Slides: Submissive Wives, Sacrificial Husbands

Submissive Wives, Sacrificial Husbands
Colossians 3:18-19; Ephesians 5:22-33; Titus 2:3-5; 1 Peter 3:1-7

Col 3:18 Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.
19 Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.

Eph 5:22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
  25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Titus 2:3 Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, 4 and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

1 Peter 3:1 Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, 2 when they see your respectful and pure conduct. 3 Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— 4 but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious. 5 For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, 6 as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.
  7 Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

Better than the Bible?

• Marriage is for same-sex partners, not just husband and wife.

• Even if you are male and female, act like you’re identical and interchangeable.

• Don’t try to win a faithless spouse to Christ.

• Spend a ton on clothes and cosmetics.

• Wives, be pushy. Husbands, be wimpy.  Treat your wife as the stronger partner.

What if?

• What if a woman manages a bank and earns her family’s main income, while her husband teaches their children at home?

• What if a husband loves to cook and shop, and asks his wife to manage finances?

• What if a wife goes on week-long business trips and her husband cares for the kids?

• Are “traditional roles” based on the Bible and revealed by God?

Separation of work and family

• In America’s colonial times, much work and economic activity was done at home by family members working together.

• The Industrial Revolution of the 1800s took work out of the home. The private realm of family and faith was separated from the public realm of business and industry.

• This shaped the roles of husbands and wives. Husband in workplace and wife at home became “traditional roles.”

Inventing “traditional roles”

• Fathers spent far less time with their children in teaching, training, and discipline.

• Men became more aggressively competitive and self-interested.

• Raising children became almost solely the mother’s responsibility.

• Women became less involved economically and more dependent on husbands’ wages.

• Women had less adult contact and became socially isolated with young children.

• Home became viewed as a private place for personal feelings to be protected from the competiveness of public commerce.

• Women were viewed as guardians of virtue who should control men morally.

• Eventually feminists call for modern women’s role to be less home-oriented and more career-oriented—in other words, more like what men had become.

Further developments

• Mothers increasingly replaced fathers in leading family prayers.

• It became socially acceptable for men to spend little time with children and be incompetent in home life and childrearing.

• Some traditionalist women tried to make the whole world homelike.

• Some feminist women tried to get women out of the home and into the workplace.

Impact on churches

• Churches began to appeal mainly to women.

• Preachers retreated from proclaiming public truths and emphasized feelings.

• Churches made religion soft and comforting, rather than bracing and demanding.

• Some evangelicals promoted a manly religion of “muscular Christianity.”

• Attempts by women to moralize men resulted in male rebellion against religion and family.

Beyond “traditional roles”

The husband is deliberately vacating the position in which God has put him... and leaving it in laziness to his wife. In the United States, you have what may more or less be called a matriarchal society, and the man is increasingly regarded merely as the one to provide the dollars, the wage-earner, the man who brings in the necessary money. The woman, the mother, is the cultured person, and the head of the home; and the children look to her. This false unscriptural view of man and woman, and father and mother leads to a matriarchal society, which, it seems to me, is most dangerous. The result is, of course, the growth of crime and all the terrible social problems with which they are grappling in that country. A matriarchal society with the woman as the head and centre of the home is a denial of the biblical teaching. (Martyn Lloyd-Jones)

 “Traditional roles” are not necessarily biblical roles

• The reshaping of roles was mainly driven by economic, social, and cultural changes that came as work was separated from home.

• “Traditional” roles weren’t always traditional. They were not divinely revealed or required.

• The biblically required roles are found in the drama of portraying Christ and his church, of submissive wives and sacrificial husbands. 

Marriage pictures Christ and his church

The husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. (Ephesians 5:23)

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. (Eph 5:31-32)

Sacrificial husbands picture Christ’s love for the church

Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. (Colossians 3:19)

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. (Ephesians 5:25)

Submissive wives picture church’s response to Christ

Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. (Colossians 3:18)

Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. (Ephesians 5:24)

Godly submission is NOT:

• Regarding the husband as smarter, better, or worth more than the wife

• Going along with your husband’s cruelty and pretending that his sin is okay

• Disobeying God in order to obey husband

• Being passive and stifling creativity

• Keeping quiet and never questioning, criticizing, or advising your husband

• Doing nothing without first getting husband’s permission, and doing nothing beyond home

Godly submission IS:

• Submitting to Jesus and picturing the church’s submission to her Savior

• Wanting to honor husband’s authority and embrace his leadership

• Supporting your husband to help him reach his full potential as a man of God

• Compatible with thinking for yourself

• More effective than nagging, if a husband needs to be won over from ungodly ways

• Powered by calm contentment in Christ

Godly headship is NOT:

• Being superior and having more worth or wisdom than your wife

• Harsh bullying or forcing wife to submit

• Independent of God’s authority or the authority of church and government

• Ignoring wife’s wishes and wisdom

• Getting what you want, insisting on your own way, and exalting yourself

• Making every decision, being an control freak, and never delegating

Godly headship IS:

• Self-sacrificing love that pictures the self-sacrificing Head of the church

• Gently providing and caring for your wife

• Protecting, honoring, and empowering your wife to flourish in beauty, joy, and holiness

• Being considerate and aware of your wife’s wishes, weakness, and strengths

• Taking the lead in example and action

• Making tough decisions and taking responsibility for the consequences

Good, healthy argument: submission vs. sacrifice

• I am going to sacrifice and do it your way.

• I am going to submit and do it your way.

• I hereby invoke my authority as your head. I am called to sacrifice as Christ gave himself up for the church. I decree that we’re going to do it your way because it will bring you joy and be good for you, and that’s that.  I don’t want to hear another word about it!

References:
Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth
Sam Storms, The Hope of Glory