“Husbands, love your wives . . . (Eph 5:25)
“Wives, submit to your husbands . . . (Eph 5:23)
Father, let me lead Leanne in love, as Christ would lead His church. I need you for this.
One of the biggest problems people have with the Biblical description of marital leadership is that they never consider what Scripture says about that leadership. They have in mind their own notions of leadership, often from seeing sinful, abusive leaders, and they replace Biblical leadership with their own notions and then proceed to smack down Biblical leadership. When they do their smack down, however, they are never really smacking down what the Bible says but an inflatable punching doll they have set up.
Therefore, in this section I want to present what the Bible means when it calls a husband to lead his wife. Immediately after Paul says that the husband is the head of the wife (Eph 5:23), he describes how husbands are to treat their wives:
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 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. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “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. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself . . . (Eph 5:25-33)
Biblically, husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church and as they love their own bodies; they are to sacrifice for their wives as Christ gave himself for the church; they are to nourish and cherish their wives as Christ does the church; they are to hold fast to their wives. In short, they are to treat their wives as Christ treats the church. This is Biblical leadership within marriage. If husbands practiced this type of leadership, women would be loved, cherished, nourished, and their men would be willing to die for them. If you want to argue against what the Bible says about leadership within marriage, then argue against that. But let’s not have any of this nonsense that claims the Bible encourages male domination.
God calls men to lead their wives as Christ leads His church. This idea was revolutionary in the first century, and it is still revolutionary today. Thus, men, the best way to lead your wives well is to walk with Christ well. He is the model for leadership. He gives the power to lead in a Christ-like manner.
Therefore, lead with gentleness. Lead with compassion. Lead with a desire to understand your wife. Lead by listening to her. Lead by caring for her. Lead by trusting her. Lead by sacrificing your desires. But lead.
Leading doesn’t mean you do everything. If your wife is better at handling the finances, let her handle the finances. If she is better at choosing a medical plan, let her take the lead on choosing a medical plan. Good leaders give great responsibility to those they lead. Doesn’t Christ grant great responsibility to the church?
And yet Christ is the head. To delegate responsibility is not to abdicate it. The husband is still ultimately responsible for the family.
I’ve been brief, but this is the first partner in the marriage dance.
The second partner is the wife, and Scripture addresses her role as well:
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 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. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands . . . and let the wife see that she respects her husband. (Eph 5: 22-4, 33)
God calls a wife to submit to her husband just as the church submits to Christ. In the dance, she follows his lead. Because “submission” is a lightning rod word, I need to describe what it does and does not mean.
1) Submission does not mean the wife sins because the husband tells her to. A wife submits to God first. If a husband says, “Let’s fudge these numbers on our taxes,” or “let’s lie to your sister,” the wife cannot go there. She answers to God first, and she is responsible for her own actions.
2) Submission does not mean the wife never speaks up when she disagrees with her husband. You might as well say that the chief operations officer should never speak up when she disagrees with the CEO or that the secretary of state should never speak up when she disagrees with the president. Do you see how crazy that is?
3) Submission does not mean the wife should let her husband abuse her. Submission has a purpose, and physical or sexual abuse violates that purpose. If a husband physically or sexually abuses the wife or the children, the wife may need to contact the police and/or separate herself and the children for a time. This is obvious when we look at leadership outside of marriage. No one would question the idea that an assistant manager should submit to her manager, but if that manager physically abused her, the principle of submission does not require the assistant to sit around and get bludgeoned.
So what does submission mean?
It is simply this: Biblical submission is a voluntary yielding to a leader.
That’s it.
The purpose of Biblical submission within marriage is to reflect Christ and the church and to combat division when husband and wife cannot resolve a disagreement. In addition, submission is always a heart issue. When the church submits to Christ, she is to do so willingly from the heart. Grudging submission is not submission. It looks like submission on the outside, but the heart is what counts.
In life, the principle of submission says that people should submit to their leaders unless those leaders encourage or engage in activity contrary to God’s will. The principle also says that people should practice this submission with respect and honor toward the leader, even if the people disagree. The principle applies in every realm of life: government, work, school, committees, sports teams, and more.
The Bible calls a wife to this principle in the home. Submission is merely a recognition of leadership. Thus, the Bible calls wives to recognize the leadership of their husbands.
When a husband leads as Christ and a wife willingly submits as the church, you see the dance. If both wanted to lead or neither would lead, the dance would get ugly. When people today call for women to abandon ordinary submission within marriage, they deny Scripture and encourage immaturity and rebellion in women. In doing so, they help destroy the picture of Christ and the church.
They perhaps mean well. They want to combat abuses, but their solution for a broken arm is to cut the arm off altogether.
A Picture
Submission does not primarily come into play when husbands and wives agree. It frequents the intersection of disagreement and decision, for it is at that intersection that someone must yield. So let’s bring up a disagreement and briefly discuss how Biblical leadership and submission play out.
Let’s say a husband receives a job opportunity. It would be a high-paying, good-for-the-career job at a firm in Dallas. He currently works at a less favorable job, but its location is close to family in Beijing.
The husband believes the couple should take the job in Dallas. The wife believes they should stay in Beijing. Each has different reasons for his or her opinion, and they are legitimate reasons. I want to give three scenarios to show how different couples handle this disagreement, but I will end with the scenario that reflects Biblical leadership.
The first scenario is easy to describe and unfortunately quite common. Both husband and wife approach the disagreement with a plan on how to get their own way. They are self-centered. They fight or manipulate, and the husband may get physically abusive. In the end, someone “wins” and someone “loses” unless they both stand their ground, and she stays in Beijing while he goes to Dallas. In that case they both lose. This marriage has little to no constructive communication. Both parties want what they want and will do whatever they can to get it. The basic problem is not communication but this: he won’t love, and she won’t submit. Those are heart issues. The dysfunctional communication is merely a symptom of the main problem. Unless God interferes, these marriages are on a road toward divorce.
The second scenario is more complex.
The husband is much the same as the first scenario. He wants what he wants, and he is going to do whatever he can to get it. He offers no opportunity for open communication and won’t listen when the wife speaks. He gets argumentative and perhaps abusive.
The wife, however, wants to honor God, but she strongly feels that a move to Dallas would be a mistake. What does she do?
If she is going to honor God, she begins by bringing this matter to God in prayer. She needs to pray for her husband, not that he will see things her way, but that God will give him a receptive heart. She needs to pray for herself, that God will grant her His heart and mind, that God will give her wisdom and grace in dealing with this issue. She also needs to pray for God’s will in this matter. She personally wants to stay in Beijing, but is that what God wants? She needs to be willing to give up her desire if God wants the family in Dallas. This principle is part of dying to self, and it is crucial.
She needs to communicate with her husband. What she says depends largely on what she hears in her prayer time, but her husband needs to hear from her. She needs to respectfully bring up the issue and why she disagrees with his decision. He may respond favorably or not. He may flare up. He may not listen at all. But he needs to hear his wife. If he becomes abusive, she may need to contact authorities or separate herself for a time. Through this process if she behaves respectfully, she has a greater chance of influencing his heart than if she calls him names and stoops to his level. Those practices take her to the first scenario.
Again, in this marriage, the real issue is not Dallas or Beijing. This couple has deeper problems than “which town they will live in.” The woman married a man who will not listen to her, and now she is bound to him . . . whether she likes it or not. This wife needs to think long term about what is best for the marriage and not just about where the family will live. She needs to pray for her husband. She needs to honor him. She may encourage counseling, but he may not go. Ultimately, she needs to walk with God. She needs the church, the Word of God, and the Spirit. Her marriage is a picture of a greater marriage, and she needs the support of her heavenly husband — Christ. He will give her greater strength, grace and wisdom to deal with her earthly husband. The closer she gets to Christ, the less rebellious she will be toward her husband. Walking with God and rebellion do not go hand in hand.
So then, let’s suppose the husband does not listen to her and decides to move the family to Dallas. In this case, moving to Dallas is not sinful, even if she believes it is not wise. And though the husband is clearly being selfish, he is not asking his wife to violate God’s commands. For the sake of the marriage and in order to honor Christ, she needs to respectfully go to Dallas. She may disagree with the decision, but she needs to support it just as the Secretary of State needs to support a presidential decision that the Secretary of State disagrees with. Such submission brings the most honor to Christ, and in the long run is best for the marriage. In the long run, she will need to be praying for her husband, respecting him, loving him, and communicating with him her thoughts on their marriage, but she loses the opportunity to do those things if she stays in Beijing.
The final scenario is one in which the husband leads in a way that reflects Biblical leadership in marriage.
How should the husband lead through this situation?
1. He must begin by bringing the decision to God. He needs to give his desire to God and be open to the possibility that his wife is right.
2. As he prays through this decision, he needs to talk to his wife and listen. He must allow her to express her opinion and her reasons for it.
3. As they discuss, he needs to let his wife know his position and why he holds it, but he must present this in a loving manner. Both husband and wife need to be free to ask honest questions of each other.
4. He must continue to pray and be willing to let go of his desire.
5. Through this process, perhaps God changes his stance and he now agrees with his wife. Or perhaps God changes the wife’s stance, and she now agrees with her husband. In these cases, we now have agreement, and submission is no longer necessary. But what if no one changes? He still feels they should go to Dallas, and she still feels they should stay in Beijing.
6. It is now clear there will be no mutual decision, but at some point, the couple must make a decision. When that time comes, the husband needs to decide. He should not go against his wife’s counsel lightly, but in the end he may need to. The couple cannot live in Beijing and Dallas. That will divide the marriage.
God may lead the husband to honor his wife’s request and stay in Beijing. Sometimes good leaders submit to the judgment of those they lead. Or God may tell the husband to take the family to Dallas. If the husband still believes God is calling his family to Dallas, he needs to move them to Dallas.
That’s the first partner in the dance.
The second is the wife. How does she submit in this process?
The wife must walk through steps one through five above as well. Once we get to step six — it is clear there will be no mutual decision — she must now respectfully honor her husband’s decision. This means the following:
- She is grateful for her husband.
- She does not complain in her heart.
- She does not talk negatively about the decision behind her husband’s back.
- She supports the decision in front of the kids or to family or friends.
- She does not manipulate to get her way.
- She willingly moves to Dallas.
In the end, she honors the decision of her husband just as any other person would honor the decision of his or her leader. In doing this, she strengthens her marriage and acts out the role of the church with Christ.
This final scenario is a healthy marriage. Husbands and wives don’t have to agree on everything, but they do have to remain one, and that is why submission is necessary.
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