When I hear people, particularly men, talk about how women should submit in a marriage, my blood immediately boils as I hold up a special finger (sometimes in reality and sometimes in my head.)
I almost didn’t even give Erik the time of day when I discovered that he was an invested Christian and worship leader. I thought, he would never be able to handle me. Instead of giving up, I just got super real with him super fast and gave him every opportunity to run for the hills to a sweet little Christian girl who could bake, but instead, he wrote me a song and decided to stick around for my spicy deconstructed beliefs on modern day Christianity and less than subpar baking.
In my deconstruction of traditional Christianity as taught in the western church, God has opened my eyes to read His word in context, with a fresh lens, and without the preconceived regurgitated ideas passed down from generation to generation via the pulpit. I’ve taken on and studied soberly several difficult topics without fear of what I would find in the Bible because I’ve come to trust the loving heart of the Father.
One thing I out rightly rejected from Christianity is this idea that a woman needs to submit to her husband. Throughout my cradle Christian life, I’ve heard Christians, particularly men, hammer this idea of submission home time and time again. Even when I was sold out to the Christian club, this annoyed me and never set right with my spirit.
I equated it to the verses about slavery. The Bible speaks directly to slaves and tells a slave how they should act. I don’t believe that God condones slavery, and I don’t think that there are many Christians that believe slavery should be a thing. However, we live in a fallen world, and it was/is (in some places) a thing, so the Bible spoke to slaves to help them survive the time. During Bible times, women were extremely oppressed. That is just how it was, so I felt guidance was given to keep homes and families peaceful.
Over the last year, the topic of a peaceful Godly marriage keeps arising, and God has opened my eyes to something.
Ephesians talks about a wife submitting to her husband as the head of the household. That is true. However, Ephesians 5:25 says, “Husband’s love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for it.”
Woah!
We breeze past this, but when we pull it apart and really contemplate it’s meaning, this is super intense. The Bible isn’t just calling a man to love his wife. He is calling a man to love his wife like Christ loved the church. That is a very specific type of love.
If we truly understand the gospel and the magnitude of what Jesus did for us, this is calling the MAN to a much harder and more giving action.
Let’s think about it.
· The Bible tells us that we are the church. People. Individuals. Not a building or an organization.
· Jesus came to earth and put himself on our level. He was tempted in every way and literally put himself in our shoes to gain a true understanding of the human experience. Jesus made it a point out get out of his own world and spent 33 years learning to understand us. Understanding someone is key to knowing someone and the beginning of being able to have compassion and love for that person. Being understood makes people feel seen and safe.
· Jesus was mocked, ridiculed, beaten, treated with the worst of the worst cruelty then he said, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” In the moments leading up to his death, he prayed for and had compassion on the very people who put him in that position. He saw past their horrid actions and to the heart of who they really were. He had compassion on them and forgiveness for them.
· Then Jesus gave his life for the church. For us.
· Not only did He die for the church, but He died for the church because He knew we would fail Him. We could NEVER measure up to the law, and we needed a savior. As the Michael W. Smith song goes, “His love was His life, and He gave it away.” He paid the ultimate sacrifice and expects absolutely nothing from us. That, my friends, is love. We can’t and couldn’t ever measure up to the law. We live in a fallen world, and we are flawed individuals. He saw all of that and died to free us from our burden of sin.
· “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17.) We are set free because of Jesus’ gift to us on the cross. “For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the Law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2.)
When we truly understand Jesus’ goodness, we trust Him and want to follow Him because we know for certain, after He proved it in such a powerful self-giving way, that He loves us with an undeniable, everlasting, intensity, and passion.
“It’s His goodness that leads to repentance.” (Repentance being the changing of one’s mind and the changing of one’s ways NOT penance.)
Unfortunately, many Christians are afraid of the concept of Hell (which I believe is more of a state of mind or an undesirable result here on earth than an actual fire filled place where people rot in hot flames for all of eternity, but that’s a blog for another day.) People choose to follow God out of fear, which I believe breaks His heart. Imagine if the only reason your kids “loved” you was because they feared your wrath. Talk about dysfunction.
The love of Jesus is super intense, powerful, and life changing. Jesus was the epitome of tender, connected, loving, self-giving, forgiving, healing, genuine etc. Then he calls men to love their wives like that!
“We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19.)
I don’t care how feminist or independent a woman is. If a man is loving his wife like Christ loved the church, she’s going to just fall into “submission” because she feels so deeply loved, respected, appreciated, seen, and understood. Their home will be happy, peaceful, and loving.
Being the head of the household and leading the family isn’t demanding obedience. Christ didn’t demand obedience. He got on our level, understood us, saw our faults and failures, held them with tenderness and forgiveness, and died for them because He knew we couldn’t do it on our own. In our weaknesses and failures, Christ gave His own life to hold us up without asking or expecting ANYTHING in return.
Imagine if more men acted like that in their marriages and loved their wives the way Christ loved the church.
I for one have a much softer heart, with this in mind, when I reflect on the way the Bible suggests a wife to treat her husband.
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