to control like a hand in a glove. Fallen men tend to want someone else to take the responsibility for the leadership of the family, and their wives step right up to do so. Neither understands that the pattern they are following is a result of sin, and God wants to reverse that curse in Jesus Christ, restoring His divine order.
(16) To the woman God said, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” (17) To Adam God said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. (18) It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. (19)By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” (Genesis 3:16-19)
For Eve, the first result of the curse was increased pain in childbirth. The effects of the family have even impacted my family today. My wife Cindy just gave birth to our third son Noah. All three of her pregnancies have resulted in c-sections, with this last one being a classical c-section. As a result, she now has an upside down T on her stomach. Her scars remind us of the fact that through pain our children came into the world. Because of the three c-sections and the pain involved, we are not sure if we are going to have any more children. The scars could be the determining factor. Both Cindy and I feel that having children has been the greatest blessing of our marriage. I wish we could have experienced birthing our children without the scars. However, the scars make us appreciate them even more.
After telling Eve she will have pain in childbirth, God says, “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” (Genesis 3:16) The Hebrew word for “desire,” teshugah, is used another time in the Bible, and that is in the next chapter of Genesis. God warns Cain before he kills his brother Abel, “And, if you do not do well, sin lies at the door, and its desire is for you, but you should rule over it” (Genesis 4:7)
Sins desire was to control, or capture, Cain, and indeed it did. In the same way, as a result of God’s curse, a woman can be tempted to control her husband, to contest his leadership, to run the family if she can.
Biblical history records several instances of this feminine penchant for control; Sarah’s attempt to use Hagar to “help” God fulfill His promise to Abraham (Genesis 16); Rebekah’s deceit in tricking Isaac into giving his blessing to Jacob instead of Esau (Genesis 27); Rachel and Leah’s manipulations of Jacob and Laban (Genesis 30,31); and Jezebel, the wife of King Ahab, who led her husband into idolatry, and in essence ruled Israel through him (1 Kings 16:29-34,19,21). In Revelation 2, Jezebel is again mentioned, this time as a feminine religious spirit who has gained control, and who has led astray the church in Thyatira. In the 21st century, when people are very open to spiritual matters, a book like DaVinci Code is written to promote the worship of the sacred feminine.
How did the curse affect the leadership role of the man? It is interesting to note that “painful toil” was the curse given to Adam. In our society today, think about how many men are consumed with their jobs in the “dog eat dog” marketplace. They spend so much of their strength at work, they don’t have the time and energy to effectively love and serve their wives at home. Their wives become frustrated, hurt and bitter because they now have to fulfill two roles in the family. For women, this fuels the fire for control in the family.
The “curse of painful toil” that produces a passivity and neglect of family leadership in men fits together with the desire of a woman to control like a hand in a glove. Fallen men tend to want someone else to take the responsibility for the leadership of the family, and their wives step right up to do so. Neither understands that the pattern they are following is a result of sin, and God wants to reverse that curse in Jesus Christ, restoring His divine order.
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