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030 | Women's Issues: Marriage
433 Plays4 years ago
In this episode we discuss the hot topics of marriage for women: Complementarian versus egalitarian, what submission really is, if women are more “easily deceived”, and more.
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Transcript
Introduction to Verity Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Verity. I'm your host, Felicia Masonheimer, an author, speaker, and Bible teacher. This podcast will help you embrace the history and depth of the Christian faith, ask questions, seek answers, and devote yourself to becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ. You don't have to settle for watered-down Christian teaching. And if you're ready to go deeper, God is just as ready to take you there. This is Verity, where every woman is a theologian.
Theological Questions on Gender Roles
00:00:30
Speaker
Okay guys, hold on to your hats because this is the episode where I cover most of the topics that I get questions about on the regular. So questions about complementarianism, or egalitarianism, submission,
00:00:46
Speaker
authority whether women can speak in church. All of these are related to the passages we're talking about today. Now some of these topics will be covered in the episode on the church in our women's issues series
00:01:02
Speaker
But do keep in mind the principles that we discuss in this episode because many of them carry over to our discussion of church and leadership in the church, men and women in the church, so that episode will be closely connected to what we discuss in this marriage episode.
Complementarianism vs Egalitarianism
00:01:20
Speaker
So as we get started here, I want to kind of lay a groundwork for the terms we're going to discuss. If you are new to this conversation, words like complementarianism might sound like a nasty spelling bee challenge and not just a reflection of a theological stance. And so what are these terms? What do they mean?
00:01:43
Speaker
Let's start there. So there are two primary camps, two primary viewpoints in the Christian theological world regarding the roles of men and women in marriage, home, and church. And the first is complementarianism. The second is called egalitarianism.
00:02:04
Speaker
Now, Complementarianism can best be described as a view that holds that men and women are equal in value but different in role. So they have equal personhood before Christ, equal in salvation, equal in their inherent worth,
00:02:22
Speaker
but they fulfill different complementary roles in marriage, home, and church. And so what this means is, typically, is that the wife is the helper, and this is rooted in Genesis 1 through 3, the helper. Often you'll hear terms like the husband is the leader, the head of the home. Leader is not in scripture, by the way, but head is.
00:02:49
Speaker
And so, that's an important distinction. We infer leadership from the use of head, but the term, you know, leader or spiritual leader of the home is not actually used in Scripture. And so, husband is the head, father, husband is the head, wife is helper and complementary role to his leadership in
Complementarian View on Women's Roles
00:03:09
Speaker
the home.
00:03:09
Speaker
The egalitarian stance is that you are equal, men and women, are equal in value and interchangeable in role. So this means that everything a man can do, a woman can do in God's eyes and vice versa. So while there are biological distinctions, men and women are not interchangeable biologically, their sexuality is different, the things that they can do in the home and in the church are completely interchangeable.
00:03:39
Speaker
Now, a complementarian church would be one where women do not hold pastoral roles. This definitely varies. You'll see some churches where women can hold any position except that of head pastor. That would still be considered a complementarian church, though probably more of a soft complementarian. You'll see some churches where women cannot teach anything. They can't even teach the children. And that would be more of a hard complementarian.
00:04:07
Speaker
In egalitarian churches, you will see women in leadership just as in egalitarian marriages. There isn't really a discussion of who is the head of the home. There isn't really a laid out set role that the husband or wife are in. They're partners and they work together.
00:04:27
Speaker
When you're looking at these two camps, I want to first just say this. If you're like, I don't really fit in either of those camps, you are not alone. And I think we'll see as we look at what scripture has to say that these viewpoints that we've pulled out of scripture, these hard lines that we've drawn aren't always completely in line with scripture itself.
00:04:51
Speaker
We have to remember the context of what was being written, both the historical context and also the literary context, that these are letters that Paul wrote. I think sometimes when we look at these verses, we are so concentrated on the single verse in the letter that we miss the forest for the trees. We're looking at, you know, 1 Timothy
00:05:11
Speaker
to 9 and we're missing the rest of 1st Timothy 2 or the rest of 1st Timothy. And all of Paul's work on marriage and men and women and looking at the full context of what's being said. And so I want to start there. What complementarianism is, what egalitarianism is,
00:05:31
Speaker
and the big picture of scripture on men and women.
Recommended Resources
00:05:35
Speaker
Now there is absolutely no way I can do justice to this enormous topic which has tons of books written about it. I will put some of those in the show notes. I will not do justice to it in one episode that I am trying to keep under an hour.
00:05:51
Speaker
So what I will recommend is check out the show notes. After you've listened to this, I will have tons of resources in there as well as podcasts to listen to, books to read, articles you can research so you can do a little more of your own research on this topic.
00:06:07
Speaker
So we're going to talk about complementarianism and its proofs for a little bit here and some of its problems, and then we're going to talk about egalitarianism and some of its proofs and problems before we move on to the big picture view of marriage, what we can take away for women. What should marriage be like as a Christian woman? That's a hard question to answer. Every marriage is so individual.
00:06:34
Speaker
And really what we need to do first, and perhaps I should have done this first, is look at the design for marriage, which was set in place in the beginning. Here we have God putting Adam in the garden, giving him this purpose to tend the garden, and saying, it's not good for man to be alone. It's not good for him to spend his entire life alone. He needs a helper fit for him.
00:06:57
Speaker
Now, when you hear helper, you might imagine making sandwiches in the kitchen, but that's not what was intended by the use of this word. The use of this word is incredibly powerful. This word in Hebrew is easer, and it is used for God himself throughout the rest of scripture to describe him as a military aid or a rescue, a help who comes in at the time of need.
00:07:26
Speaker
So when God said, this man needs a helper, he wasn't saying this man needs a servant. He was saying this man needs a partner. This man needs a powerful aid to do the mission I have given him.
Marriage Roles in Genesis
00:07:42
Speaker
A little bit more about that is in Carolyn Custis James' book, Half the Church, which dives really deep into what it means to be a helper and an easer and what that looks like today. But if you've never heard that principle before, I hope that's encouraging to you that the very word that God used for woman
00:08:03
Speaker
and the very reason that he created her was an echo of his own strength and help. That should be an encouragement. So that's the beginning. Marriage was created to look like that. Now the fall comes in, and at the fall, actually let's go back over to Genesis 3. We talked about Genesis 3 a lot in the pregnancy and birth episode, but what we see happen at the fall is an introduction of controversy.
00:08:33
Speaker
an introduction of this dissension between man and wife.
00:08:40
Speaker
And the verse that talks about this is in Genesis 3, 16. This is the consequence that the woman was to experience as a result of her sin. God says, your desire shall be contrary to your husband and he shall rule over you. Now I'm reading in the ESV, that word contrary to can also be translated toward, your desire shall be toward your husband and he shall rule over you.
00:09:08
Speaker
The ESV chose to translate this verse negatively, so contrary to, because the same word is used later on in reference to Cain, when God says, sin's desire is for you and you must rule over it.
00:09:25
Speaker
And so they took that context and applied it to this particular verse, and therefore it was translated with a more negative connotation. Now, I share that because there are other translations and other translation committees that saw this verse as simply saying, your desire shall be toward your husband and he shall rule over you.
00:09:48
Speaker
This is important because you will hear some people, mainly in complementarian circles, arguing that a woman will always want to be contrary to her husband. That part of her curse, and remember, what did we say in the pregnancy and birth episode?
00:10:04
Speaker
man and woman were not cursed. The serpent and the ground were cursed. Man and woman were shown, because of your sin, this is the ensuing consequence. There's a difference between a direct curse that separates someone for the purpose of destruction, separates them from God
Impact of Bible Translations
00:10:21
Speaker
completely. The serpent is never going to be at peace with God. And God saying here, here's the consequence of what you've chosen. This is what sin will now do to you.
00:10:30
Speaker
There is a distinction there. And so when God says, this is what's going to happen, your desire shall be toward your husband, he shall rule over you. The fact that the ESV translates this as contrary to your husband does play into how we talk about marriage in the church today, especially in complementarian circles. In some of these circles, you will hear people say, well, you know, it's just the nature of woman. She wants to be contrary to her husband.
00:10:57
Speaker
It's just the nature of woman to try to subvert and steal his authority and things like that. And I personally, this is my personal view, I find this a very unhealthy way to look at women, especially Christian women who are in Christ and have the Holy Spirit to overcome sin.
00:11:16
Speaker
I also think that this completely ignores that men can also be manipulative and subversive and destroy the partnership in the walking arm and arm to fulfill God's mission that God intended. And so we have to be very careful not to create a construct here out of this verse when there are multiple translations
00:11:37
Speaker
of that particular phrase. Now, perhaps you do land in the contrary to camp. That's perfectly fine. It's obviously been translated that way in the ESV, but I would encourage you to also read it in other versions and do a little research into that verse. And as we look at everything else that's said in Scripture on men and women, and especially if we look back at Genesis 1 and 2 at
00:12:01
Speaker
the easier concept that God saw a woman as an equal partner to man and that she was to help him fulfill his mission. I think we do have to be very careful in not creating a servant king kind of construct out of this one verse in Genesis 3. So these are some of the problems and proofs in complementarianism.
00:12:27
Speaker
Genesis 3.16 is often used as a proof of the difference in role in marriage. It also creates a problem, as you've just seen, with how we understand the easier role of a wife. So now I want to move on to another tough passage. This one is way further into your Bible than Genesis 3. We're actually going to look at 1 Timothy 2. And I get a lot of questions about this verse
00:12:57
Speaker
And one of the things as I pull it up here, I want to encourage you is when you come to scripture, understand that the goodness of God is our foundation when we're looking at the Bible. The goodness of God who gave everything to bring his son and redeem a people to be his own.
00:13:19
Speaker
I don't think that a God who went to those lengths would intentionally create a marriage construct that would not be for the goodness of his people. And we have to remember that when we're reading these tough passages. Read it through the lens of God's goodness and God's intentions in creating a society, a family, a church that is both honoring to him and enjoys one another.
00:13:49
Speaker
That's the heart of God. Okay, so in 1 Timothy 2, Paul's talking about prayer. He's talking about praying for leaders. He's talking about praying as a church and the reasons for it. Then he goes into talking about men praying, saying, I desire that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling.
00:14:10
Speaker
Likewise, also, that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness, with good works. Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man. Rather, she is to remain quiet, for Adam was formed first and then Eve, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.
00:14:40
Speaker
So there is a lot here, and again, I recommend visiting the show notes for resources because we aren't going to get a ton into the woman being deceived aspect here.
00:14:50
Speaker
But we see a couple things. We see him saying that women should not adorn themselves with braided hair, gold, pearls, costly attire, and that they should learn quietly with all submissiveness. Well, what is going on here? Well, regarding the braided hair, gold, and pearls, Peter talks about this too. And what this is is economic immodesty. That's what was going on. Women parading their wealth in front of less wealthy members of the congregation.
00:15:18
Speaker
And if you know a little bit about Greek culture, which is what he was mostly addressing here, this kind of elaborate, expensive braided hair and all of these jewels was a way of showing how successful you were. Not much different today, right? And so in him talking about this, he's teaching them the heart of God for the community. He's not saying having these things is bad or that you can never wear makeup or jewelry. What he's saying is,
00:15:48
Speaker
don't flash your wealth in front of other members of the community. And you will see this same concept repeated throughout scripture. It was a recurring problem in the early church because you were integrating the wealthy and the poor and different ethnicities, Jew and Gentile, into one family.
00:16:11
Speaker
and it was causing a lot of conflict. And so that's something I want you to have in mind as we move into what he's saying next. So he's saying, this kind of humility is necessary for women who profess godliness, and you should be adorning yourself with your good works, not showing off your wealth. Then he goes into, let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness.
00:16:36
Speaker
So we're looking at one contextual problem here. The contextual problem here is these women are parading their wealth. Then he moves into women learn quietly with all submissiveness.
00:16:50
Speaker
Most likely this was also a problem in the church that Timothy was pastoring. Women were not learning quietly in submissiveness. He then goes on to say, I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man, rather she is to remain quiet.
00:17:08
Speaker
I want to talk a little bit about the word for authority here.
Biblical Authority in Marriage
00:17:12
Speaker
Now we're still talking in terms of complementarianism. Complementarians will use this verse as a proof for the difference in gender roles.
00:17:23
Speaker
And when we look at this word for authority, what it means in this context, this is the one time Paul used this Greek word, okay? This is the one time he uses this. And what it means is to dominate, to absolutely master. It can also mean a murderer, to have full power.
00:17:46
Speaker
to be forced against one's will or dishonor the subject. So this kind of authority, to exercise this kind of authority, would not be permitted even for a man, much less a woman. And so while we are looking at this in the complementarian context, I think it's important to remember that even in a complementarian marriage, so even in a very strict complementarian marriage,
00:18:15
Speaker
you can have a wife who is acting in these ways or acting in a manipulative way, even while the husband is supposedly the leader. Have you ever heard that phrase, the husband is the head, but the wife is the neck? I think I first heard it in my big fat Greek wedding, if we're being honest. But this is something that people honestly will say, the wife is the neck, she turns the head.
00:18:40
Speaker
Well, really what we're saying then is that while the headship is there, in theory, it's not actually headship because the wife is
00:18:55
Speaker
is dominating. She's the one actually in power. And so marriage begins to be portrayed as this power struggle between husband and wife. And when we turn to Ephesians 5, you will see that this is exactly what Christ does not want for a Christian marriage.
00:19:13
Speaker
One of my primary missions with the Verity podcast is to supply theology in an approachable and understandable way for the new believer or the long-time disciple of Christ. I know that theology can be overwhelming, and sometimes it feels like you don't know what book to pick up or where to even start. And that is why I wrote Theology Basics.
00:19:35
Speaker
Theology Basics is not a systematic theology. It's not a book that is going to weigh as much as a dictionary. It's just a simple e-book that introduces the concepts and basic fundamental principles of theology on the nature of God, the nature of man, authority of scripture, and salvation.
00:19:55
Speaker
So if you're starting out and you don't know where to begin, this would be a great resource for you. Theology Basics is only $10 on my website in our shop and it's available all the time. So if you head to FeliciaMasonHeimer.com, you can click on shop and you'll find Theology Basics as well as my other eBooks.
00:20:15
Speaker
all available right there. I hope that Theology Basics opens a door to your excitement and curiosity about what it means to be a Christian and how to truly understand what it is that we believe.
00:20:30
Speaker
So let's go look at Ephesians 5. This is the one passage that you will hear a lot about. It's the foundation for the famous marriage book, Love and Respect. And it says in verse 22, 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.
00:20:58
Speaker
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 the water of the word, so 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.
Ephesians on Love and Respect
00:21:26
Speaker
And then he goes on to say, however, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband. So a lot of times what I'll hear when this passage is shared is a very cut and dried approach to love and respect.
00:21:43
Speaker
And the idea, as one DM told me once, is that wives only respect. They're responsible to respect their husbands, and husbands are responsible to love their wives, but husbands don't have to respect their wives. And one of the things that comes out of this viewpoint
00:22:06
Speaker
is the inability in a Christian marriage to have an open conversation about your needs as a wife, especially about division of labor in the hall. And if you follow me on Instagram, you know I have an entire highlight on the biblical mandate for husbands to respect their wives. We don't talk about this because we in our Western minds only associate respect with authority.
00:22:35
Speaker
which is not how scripture presents respect. Respect and honor are due to all image bearers. Now certainly there's a different kind of respect due to authority figures, and we see that talked about when Paul talks about praying for authority figures, but
00:22:54
Speaker
There is an innate respect that's due and is a part of loving another person. When you love someone, you respect them. And so in this command that he gives to love, you know, husband, love your wife, wife, respect your husband, it's not as if he's saying, you know, a wife should never love her husband. No one would ever argue that.
00:23:16
Speaker
He is also saying that a husband is to respect his wife. And we see this also in Peter when he writes about a husband honoring his wife. It's the exact same word that's used for honoring authority figures.
00:23:31
Speaker
honoring people who have accomplished great things. The husband is to respect his wife. A wife is to respect her husband. They are to love and respect one another. And with this context, we can then go back and look at these commands about submission because this is where the wheels fall off the conversation and people start to get emotional and they say, I don't like it. I don't want to hear about submission. And this is uncomfortable.
00:23:58
Speaker
But the truth of the matter is this, if you are a Christian person, submission is your lifestyle. Submission to the authority of God, the submission to Christ, submission to the leading of the Holy Spirit, submission to your church, and accountability there. The only time we don't submit is to sin. And when we are being abused,
00:24:19
Speaker
and when we are being pressured to sin. And abuse is sin, so it falls under the same category. So when we look at passages like this and we start to get prickly and we start to get uncomfortable, remember what is the mission of a disciple? To be in submission, to be humble, to be a servant. And if you go backwards in Ephesians 5, you will see that he says repeatedly that we are to submit and to be imitators of God.
00:24:48
Speaker
He wants us to be like Christ. That's the point. And as we continue into Ephesians 6, we see, you know, also this parent, children, you need to defer, submit, obey your parents, bondservants, submit to your masters. And what he's giving a picture here is
00:25:08
Speaker
you are to love one another, you are to be at peace with one another, to defer to one another, because this is a character trait of all believers. And if we go back up to Ephesians 5 21, it actually says before he ever gets specific with wives, husbands, children, servants, he says submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
00:25:32
Speaker
So when an egalitarian reads this, the egalitarian says, look, this particular verse is the foundation for everything else. Everybody submits to everybody. So that means there are no role distinctions in marriage or in church because he says submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
00:25:54
Speaker
So let's look a little bit at this one another phrase. Where else does Paul use it? He uses it in Galatians 5 13 saying to love one another. In Ephesians 4 32 he says through love serve one another. In Romans 12 10 he says be kind to one another. And in Philippians 2 3 he says give preference to one another. And in every one of these contexts one another is used toward both men and women. So the egalitarian would argue
00:26:22
Speaker
Well, since this is the context, he's always used it. This is the context here. He's saying submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. And then he goes specifically to talk to wives because of an Ephesian situation. There was a problem in the Church at Ephesus, and that is why he specifically talked to them about submitting more, you know, explicitly. And then he says to husbands, love your wives, which was completely countercultural, by the way.
00:26:50
Speaker
Remember, when you're reading the Bible, that we shouldn't be reading this through 2020 I's. Like, we shouldn't be reading this through our, you know, postmodern culture and saying, well, of course he loves his wife. Like, what kind of command is that? He got off easy. Back then, it was pretty much a given that a wife was to submit to her husband in most cultures, but it was not a given that husbands were to love their wives.
00:27:16
Speaker
And so one thing I think that may give a little context here too, I've done a lot of research into the Greek culture and the nature of marriage and what was going on in the early church, especially in Ephesus with the influence of the pagan temples and Greek culture.
00:27:35
Speaker
There's a chance that when these women became Christians, came into the church, they felt like it was a free pass to exercise a new kind of freedom and their freedom in Christ, if you will, to be actually disrespectful and domineering with their husbands.
00:27:57
Speaker
And that is why Paul addressed this specifically. Do we have proof of that? No, we don't. But it's something to perhaps consider. And that would be the egalitarian approach. The egalitarian approach would say, because this all began with verse 21, saying submit to one another, that this
00:28:18
Speaker
verse 22, submitting to your own husbands is not exclusive to wives but would apply to both husbands and wives. So what do you do when you have a complementarian view and an egalitarian view that are pretty much at odds on two really big passages? 1 Timothy 2 and Ephesians 5.
00:28:35
Speaker
I think we need to take a step back and really look at what God's heart is. What is God's heart for marriage? Is he after just submission? Is that what he wants? Just because. You're a woman, therefore you need to submit. Is he after a woman being subjugated or bossed around her whole life? Does he think we're brainless? Does he think we don't have gifts? Absolutely not. Look at the Proverbs 31 woman. This woman is incredible. In fact, let's just go there.
00:29:02
Speaker
While we are here, the Proverbs 31 woman was celebrated by her husband, and she was actively in business. On her own, by the way, her husband was in the gates, which was a position of great leadership and influence, and she was extremely busy.
00:29:20
Speaker
creating and and working as an entrepreneur. She's seeking to do or she seeks wool and flax and works with willing hands. She is like the ships of the merchant and brings her food from afar. She considers a field and buys it and with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard.
00:29:37
Speaker
all of these things she's doing while married, and this is not a threat to her husband, this is one of the reasons he praises her. Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all. He blesses her in front of his children, and it's just phenomenal to me to read this passage and then look at and then remember, Genesis
00:30:00
Speaker
one and two. She is his easier, she is his military aid, and that is what's happening here. That's exactly what the Proverbs 31 woman is. She is this military help, this strong woman to her husband, and he praises her. So then when we go forward into Ephesians 5 and 1 Timothy 2, it's not as if God has forgotten these things when he's inspiring these texts to Paul.
00:30:23
Speaker
He's going to remember his design when he inspires Paul, and Paul would have known all of that. He was so well versed in Torah. He was so well versed in the scriptures. He would know these things. And in fact, if we go back to 1 Timothy, he actually cites Genesis
00:30:44
Speaker
when he's talking about the framework of marriage. He says, for Adam was formed first and then Eve, but then he goes into the fall and says, Adam was not deceived, but the woman was, became a transgressor. And so he uses this as an example for why a woman cannot exercise unhealthy authority over her husband.
00:31:07
Speaker
So there's a couple important principles here. Paul is using the Genesis model of marriage as his foundation for his teaching on marriage. So clearly he's not ignorant of how God set things up. He's not ignorant of the woman's helper strength.
Genesis as a Foundation for Marriage Teachings
00:31:23
Speaker
And I think we need to keep that in mind when we're looking at this verse. Now, I know I said I wasn't going to talk about the woman being deceived thing, but actually I am, because whenever I run into things like this, my first thought is, okay, Paul was a Jew.
00:31:39
Speaker
and he was a very well educated Jew. So the best way to understand what he's saying here is to go back to his framework, his understanding. And so I like to look at messianic Jewish commentaries and perspectives that help me get more of the context of what Paul is saying here.
00:31:58
Speaker
I also read just regular different denominations and different commentaries from those perspectives too, but those will often be looking at word definitions, whereas a Messianic Jewish commentary will take into account the culture and the commentaries, the Mishnah, that would have been at play in Paul's understanding. So I want to read to you a little commentary here.
00:32:26
Speaker
that is talking about the reason he talks about the deceit and the woman being deceived, because it can be easy to think, oh, so is it the woman's fault that the world came into sin?
00:32:42
Speaker
actually know, and this commentator brings up a good point. He says, the two reasons given for women not being disciples of men are Adam's chronological priority and Eve's propensity for being deceived. Sha'ul does not say that Eve sinned, but that she became involved in the transgression, literally has become in transgression, which I take to mean that she became mixed up in Adam's transgression.
00:33:07
Speaker
At Romans 5, Sha'ul teaches that it was Adam who sinned through directly disobeying God's command to him, and therefore he bears the primary responsibility for the fall, the introduction of sin into human life.
00:33:26
Speaker
Eve was not the sinner Adam was, since it was he who disregarded God's command. Eve, rather, was deceived. When the serpent duped her, she became involved in Adam's transgression." So I just want to read that because I think it's important to understand that it's not like Paul is saying here that Adam had no part in this, because in the Genesis account, Eve
00:33:48
Speaker
eats the fruit, and gives some to her husband who is with her. And he willfully sinned. She was deceived, but he willfully sinned." And so this particular passage is now saying that women are lesser, or they're stupid, or they're more easily deceived as a general rule, because then we'd have to say, are all men generally more willful than women? Because we know that's not true.
00:34:10
Speaker
what it's saying he's doing here is he's using, he's referring back to that pattern as a foundation for what he's teaching on women's roles in the church and what they are permitted to do. And the reason this is I guess would be something we would discuss in context of the church episode, but I think it really applies here to the marriage episode because this verse is often used to apply to the relationship between husbands and wives.
00:34:41
Speaker
Now this is a lot of information and I can definitely see how you're like, um, clear as mud. I have even more information and now I'm having a really hard time navigating all of it. But to kind of recap here, there are the two main camps on Christian marriage. You have complementarians and egalitarians. Complementarians believe that men and women are equal in value but different in role. Egalitarians believe that we are equal in value but interchangeable in role.
00:35:09
Speaker
and so they come to these different texts on submission and on leadership and authority from two very different perspectives and a lot of times we can actually bring cultural assumptions into these passages and when we do that then say well
00:35:27
Speaker
This is what marriage needs to look like, based on culture instead of based on freedom in Christ and submission to one another. And again, remember, submission to one another is a command in Ephesians 5. And what that means, I think we can all agree on, is to serve one another. We are to serve one another just as Christ laid himself down for us.
00:35:54
Speaker
We are to love and respect one another. We are to exalt one another and humble ourselves and serve just as Christ set that example.
Mutual Submission in Marriage
00:36:05
Speaker
That's his heart for the entire church of husbands and wives and the church family as a whole. And so that is the big picture we have to bring to these passages that are talking about submission. This is not a submission that means you never speak up in your marriage.
00:36:21
Speaker
This is not a submission that you never advise and counsel and give input and even lead. You lead in your marriage. Wives lead in their marriage. As much as some complementarian circles might argue otherwise, wives lead in their marriages. They lead their kids. They even lead their husband. A wife who is in an unequally yoked marriage, her example is a form of leadership. The way she disciples. And even in an equally yoked marriage.
00:36:51
Speaker
our choices are a form of leadership, a way that we disciple both our children and our spouses. This is not an active discipleship. One of the things this Jewish commentary said is that when it says that a woman must learn quietly,
00:37:12
Speaker
and cannot exercise authority, this is not talking about just learning information. It's related to discipling, the practice of discipling and being discipled, which existed in Judaism and was exemplified by Jesus. So this was not like, you know, just random teaching. This was a very specific kind of discipleship, and that is what Paul is saying was not being permitted for women to do. So keeping that in mind, then,
00:37:42
Speaker
There are ways to lead and disciple in a marriage as a wife that are not just permitted but essential. We help our husbands grow in their faith. We help their spiritual maturity. We help their view of God. And we do that all for our children as well. Many women do this without even knowing or without a label.
00:38:04
Speaker
But we have this responsibility to walk in good character and to help our husbands become even better men than they already are. And Proverbs 31 is a great example of this, that her husband is in the gates and she is bringing honor to him in the gates. She may be even part of the reason that he is in the gates in the first place.
00:38:26
Speaker
So when we're looking at these again, as we wrap up this episode, I just want to encourage you not to necessarily pick a side, any side, and get an argument on Facebook comments about this whole thing. But I do want to bring some clarity to the marriage conversation. And this is what I would leave you with. As a wife in a Christian marriage, submission is servanthood, and every Christian is called to that.
00:38:55
Speaker
As a wife in a Christian marriage, you can advise, counsel, give input, use your gifts, and you should, because you are your husband's military help. You are his aid, and all of your gifts complement his gifts.
00:39:12
Speaker
Another thing I would say is it is a great privilege to be in partnership with your husband, to be his aide, to be the person who he can bounce ideas off of, the person who counsels and helps lead him toward the Lord through your example and through your conversations and through your life together.
Mutual Strength and Support
00:39:34
Speaker
That's an incredible privilege and honor, and God honors that.
00:39:38
Speaker
And we see these women all throughout scripture who give us examples of what that looks like. That kind of strength is something that God sees as good, not as something that we should be ashamed of or hiding from. Lastly, love and respect are both due to both spouses because love and respect are due to all members of the body of Christ.
Felicia's Personal Stance
00:40:05
Speaker
Now you might be wondering, what camp does Felicia fall in? And I'll be honest, I'm kind of in between the both. Josh and I operate in what we call a complementarian without hierarchy marriage. We are partners. We work together. I do affirm headship in the sense that scripture presents it.
00:40:30
Speaker
I think that we see it in the Genesis narrative and we see it throughout the Old Testament and into the New, but here's what I always say. A complementarian marriage should look very egalitarian because that is what healthy complementarianism is.
00:40:48
Speaker
I see a lot of proofs on both sides. I think that there's a lot of great arguments for both sides. But ultimately, at the end of the day, what we have to ask ourselves is, am I walking closely with the Lord and willing to obey Him in what He calls me to do in my marriage? Am I willing to lay myself down and be a servant? Because that's what I'm called to do in general as a Christ follower.
00:41:13
Speaker
It's a big conversation and obviously I didn't do it justice, but I hope it gave you a few things to think about. And if you want to do some more research, I will have a bunch of books linked in the show notes, as well as a few podcast episodes and some other resources for you to help you navigate this yourself.
Keeping Christ Central
00:41:32
Speaker
My encouragement would be that as a woman navigating the issue of marriage, we always keep it rooted in the most important thing.
00:41:41
Speaker
the Gospel, making sure that Christ is central to us, Christ is central in our homes, Christ is central in our attitudes and our assumptions about the Word and about how we should live it out. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Verity. You can connect with fellow listeners by following me on Instagram at Felicia Masonheimer or on our Facebook page by the same name. Also visit FeliciaMasonheimer.com for links to each episode and the show notes.