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057 | Marriage Episode 2: On Gender Roles
637 Plays3 years ago
In this episode of the Honest Marriage series Josh and Phy look at Ephesians 5 and discuss how this controversial passage has played out in their own marriage. We also discuss "spiritual leadership" and what it's like for Josh to be married to a Bible teacher.
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Transcript
Introduction to the 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.
Sharing Personal Marriage Journeys
00:00:30
Speaker
Well, hello, everyone. Josh and Fi back again to talk about marriage and what it looks like to follow the Lord in a Christian marriage. Just one example, us.
00:00:47
Speaker
We are not a perfect example by any means, but we're sharing our story in this marriage series of the podcast and kind of opening up about our own journey and how we apply what scripture says about marriage to our own relationship. And so today we're starting out with the very controversial topic of gender roles because we love to apparently pick a fight. Hopefully not.
00:01:14
Speaker
If you want to know the theology behind this, we're actually not going to get a whole lot into that today. You can go back to the Women's Issues series of the podcast. I think it was two seasons ago, and you can listen to the episodes on marriage and the church, and those break down the theology behind complementarianism and egalitarianism, the two main views of gender roles in marriage and in the church.
00:01:42
Speaker
Josh and I are pretty openly complementarian in the sense that we believe God has gifted men and women with very different skill sets and obviously biology, but we also believe that scripture gives men and women a whole lot of freedom to use their complementary gifts in the home and in the church and in the world.
Book Discussion: Strengthening Marriage
00:02:05
Speaker
So we're going to share from Ephesians 5, we're going to read a little of that today, and then we're going to talk about
00:02:10
Speaker
how this looks in her own marriage.
00:02:30
Speaker
And if that title intrigues you, good, because I can't wait for wives to pick this book up and be encouraged and equipped to pursue their husbands in ways they maybe never expected to do so. When I wrote this book, I was looking back on a year when I was really struggling to cultivate a relationship with Josh.
00:02:54
Speaker
I felt lonely, I felt disconnected, and I realized that I could wait for him to change it or I could make the change. And so I made a list of 30 flirtations, all different kinds of ways to show him that I loved him. And through this experiment, I found that I actually was changed.
00:03:13
Speaker
I co-authored this book with my friend Lisa Jacobson, who's been married 28 years to my 8 years, and we alternate chapters showing you the ideas that we used to cultivate an intimate and fun, romantic and flirtatious marriage.
00:03:29
Speaker
You can pre-order the book now anywhere books are sold from Amazon to Barnes & Noble, the Christian book, or you can go to theflortationexperiment.com to get two free chapters in the introduction and to be notified when the book launches. I hope you guys will grab it. We have some awesome bonuses for those who pre-order and I'm excited to get this book into your hands.
Reading from Ephesians 5
00:03:52
Speaker
Okay, I'll read the passage and then we'll talk about it.
00:03:55
Speaker
This is Ephesians 22 through 33. It says, 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.
00:04:14
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 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.
00:04:35
Speaker
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, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
00:04:59
Speaker
So this is in context of the whole of Ephesians 5. And I get more into that in the Women's Issues series, the theology behind this, the context. But we're just going to look at it kind of face value and talk about how we have lived this out a little bit. So Josh, any initial thoughts for you on this passage about a husband loving your wife and what that's looked like for you since we've been married?
00:05:25
Speaker
Well, I think that what really stood out this reading was that he loves his wife as himself. And that is, it's just such an interesting concept of, you know, like how we all love ourselves so much.
Misconceptions About Submission
00:05:44
Speaker
You know, we never let ourselves go hungry or if we can help it be naked on the street. And, you know, like when you like feel a need,
00:05:55
Speaker
you want to fill it. And so, you know, it's our body's innate way of taking care of ourselves. And so he wants us to take care of our wife the same way we take care of ourself and doing that in love. And so it's like, you know, you want to meet her needs, not just the physical needs of
00:06:23
Speaker
you know, hunger and thirst, but the emotional and spiritual needs of love and just being like led and taken care of and, you know, cultivated, like you would care for a flower or something like that.
00:06:42
Speaker
No, I like that analogy, that kind of tenderness towards your wife. I love that you talk about how the husband is thinking about her needs first. And when we were
00:06:57
Speaker
kind of rehearsing for this episode, Josh mentioned how Jesus was the perfect example of a servant. He was a servant king who washed the feet of his disciples. And that's the example that Paul uses here. So for my section, the one that came first, which is about half the length of the direction to the men talks about the favorite S word submission.
00:07:25
Speaker
everyone's favorite s-word and so when we see the word submit I think in today's culture we immediately have those really nasty connotations of how it's been abused in very conservative circles and I grew up reading some of those books and even believing some of what they said and that really damaged our first couple years of marriage because I think I expected you to be way more domineering. I thought in order to submit I have to be bossed around like a true
00:07:54
Speaker
Christian husband is going to be a leader by always telling me what to do and directing me and doing devotions with me. These are the things. I think one of the one times in our relationship that I did that, at least in the early days, was when we were dating and
00:08:15
Speaker
We had made plans to go shopping, go to Target, and Phi was doing dishes. I was distracted doing like 18 things. Kept getting distracted around the apartment and cleaning stuff up. And I'm like, Phi, we're going to Target now. Yes, you were very firm. I could tell that there was a little bit of glimmer in your eye when I did that.
00:08:43
Speaker
Yes, I think I was like, I think at that point in my life, the only framework I had for respect was commands, responding to commands. And I was only what, 22 at that point? So I had plenty of maturing to do, but I understood leadership only in terms of directives and commands. I didn't understand leadership
00:09:12
Speaker
as servanthood or that different personalities can lead in different ways. I'm using the word lead here. It's not in the text of Ephesians 5. There is no passage in the Bible that uses the word spiritual leader for the husband, and we might talk about that a little bit later on. But
00:09:34
Speaker
You, as we're married, showed that you lead in a different way and that your personality actually isn't the let's go to target personality, but that you still deserved respect and deference, which is what submission is. It's deferring to the other's needs, which is exactly what you just said when you described
Mutual Respect and Love in Marriage
00:09:54
Speaker
loving your wife. Yeah.
00:09:57
Speaker
Yeah, just taking care of them. And it does say that no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it. So how could you put yourself first treating her as your own flesh?
00:10:15
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. That's the exact analogy that is used here. And so even with this imagery for the wife of, you know, the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, and other passages Paul goes back to the Genesis structure of the husband being created and the wife being created out of his side. And I will say this,
00:10:37
Speaker
because people will wonder, why are we ultimately complementarian versus egalitarian? So why do we believe that there are functional differences between husband and wife in the home versus no functional differences? I think that there really shouldn't be two terms, but just the one term of complementarian where
00:11:02
Speaker
you compliment each other. Like, you know, I'm all nerdy about math, but like a compliment angle and a supplement angle.
00:11:13
Speaker
They make up the whole angle of 180 degrees. So you just help one another complete each other and use your skills and your giftings and what you're good at to both serve as your position in the relationship.
00:11:34
Speaker
Right. It's not a power struggle. No, like you're not equal, but you are at the same time. Like you're, you know, one person is better in one area and the other person's better in another area. There's nothing wrong with that. You don't have to both be just as good in the same area on everything. Right. Right. And like your own manhood shouldn't be determined by the intelligence level of your life.
00:12:02
Speaker
Ooh, that's a word right there. But yeah, I think you're pointing out like a secure man who knows that his call is to serve and love his wife isn't going to be threatened by the strength or theological knowledge or intelligence or motivation of this wife. He chose to be with her. The Lord blessed him with her. And the same I would say for the wife is
00:12:31
Speaker
you know, deferring to your husband's thoughts, needs, interests isn't archaic. It's following Jesus. And is it more difficult for certain personalities than others? Yes, absolutely. Just like loving your wife is probably more difficult for certain personalities. I'm not sure exactly where, but the Bible says that when we are weak,
00:12:57
Speaker
he makes us stronger, he is made strong. And I feel like it works the same way in your marriage where, you know, the husband can make, strengthen the wife where she is weak and the wife can strengthen the husband where he is weak and you can grow together through that. Yeah. So how would you say if you had to like maybe name how we've done that, what's an area that maybe
00:13:26
Speaker
You're strong. I'm weak. You're weak. I'm strong. I think in one area is like she is the sale and I'm the rudder for some things where she's like, let's do this. I'm like, I don't know if that's realistic.
00:13:44
Speaker
Let's steer away from that. Yeah, let's navigate some rocks. And, you know, in other areas, like, I guess like she gets like, she gets all nerdy about like the Bible and the Old Testament stuff like the book knowledge, but sometimes I'm like,
00:14:04
Speaker
you know, have some insight into it where it's like the street, no. The street smarts of the Bible. No, but yeah, sometimes I will miss the forest for the trees when it comes to something. I'm like, yeah, you know, this was happening in history and this is how this concept played out and here's all of the church history and the biblical part of this and you might distill it down to one
Balancing Strengths and Weaknesses
00:14:30
Speaker
concept and make a comment about it. And I'm like, oh my goodness, I never thought about it that way. Because you bring a different view of the text that I maybe missed because I was so close to it or because I'd spent so much time studying it. There's catching the spirit of the word, not just the facts of the word. And so I think personality wise too, I tend to be the more emotional of us too. Not all women are that way. There's some men who are
00:15:00
Speaker
way more emotional than their wives. But I tend to maybe have the higher highs and the lower lows, maybe both in one day than you do. And so your strengths can be really leveling to that. But with that levelness, sometimes I can be lethargic and she brings some drive and get up and go. And she's always been really great at
00:15:26
Speaker
like planning outings and stuff and like just thinking of oh like this would be so wonderful to do in the fall and i'm like that sounds great let's do that i'll be there once you set it up
00:15:42
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you're good at setting up dates and things like that too, but I think we're just trying to describe that we have very different personalities as we described in episode one, or we're actually opposites on almost every personality test. So on Myers-Briggs, I am an ENTJ and he has an ISFP, right? Which was, Myers-Briggs was a big thing before the Enneagram and
00:16:10
Speaker
I think that it maybe sums us up a little bit better, the introvert, extrovert. The Enneagram, the nine, she's the three. So it feels like on paper, very, very opposite. And even in real life, I think sometimes it feels like that. But like you said, I don't understand your math analogies, but they sound really cool. That those, the complete angle can only occur when they're complimenting each other. Right.
00:16:40
Speaker
So this whole like, oh, complimentarian, but there's a power struggle and like the wife is always trying to overpower the husband, which is how some people read Genesis 3, where it says your desire will be for your husband. Some people interpret that to mean, well, she'll always want to take control. And I think
00:17:01
Speaker
that certainly there are certain personalities of women that maybe want to do that. I think I definitely have that tendency, but not all women do. There are women who struggle with passivity and not stepping up and speaking into their
Leadership and Partnership in Marriage
00:17:18
Speaker
husband's life when he needs it.
00:17:20
Speaker
I think there's a lot of men that are pretty comfortable sitting on the couch all day as well on a weekend. It's kind of like a man who works eight to five or a full-time job, he gets home and it's like, okay, I'm done. Your turn.
00:17:41
Speaker
Right, even though she's been working all day in a different capacity. Yeah, if that's the case. I think just this understanding that what's being expressed here in Ephesians 5 isn't meant to be a power struggle, it's meant to be a partnership, and that isn't downplaying
00:18:01
Speaker
what Paul says about the husband being the head of the wife. And so people might ask like, well, if this is how you view complementarianism, aren't you guys egalitarian? And we would say a healthy complementarian marriage looks egalitarian.
00:18:18
Speaker
because you are working together and there isn't this power struggle. Now, I think what would probably tip the scales for us is that if we absolutely can't decide on something, then you usually have the final word, but that's happened how many times? Two, maybe three. I know some people would be like, yeah, I don't agree with that. It's more like a presidential veto.
00:18:49
Speaker
Yes, which can be overturned right by the House and the Senate. I don't know. That's embarrassing. So do I count as a House and the Senate? I don't know. But we try to talk through it and work through it first. And then if we absolutely can't decide, yeah, pray about it together.
00:19:05
Speaker
And honestly, the issues that he did end up fully deciding, it was something I needed a final decisive word on. I was too anxious, overwhelmed, still too indecisive about it. And so him saying, you know what, I think this is the best choice, I've prayed about it, and this is what I think. It was an act of trust in my husband in that instance for me to say, okay, we're going to accept your decision. But I also think that that can only happen
00:19:35
Speaker
when you do have this view of marriage as a respectful partnership. It's not a power struggle. He says, respect your husband. Josh and I don't want to beat up on the book Love and Respect, but for us in our marriage, it wasn't the most helpful marriage book. We know it's helped a lot of other people, but
00:19:58
Speaker
For our personalities, it wasn't super helpful. So I don't want to hammer this, oh, wives only want love, husbands only want respect thing. But he does say this at the end of the passage. How do you think it looks for me? Like, how do you feel respected in our marriage? Well, a lot of people view a woman respecting a husband as unconditional submission.
00:20:27
Speaker
And it's like, well, she's respecting me, like respecting my wishes. And she's, you know, doing what I want her to do. But I think that you show your husband respect by
00:20:41
Speaker
like honoring him and showing him love. And I think it really like those two words are very interchangeable, the love and respect, because I think they're used because they kind of cater to kind of the innate
00:21:01
Speaker
like the primal need that each of them may have, like a disrespected man, like that's such a huge injury. And a wife that is not loved is just like,
00:21:18
Speaker
And I think the Bible talks about that, how she's just kind of… She's heard. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so like they're both used to convey the same message of like just honoring one another and making one another feel honored.
00:21:37
Speaker
through loving them and respecting them. And in all the ways that we talked about, just serving one another. Yeah. Well, what's interesting too is in our early marriage, I thought to respect you. I'd been reading all these templates for respect in these books on marriage that I was finding. And I thought, OK, Josh needs to be respected for his work.
00:22:03
Speaker
or respected for his, you know, initiative. I had all these like really stereotyped views of what respect for Josh would look like. And you'd be like, you know, you're such a hard worker. And like, you need to stand up for yourself. Yeah. Talking really well of you in front of people.
00:22:25
Speaker
But I don't remember at what point you told me like this, that's not what makes me feel the most respected. And I was actually respecting you the way I wanted to be loved. I wanted you to applaud my work and say I was good at what I did and, you know, celebrate me in front of other people because that's how I receive love is through respect.
00:22:49
Speaker
You, I remember, and correct me if I'm wrong, were telling me like, I actually feel more respected through affection and through your tone. Affirmation. Yeah, affirmation, your tone, things that people would probably say are loving.
00:23:05
Speaker
Yeah. Which is why the book Love and Respect didn't work super well for us because it tended to kind of stereotype those two things. The gendered roles. Right. Of love and respect as like these really almost separate kind of things but what you're saying is they're basically kind of the same thing in essence towards each other. I think for some people that might be a little bit maybe of a new framework. I actually had a woman once message me
00:23:31
Speaker
enraged that I would talk about loving your husband instead of respecting him because he said, the Bible says that you are to respect your husband. And I said, but love and respect aren't like, they aren't opposites. Like if respect is filling you, it doesn't mean like you don't have room to also love. I think it just, and they are two different words that cater to two different personalities.
00:24:00
Speaker
But when you respect me, you're also loving me. And when I love you, I'm also respecting you.
Debunking Myths Around Submission
00:24:07
Speaker
I think you have always done a good job of respecting me and my work in the home, respecting me and my job as a mom, as a teacher, as a Bible teacher. I'm not taking you for granted.
00:24:23
Speaker
No, you didn't take me for granted. But I also think there has been a hole in the conversation in marriage around the need for wives to be respected for what they do alongside loving. And that's just a form of loving them. That's all it is. But I think that changing that verbiage and saying, hey, wives need respect too. And hey, husbands need affection and being cherished too.
00:24:47
Speaker
Yeah, just the image of like an MMA fighter doing a submission hold on someone like popped into my head and it's just like that's like you can force submission, but you're not going to get respect.
00:25:02
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That's really true. And also that forced submission isn't what Paul is talking about here. He's not saying husbands make sure your wives submit. He said nothing about that. He said husbands love your wives.
00:25:17
Speaker
and nourish and cherish them as Christ does the church. So look at Christ, that's what you're supposed to be doing. And wives, look at Christ, because he says, he gives the example of the church in Christ, but Christ also submitted to the Lord in order to accomplish what he did on the cross. And so that's what wives are looking to, that deferring
00:25:37
Speaker
Not that their husbands are God or have replaced God, but hopefully their husbands are also laying themselves down like Christ and so it forms that complementary, beautiful relationship that he's after. Okay, so as we're wrapping up this episode, I wanted to kind of talk about one thing that's semi-related to this. Whenever I talk about gender roles or these hot passages in the Bible around
00:26:06
Speaker
husbands and wives. We often hear this phrase spiritual leader, which isn't in any of these passages. It's kind of a concept that's gotten pulled out of them. And I think I would love to hear your thoughts on being married to a Bible teacher because
00:26:26
Speaker
I went to school for religion, you went for engineering.
Reflections on Spiritual Leadership
00:26:29
Speaker
Now I'm a Bible teacher and together we run this wonderful ministry, Every Woman a Theologian. But at the end of the day, I've gotten some questions before from people who have questioned whether a husband can be the quote unquote spiritual leader in a home where the wife knows as much as I do. I'm phrasing it the way they phrase it.
00:26:54
Speaker
What would be your thoughts on that? What's it like being married to a Bible teacher? What kind of leader are you, Josh? There are lots of commentaries strewn about the house.
00:27:09
Speaker
and I could never catch up. So, at times, it is a little daunting to think of that responsibility and that assumption being held over me. It's like, I don't know if I could ever catch up to her at this point because she got a four-year degree in it and she has read so many commentaries.
00:27:35
Speaker
and done so much research. She's so good at what she does. It's kind of like going back to what I said about the skills. It's her skill, it's her gifting, her talent, that she's able to research this all and formulate her own theses and just be able to teach so well that I think
00:28:04
Speaker
it's great that she's able to do that. And I think it would be a shame if I were to try to tear it down for my own ego. And so I think I feel comfortable with it because
00:28:23
Speaker
you know, she is being led by God to reach all those that she is. And I think that I'm able to, just with my giftings of being, yeah, administration, but also like, I feel kind of like support staff as well. Being kind of level, I'm able to
00:28:47
Speaker
just kind of comfort her in turmoil and sometimes be the voice of reason and just kind of support her through it all. So I think that is something that I was
00:29:06
Speaker
you know, called to do. And I don't think that's, you know, necessarily for everyone. And I know it takes kind of a special person to a special man to be in a place where he is the supportive role. But if I'm able to help her accomplish these great things, then, you know, that's also something I'm accomplishing. Yeah.
00:29:34
Speaker
And I'm so grateful because I think in our world, when you say supportive role, we think not leader, but it is leader because you're leading me closer to the Lord and you're leading me to the better attitudes and heart postures for our family and our marriage and our home and our ministry. And you're correcting me when I need correction and
00:30:01
Speaker
you're helping guide who I am back to scripture, back to the Lord. That's leadership. Right. So in a way, you're both leading each other closer to the Lord and the spiritual leader in the home is the person. Yeah, God, it's God. It's Jesus Christ. And you're not fighting for that power.
00:30:30
Speaker
But truly, I think this has happened better for us as we've both matured in our walks with the Lord. And that's not just knowledge, because I've always had a lot of knowledge. It's the humility of understanding that I can know all the commentaries in the world
00:30:48
Speaker
But if I'm living in anger and disrespect towards my husband, I'm in sin. I'm not walking in the knowledge of God. I'm walking in opposition to God. And so it doesn't matter how smart I am about Bible stuff.
00:31:03
Speaker
is my heart towards my husband submissive? And what that means is, is it deferring to him in placing his needs above mine or am I centering myself at all times? So hopefully you guys, this short discussion was thought-provoking. Obviously, we're just one marriage. We're giving one example of how we walk out what scripture says about
00:31:28
Speaker
gender roles, if you will, and we have not covered really anything. There's so much more we could cover, but thanks for listening to us and we'll be back next week as we continue this series on marriage.
00:31:58
Speaker
you