Again, Not Very PC



Ephesians 5:21-32
21Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
22Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
23For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.
24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
25Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,
26that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,
27so 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.
28In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
29For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church,
30because we are members of his body.
31“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
32This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
33However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

We are all, to some extent, a product of the cultural morays in place during our “growing up” years. I am a product of the 50s, 60s, and 70s. That means I grew up during at the height of the feminist movement. As a result, for years this particular passage kind of made me itch. After years of wrestling with God over this passage (and you can ask Jacob what happens when you choose to wrestle with God – he walked away with a blessing AND A LIMP!) I have finally come to peace about it all. This passage isn’t nearly as much about marriage as it is about sin and obedience.

Let’s face it – we’re messed up. Sin has ravaged our lives, our sense of self, and our relationship with God. In the perfection of His plan, God created men and women to be together in harmony and peace, with each receiving what they needed emotionally, physically, and even in spiritually. Then sin entered the world and we have been fighting each other and even ourselves ever since. The feminist movement grew largely out of the fact that both men and women lost sight of how God created them. Men seek to abdicate their God given responsibility (notice that it is responsibility not power) for the women in their lives and women seek to take from men that which was never theirs to have – the man’s place in the family as leader. Emerson Eggerichs lends amazing insight and even research to this whole concept in his book Love and Respect. He nails the truth that God created women with an instinctive capacity to love and men with that same capacity for respect. When women are loved, they share deep respect with their husbands and when husbands are respected, they care deep love with their wives. But, as we mentioned earlier, sin has destroyed that desire within us to give others what they need.

The feminist movement responded to the fact that we messed up the system with worldly solution and those solutions are deeply dissatisfying. But Jesus Christ forgives all of those failings and enables new thinking within us. Women, because we are naturally wired to love, we have to work as expressing that respect to our men. Men, because you are naturally wired for respect, you have to work as expressing love to your women. The Holy Spirit enables both to happen and we can then fall naturally into the roles that God has created us to fulfill; roles that bring satisfaction and joy.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Excusez-moi

Image
2 Kings 23:31-37 31 Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. 32 And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done. 33 And Pharaoh Neco put him in bonds at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem, and laid on the land a tribute of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. 34 And Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in the place of Josiah his father, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. But he took Jehoahaz away, and he came to Egypt and died there. 35 And Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh, but he taxed the land to give the money according to the command of Pharaoh. He exacted the silver and the gold of the people of the land, from everyone according to his assessment, to give it to Pharaoh Neco. 36 Jehoiakim was twenty-fiv
Read more

יהוה שָׁמַר--Yahweh Shamar (God Watches)

Image
Psalm 121 1 I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? 2 My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. 3 He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. 4 Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. 5 The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. 6 The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. 7 The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. 8 The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore. There are numerous passages I cling to when stress takes over my life. I would be hard pressed to declare a favorite, but this psalm would come close. So this morning I listened to Psalm 121 about 20 times as I meditated through the verses. First, I want to point out that the word or idea of shamar appears in every verse expect 6. The NIV uses the word "watch" while the ESV uses "keep". The
Read more

Narrow Door

Image
Luke 13:22-30 22 He went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. 23 And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them , 24 “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. 25 When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ 26 Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ 27 But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’ 28 In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out. 29 And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at tabl
Read more