“In the same way, you wives must accept the authority of your husbands. Then, even if some refuse to obey the Good News, your godly lives will speak to them without any words. They will be won over by observing your pure and reverent lives. In the same way, you husbands must give honor to your wives. Treat your wife with understanding as you live together. She may be weaker than you are, but she is your equal partner in God’s gift of new life. Treat her as you should so your prayers will not be hindered.”
1 Peter 3:1-2, 7 NLT
A common trick of the Enemy is to get us to run to extremes. That is to say to put our intellectual flags down in irrational territory that at first glance appears to be the logical extension of a biblical principle. He did this with our Lord in the wilderness and we should all be wise to the pattern.
“If you are the Son of God,” the Tempter says, “you shouldn’t be hungry…command these stones to turn to bread.”
It seems like an obvious enough thing, right? If we’re in the Lord and can trust Him, He should, the Enemy implies, keep us from starving to death. Or having money problems. Or problems of any kind. See how this works? The temptation is based upon the arbitrary redefinition of the Lord’s promise to be with us always. It’s an abuse of faith in that it presumes to know how God is going to make all things work together for our good. We merely know the end, not the means.
The point of faith is the object of the faith, not the immediate comfort of the one who is faithful.
To our Lord’s reply (that man shall not live by bread alone but by every word from God: Matthew 4:3), the Tempter says, “that’s great…wonderful…that’s what we need!” He then tempts Jesus with the heresy that faithfulness includes, even demands, recklessness. The Enemy even has the audacity to (mis) quote Scripture (telling Jesus to throw Himself into danger: Matthew 4:5-6).
The pattern emerges and it’s very, very real.
The point of faith is the object of faith!
Faith is trusting God with our money, our plans, our future even through trials. Faith is not the reckless and foolish abandonment of common sense. Many is the man or woman who jettisons advice and prudence, runs headlong into consequences, and then blames the Lord (Proverbs 19:3).
It’s like this that the Enemy attacks marriages.
The Bible is not, repeat not, saying that wives submit to their husbands by no longer having opinions, goals, or personhood. A quarterback on a football team is not the head coach and the coach isn’t the quarterback. A singer, a drummer, a guitar player…all unique individuals working toward the same, common goal. We live in a world in which we are all parts of each other in the church and diverse even amidst the larger world.
“For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”
Romans 12:4-5 ESV
It’s a great paradox, not a contradiction. We are one out of many, and many while one.
No one is an island, yet that can’t be misconstrued to mean that no one person has rights. Again, we come to the philosophical issue called “the one and the many.” Only in the Triune Godhead do we see the “ultimate one and many” – that is, the one God in three Persons, each fully God. If you’re having trouble understanding the idea of freedom and submission, have no fear. The reason is because ultimate truth in any and every issue is trinitarian.
Thus, a wife told to submit to her husband is recognizing this theological fact about God and reality. She is not laying down her personhood, but gaining it through her acknowledgement of the most High God and His reality. The husband, likewise, is not god over his wife but gifted by God with delegated authority. The authority is real (from God), limited (by God), contextual (not absolute and for the glory of God, not the husband).
Modern humanism that permeates the American mind (even, sadly, within the church) convinces us that all authority is to be rejected. Scripture everywhere and especially here flatly opposes that belief. Freedom for men and women is and can never be absolute. If it did that would mean that men and women are God. Without authority there is anarchy and chaos.
Love does not mean lawlessness. Yet law does not mean domination. Love is the fulfillment of the law (Romans 13:10). Law is, in this case, order and righteousness.
Again: the Enemy of our souls, lest we be ignorant of his plans of attack, thrives in the deceit of extremes. This pattern is everywhere in our lives. Feminism and the domineering male are sinful extremes.
Wives submitting to their husbands does mean the godly woman rejects the Jezebel spirit of nagging and domination through manipulation. It does not mean church mouse quiet, loss of opinion.
“She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life. She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.”
Proverbs 31:12, 26-27 ESV
Also, submission to one’s husband does not mean a loss of enterprise, work-ethic, entrepreneurial spirit (godly creativity) and the categorical teamwork designed to build up the family.
“The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She is like the ships of the merchant; she brings her food from afar. She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household and portions for her maidens. She considers a field and buys it; with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard. She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp does not go out at night. She makes linen garments and sells them; she delivers sashes to the merchant. She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her:”
Proverbs 31:11, 14-16, 18, 24, 27-28 ESV
Does this sound like the caricature of the dominated woman? Let God be true and every one a liar (Romans 3:4)!
The Christian woman is on fire…and that flame is the life of the Spirit within her.
She is, if we must speak in such language, dominated and controlled by the Spirit of God and this yoke is light, the burden easy. The submissive wife is submissive to the Lord. The feminist is submissive to her lust for autonomy; she hates God and hates His moral order. The submissive wife works from and for love – love of God, love of her husband, and love of her children. The feminist will sacrifice her family for her own sinful happiness but it is the counterfeit joy set before her by Satan…the same one he offered Eve. The godly wife sees her happiness in the family of the Lord of which she knows she is a beautiful part.
Christ alone has liberated women from the shackles of Lamech. Domineering men are the descendants of sinful Cain, not Christ.
“Lamech said to his wives: “Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say: I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold.””
Genesis 4:23-24 ESV
You see, it is sin – the rejection of God’s moral order for life – that led to Lamech, Cain’s offspring, abusing his strength rather than use it for the Lord. The godly husband doesn’t take two wives. He doesn’t boast of his capacity for violence!
Outside of Christ the Enemy will draw men with the counterfeits of righteousness and faith.
A man will seek power through his conquests – whatever he can achieve. He will see his status as his athleticism, his ability at business, and sexual exploits. The lie of feminism is that bad men are all men and women need to reject men and patriarchy because all men are bad.
Bad men are bad for the same reason bad women are bad: sin. But even in the rebellion against God, men and women act according to the facts of Scripture. Lamech had the power and ability to take multiple wives, so he did. He had the power to kill and dominate other men, so he did. This power brought him wealth, so he took it.
Look at the great athletes or the rock stars. They’re treated like gods. Women – groupies – throw themselves at power and talent. Bad men, rather than submit to the Lord’s plan for life, use those talents and opportunities given by God to define themselves. Voddie Bauchum summarized it as “the ball field, the billfold, and the bedroom.”
Men must be warned that the Enemy will try and pervert God’s decree to them. They are vulnerable at the extremes. Materialism is disguised as work-ethic. Laziness is disguised as contentment. Anger is disguised as authority.
But true power, we learn, is in faith. And faith requires submission from both men and women, husbands and wives, in the categorical patterns of life. In God’s order there is the church and family. There are no superstars of the faith or the world. See Job and how he, though blessed with enormous wealth and possessions, conducted himself before the Enemy’s famous attack:
“And when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and consecrate them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.” Thus Job did continually.”
Job 1:5 ESV
Job was the husband of one wife! He was disciplined and successful. How? We watch and learn. He rose early. This showed that his primary concern was his relationship with God, not his possessions. And he rose to pray…not for more stuff, or more power, but to intercede for his family. Oh, and when the Lord speaks to the Devil about Job, what does He say?
“And the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?””
Job 1:8 ESV
Notice that the Lord spoke of the condition of Job’s heart toward Himself! This is the mark of the man! The material wealth Job had was inconsequential to that and, in fact, can very often be a threat to one’s commitment to the Lord (see the Lord’s story about the rich man and his twisted, materialistic priorities Luke 12:13-21).
Thus, the godly husband and wife are committed to the Lord in their marriage. The external circumstances are not the goal, but the mutual submission to the Lord’s command in the context of marriage is. This command is not a burden. The modern feminist who refuses to submit to the Lord and her husband will submit to a boss. When we sin, the joke is always on us. A man who will not submit to the Lord and love his one wife as Christ loves the church will waste his strength on unfaithful women. His conquests will defeat and enervate him.
In God there is the true and final reconciliation of the one and the many. We are not God, so we must submit to Him in the contextual order of life. Modern feminism and modern bro-ism are sinful extremes.
“There is [now no distinction in regard to salvation] neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you [who believe] are all one in Christ Jesus [no one can claim a spiritual superiority]. [Rom 3:22; 1 Cor 12:13]”
Galatians 3:28 AMP
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