When we stop being afraid of what men can do to us, or angry about what they have done, and start serving the God whose image they are made in, then men will start filling our church pews again.
And our husbands will rise up to their full potential to be spiritual leaders, to be prophets and priests of integrity and Pentecost, to be speakers into lives and providers of families and protectors of daughters and mentors of sons.
{The Lost Art Of Servanthood}
Emily Wierenga wrote those words. She is getting beat up in the comments section about teaching that wives are commanded to submit to their husbands. She tells of a friend of hers in Lebanon whose husband broke out some of her teeth when she became a Christian. She stayed with him and he became a Christian.
Oh, this angers many women. "How can you support abuse?" Her husband will be in heaven praising Jesus for eternity because she fought silently for her husband's salvation. Women are willing to fight for many things but for some reason to fight for your marriage and your husband is not worth it? {Of course, she doesn't condone physical violence against women and neither do I but uses this example as the power of submission.}
She tells how her mum wore the pants in her family so she grew up not respecting her father. Are men partly responsible for women wearing the pants? I am not sure but it is worth considering. Maybe if men would stand up to their wives and say "No" and stop being afraid of their wives, they would have more authority in the home.
However, what responsibility do women have in the feminization of men? Men fearing to be leaders in their homes? Men abandoning the Church? Men no longer wanting to support and protect their families?
I believe women hold a great amount of responsibility in this area. In the quest to be equal with men, women have systematically destroyed masculinity and in the process destroyed femininity. God has made it very clear that men are to be the leaders in the home and wives are to obey them in everything. This creates peace and order, something that God highly prizes.
True happiness and joy is found in serving others. When you learn to truly love and serve your husband, your home is put in order, God's order. I admire Emily for taking such a bold, strong stand on submission and putting it out there for all to read. Of course she will be ridiculed. The world doesn't like God's message and ways. They love to pervert His ways and make them look ugly.
Show the world how beautiful biblical submission is in your own marriage. My son recently told me that one of his friends decided to take on my 30 Day Challenge of not arguing. They made it four days without arguing. They are going to start over. Never give up! Practice makes perfect. Learning to not argue with your husband is the first step to taking off those pants once and for all and allowing your husband to wear them!
Emily's story ends this way ~
For all of my dad’s sermons the greatest message he ever gave {and continues to give} was with his life, bent over the bathtub, washing my mum as she lay semi-unconscious; cutting her toenails, changing her Depend’s and cooking baked potatoes in the microwave night after night for supper, for years.
And suddenly Mum began to laugh at his jokes and lean on his arm and tell him he was handsome. And suddenly my dad’s shoulders straightened and his home became his ministry. And his children rose up and championed him, and called their mother blessed.
The greatest among you shall be your servant.
Matthew 23:11
Lindsay Harold · 625 weeks ago
The fact that husbands are designed to be the leaders of their homes and that women are to submit to their husbands does NOT make women inferior in any way. It actually means that women have been chosen for a very special and exalted purpose. Thus, a woman who wililngly and submissively tends to her family in the role God has placed her is of great worth in His eyes. It is she who will receive great reward. Not the one who is dissatisfied with her role and wishes power as the world sees things.
Lori Alexander 122p · 625 weeks ago
jkstamy08 22p · 625 weeks ago
I don't think submitting to our men makes us weak at all. If fact, it's much easier to do what we think is right rather than to submit. So in my book, if you can humbly submit to your man, you are a very strong woman :)
Lori Alexander 122p · 625 weeks ago
Marybeth T · 625 weeks ago
Lori Alexander 122p · 625 weeks ago
Courtney · 625 weeks ago
Lori Alexander 122p · 625 weeks ago
Courtney · 625 weeks ago
Lori Alexander 122p · 625 weeks ago
Ugochi · 625 weeks ago
Thanks a lot for sharing this, I always pray and ask for grace to be the best daughter to God and best wife to mu husband.
Working Mom · 625 weeks ago
PJB · 625 weeks ago
I believe in feminine servant-hood -- and I hate to see domineering women destroy families by disrespectful conduct. But I also believe that all leaders must be servants, which means that I also believe in male servant-hood, and that any servant-hearted person can be a leader in a family.
I understand that you cling to words like "leader" for men "obey" for women, but you get "leader" from the Greek metaphor of headship, which is by no means as clear-cut as you imagine... and you get "obey" from the King James translation of "hupotasso" which is an innocent word that only means that we elevate others by our humility (servanthood) and willingly take shelter under them. It's important to cling to the Bible -- It's also important to occasionally wonder if our personal conclusions about 'what it clearly means' are actually well founded.
I might go on saying these things to you, because I think you read them, even though Ken usually responds. Sometimes I have hope that I might find a teachable moment with you -- possibly due to the title of your blog... but posts like this, Lori, they are not worthy of you. It does not good for the Church to be on the internet as "pro-abuse" -- there are already enough people in Churches past and present who prove that point. Let's not join their ranks?
Lori Alexander 122p · 625 weeks ago
MM ESQ · 611 weeks ago
I'll take my flogging now for being unfeminine. After all, my BA in theology from a highly respected Northeastern religious liberal arts college and my JD make me..... Lets just say I'm glad I live in the Northeast and was raised mainline Protestant.
I suppose those here will pray for me. As I will pray for them. I don't think that one side will convert the other. Though I will suggest that you utilize the brains God gave you and learn more about the Bible and the history of Christianity before attempting to interpret what it's taken men and women lifetimes of study to understand.
PJB · 625 weeks ago
If you are truly against abuse, you would condemn it in all forms, every time it comes up -- rather than waxing sentimental about his sometimes it can be a good thing if a woman puts up with it for long enough.
Ken · 625 weeks ago
You know PJB, the reason you hear from me is because of your constant picking at Lori’s work and consistent mischaracterizations of what the Scriptures teach in the Greek. You seem to have an agenda to teach Lori something that is contrary to what the scriptures teach, and Lori knows it, but prefers not to take her talented time up with defending what she writes. You are welcome to read her work, and welcome to post comments, but what do you want Lori to say to you when you purposefully mischaracterize what she has clearly written?
Lori clearly states that she is against physical abuse of any type, yet you want all her readers to believe that she condones it. All because she explains why another writer is getting beat up for a story about how a wife suffered so she might win her husband to the Lord?
Get real for a moment and give Lori’s readers the benefit of not being stupid, ignorant or slavishly submissive. Her readers are like you, highly intelligent, educated and can decipher between an illustration and an admonition. Lori is not admonishing her reader to accept abuse, and you know it. If you want to object to her repeating the illustration, so be it, but resist the temptation to mischaracterize what Lori has clearly written because you do not appreciate the illustration.
Lori teaches that if a husband does any physical abuse, run, don’t walk to the police, or at least get to a friend’s home. Did you ever stop to think that maybe the women in the illustration got back with her husband after she turned him in? Or after she ran away for a period of time and then forgave and restored him?
We have been round and round on your inaccurate use of the Greek word "hupotasso" and as much as you want to try and wiggle out of it, it is a military term and you know full well the military speaks in terms of leadership and submission, and definitely not “an innocent word that only means that we elevate others by our humility.”
No matter how many times you repeat the same mischaracterization of the word, it will not change its true origin and meaning. "Hupotasso" clearly means submission or 99% of all Bible translators got it wrong and you and modern feminist Christianity somehow have discovered the its new meaning without ever finding it defined your way in any ancient manuscripts. For that matter, “elevate others by our humility” makes zero sense in the context of a military term.
To define a word in the Scriptures according to what you want it to mean in the context of a modern christian marriage is a gross violation of any reasonable hermeneutics, yet you repeat it over and over again with some authority that others may perceive is valid, when it is not. Like it or not, God could have chosen a different word other than “hupotasso,” but he did not. So it may be time to give up and accept submission as an admonition from the Lord, and discover that it is the key that can lead to a glorious, Christ centered marriage of loving equals each playing out their God given roles.
If you want Lori to learn from you, use the Bible to defend your position, and use the Greek words with their clear translation. Do not set up a straw man of recently coined definitions and masquerade them as the truth, then ask Lori and others to accept them. This makes no sense to Lori because she knows her Bible intimately and has never seen what you speak of so matter-of-factly. We cannot accept that all of Christianity throughout history somehow got it wrong, but now you and others who espouse a kinder, gentler “hupotasso” just figured it out in the middle of a feminist world. There needs no watering down of “hupotasso” because the husband’s responsibility to “love his wife as Christ loves the church” is an even great demand. The two extremes balance each other out perfectly in God’s marriage.
PJB · 625 weeks ago
To tell a woman to be submissive is to tell her to act like a Christian. There is every reason she should.
Christan leadership is always submissive leadership. That's why being submissive does not mean 'not bring a leader' or 'make someone else your leader' -- it means honour and elevate others... Something that fits in military contexts as easily as it does in marriage and Church. In secular places the honour runs only one direction. In Christan relationships, everybody does it. Some lead, some follow, but everyone elevates others by the submissive humility of a servant.
I don't mind repeating myself, and I never intentionally mischaracterize anything (though I may misunderstand),and I still think any illustration of good-from-abuse crosses a line. We're allowed to differ. It's just nice to be able to talk (type) about these things among compatriots.
Ken · 625 weeks ago
I enjoy the discussions we have ... and wish you the best. We can agree to disagree. Lori's health has deteriorated again the last five weeks or she may respond more ... I pray she is headache free soon.
Helene · 625 weeks ago
PJB · 624 weeks ago
If you are interested in checking translation work (working from the assumption that you don't buy into ideas of "inspired" translation teams) I think you will see that the word translated long ago to "obey" was in fact just plain "hupotasso" on which we have such disagreement. It is rare to find a competent translator that still thinks that "obey" is a good word choice in representing "hupotasso". That's why I don't think that the Bible clearly "says obey" -- because it simply doesn't it was chosen by translators. It is not disregard for the Bible to question translation choices -- especially with a word this complex.
Additionally, the idea of leadership in marriage is not ever mentioned by those words. People find that idea in the (completely undefined) metaphor of "head" and in passages that call for respect and honour for husbands from wives. There is a reasonable case to be made there, but it is "making a case" -- it's not obvious. It's an opinion. Which is why it is controversial among believers and respecters of the Bible. That's why I call (like the Bible) for all the respect and honour in the world from wives to husbands, without adding other interpretive ideas such as leadership.bi also make sure to say that honour and respect isn't optional for anyone.