Men and Marriage: responsibility

These are some notes I took from Mark Driscoll’s sermon Men and Marriage.

The husband is the head of the wife as Christ is of the church. This is not a topic for debate. We cannot sit around and vote and agree that we will, after all, allow husbands to be the heads of your families. The husband is the head. Is, not should be. Christ is the head of the church, and no God-fearing church votes on that. We get into trouble when we take what God states as fact and decide on its appropriateness or whether it should be the case.
Being the head does not mean being the boss. The two are extremely different.
As the head of my family, I am in a very significant way responsible for them. The essence of masculinity is responsibility. You can drive a truck and shoot guns and abuse your wife, and not be a man. You can drive a hybrid, and lose thumb wrestling challenges, much less cage fights, but love your wife and kids and take responsibility for them. That’s manhood.
Jesus modeled radical responsibility: he took responsibility for error that was not his fault. His bride (the Church) messed up, it was her fault, but he stepped up and took responsibility and paid the price for her. That’s manhood. I’d never thought of it that way. (And what a high calling for me!)
“Woman is the glory of man.” What does this scripture mean? It means that my wife is the reflection of my affection. As MW says, “Your wife will be what you make her.” The leadership of a man, if done right, has an immense ability to cultivate and “flourish” (Driscoll’s word) the spiritual and personal well-being of his wife. Equally, his lack of leadership has the ability to destroy it or let it atrophy by neglect.
The takeaway: I need to model spiritual leadership – praying for and with my family, calling them to follow me as I follow Christ. I need to be concerned about the well being of my wife, knowing that, although my family are their own responsibilities, they are also my responsibility, because I am the head of my family.

Praying for wrath

What do we do with imprecatory psalms like Psalm 58? Usually I just excerpt the happier parts, like “surely there is a reward for the righteous”; but it is clear that the meat of this psalm is a prayer for the destruction of certain people. That’s weird. We don’t like a God of wrath and vengeance. That is an arcane concept responsible for eons of atrocities in the name of religion. God is a god of love and acceptance, right? Surely he shouldn’t answer a prayer like the one David prayed in Psalm 58. Furthermore, how can David actually write a song asking for destruction and declaring that God’s people will “rejoice when they see vengeance” and “bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked”?

Here is my claim: these passages should be embraced, not avoided as embarrassing (“Oops, someone forgot to edit that out”). In fact, I suggest imprecatory prayers like this can be prayed in an attitude of faith in God’s future goodness – which is a very good thing.

Why it is good for God to judge
Vengeance is noble and virtuous when it is the exercise of justice. If you have seen Taken, you know the kind of justified wrath I’m talking about. “I don’t know who you are but if you don’t let my daughter go, I will find you. I will kill you.” Ruthless words, but invigorating! The heart says, “Yes! Go gettum, Liam!” There are some sins for which all-hell-breaks-loose war is the only response for any man of courage.

This justice must come from an agent with legal jurisdiction (possessing both the power and responsibility to administer justice in a given situation). For example, it is wrong of me to punish my brother by hitting him for stealing my toy. My “deed of justice” will just spawn a fight of reciprocal acts of “justice” that end up leaving bruises. However, if my father spanks my brother for stealing my toy, justice has been done, because he has jurisdiction over his sons, to preserve their rights.

God has universal jurisdiction over mankind. He is the creator, and he set all the rules by which the world operates, from gravity to morality. God is presented in the Bible as a judge who has the power, the authority, and the responsibility to pay back evil. If you balk at this statement, consider that many sins by powerful people against subjugated people (rape and genocide, for instance) will not be, in any discernible sense, recompensed on earth. When our hearts go out to the victims, we feel that they ought be recompensed — there are unresolved accounts. God feels this infinitely more. And, he has what we do not have when we feel the need for recompense: the power and authority to be the agent of remedy. In fact he is the sole agent who can avenge many of his offended children. So how can he not? Therefore, since God’s wrath is a manifestation of justice, and since he has entire jurisdiction to administer justice, then we welcome his destruction of wickedness and wicked men.

Why it is good for us to ask God to judge
Many people say that, even if it is not wrong for God to judge or exercise the enforcement of judgment, it is wrong for a human to ask for him to. “Let God be the judge.” However, it is possible to have a prayer for wrath that is justified and that demonstrates genuine faith in God. Such a prayer would be virtuous.

First, there are such things as real injuries and violations of right. There is a victim who is simply desperate, whose rights have been desecrated, and whose appeal must be heard by heaven. Who can command silence to the woman whose child has been murdered in cold blood before her eyes, when she is crying out the the sky for justice with many tears, since she has no way to avenge what has been taken from her? To command her silence, we must (at least tacitly) declare that the murderers have done no wrong. We must admit, “There is no inequity. There is no sense in which this woman has had some real right or property taken from her by those men without her consent.” Dare we? Therefore, there are some cases where the cry for wrath is commensurate with real evil.

Prayers for wrath against real evil can show real faith in God and a rejection of hatred. Here’s how. When I have been wronged, I bear the burden of the need for restitution. If I have the ability to act on this burden, I will do acts of revenge, resulting in cycles of further pain; if I do not have the ability, I will harbor insipid hatred in my heart indefinitely, which is also wrong. The only way out of this is to release the burden of the need for restitution. If I cry out to God, I am saying in essence, “God, this inequity is consuming me, I cannot bear it! I release the justice that must be done in this area to you and trust that you will make it right.” By trusting in the future justice of God, I can leave behind the bonds of the responsibility for vengeance. Praying for vengeance puts vengeance in the hands of a merciful and just God (where it belongs) and keeps it out of the heart, where it would slowly poison.

Therefore, imprecatory prayers can be loving. Loving toward victims because they defend justice. Loving toward perpetrators because they refuse to harbor hatred or do vengeance. Loving toward God because they place hope in him as judge, and thus make him look glorious. Praying for wrath is dumping hatred in the right place, venting to the right ear. By trusting in the power and justice of the God who judges righteously, cries for justice and punishment can be the gateway to forgiveness and freedom.

Can committed love be wrong?

Can committed love be wrong? Isn’t betrayal, or lack of commitment, or abuse that which makes any relationship bad? What’s wrong if consenting individuals both want something and stick with it? How can a single-minded, deed-seeded devotion to someone be a bad thing?

Levels of love
Love can be appropriate or inappropriate. For example, a man’s love for a woman is good, but if it causes him to neglect all of his other friendships, it is disproportionate. The good thing (love) can become a bad thing (obsession). Therefore, all of our loves must be properly ranked. I must love the most important persons in my life the most, and the less important, less. When a married couple begins to dote on their children so much that soccer games, school plays, and extracurriculars leave no time for romance or personal time, a love that ought to be subordinate (their care for their children) becomes insubordinate. Such dynamics often cause strained and/or broken marriages, which are ultimately destructive to the children anyway. Getting our loves out of order means both the over-elevated ones and the under-elevated ones are damaged.

God must be at the ultimate top of our love rankings. He wants to sit on the throne of our affections. All loves properly subordinated under our love for God become good things, and all loves that compete with or demote our absolute surrender to and pursuit of our First Love become bad loves. So, for any love, we must ask, “Do I love God more than this love, and is it submitted to my love for God?” If so, it is probably legitimate. If not, watch out. You might have an idol.

Furthermore, those loves that are most in danger of supplanting our love for God (being idols) are those that are the best natural loves. They fall high in the natural order of affections, and are thus easier to swap with the #1 spot. Among these include love for a spouse, love for one’s children, love of doing good works of ministry and service, and love and admiration for someone who is not a right candidate for that given level of love.

Love and obedience
How are we to love God? One way that we love God is to obey him. This concept is pervasive in scripture. One example is 1 John 5:3: “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.” Obedience doesn’t mean that we slavishly obey, without genuine willingness — that would be outward obedience, but not inward, voluntary obedience. The love-producing obedience is the one that says, “I really want to do X, but I value you more, God, and I have reason to believe you don’t like X, so, for your sake, I’m not going to do it.” What that shows is that you value God more than X, which loves him. (I think, in a sense, all material things were created so we would have things over which to prefer God.) So, obedience is decisions to act against desire X, and according to the desire to please God. That’s self sacrifice. That’s real, meaty, hard-but-good love.

It is possible for a strong, natural, good love to collide with a commandment of God. The most powerful example of this, I think, is when God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. Literally kill him with a knife. “What? God, what are you thinking. That’s murder of a family member. That’s wrong.” We think that is wrong, of course, because the love for a child or wife is perhaps the highest love available on earth, and to desecrate it in such a heinous way rattles the moral senses. But there is one love that does still outrank this love. God must rein on the throne of our affections. God was testing Abraham, “Is your love for me more sacred and committed than even your love for your son?” Abraham passed the test, and God stayed his hand, providing a ram as the sacrifice instead. Therefore, since we love God by obeying his commands, and since the love of God must trump every other love, even the highest human love must surrender to divine command. Otherwise, we make an idol out of whomever we shunned God for, and our relationships both with that person and with God will become poisoned by a wrong ranking of loves.

Revelation
We must believe that the Bible actually contains divine revelation. It is not man-made wisdom, but God-made wisdom communicated to man. The Bible claims that about itself (2 Peter 1:16-20, 2 Timothy 3:16). If we challenge this, we must throw out all the happy teachings of Jesus too. If the document has been tampered with, let us be consistent. We cannot have our cake and eat it too; we cannot cherry-pick what we like and don’t like from a holy book because it “makes sense.” Holy books should not make complete sense, if they are really holy books. Advice columns make complete sense. So, I am assuming that what we have in the Bible is trustworthy enough to go to as a source for God’s communication to man, both blessings and curses, both promises and commands.

Now, having established the facts above about love, obedience and revelation, we are ready to look at the text of the Bible. Here are some verses that talk about homosexuality.

If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them. (Leviticus 20:13)

Homosexuality shares very bad company in the passage. Parallel acts also described as “detestable” include adultery, incest and bestiality. Even in the New Testament, homosexuality shares very bad company.

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-10)

…law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers and immoral men and homosexuals and kidnappers and liars and perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, with which I have been entrusted. (1 Timothy 1:9-11)

Homosexuality is depicted as immoral. Some argue for a concept of the Bible in which the moral laws against homosexuality were constructed by some mysterious religious leaders (who usually The New Testament explains this in terms of a deviation from human nature (not, notably, from cultural mores).

Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. (Romans 1:24-27)

Homosexuality is here said to be the result of buying into lies, impure, dishonorable, unnatural, indecent, and erroneous. Geez. What should we do with this?

There is no compulsion in religion

There is no compulsion in religion. (Quran 2:256)

I believe that. I’m not sure Muslims do, though.

Compulsion doesn’t only mean having and using the ability to coerce someone, but also the use of threats based on whether or not they do something.

Of course there is no compulsion in religion in the sense that the divine being allows his creatures to make their own decisions and receive the fruit of their intentions and actions. God does not twist our arm behind our back to make us enter islam, that is, the peace that comes from submitting to our position under God. At least not in this life (though a day is coming when every knee shall bow). But there is a second, subtler form of compulsion.

Fear
Is there not compulsion in religion if the religion’s primary motivational tool is fear-based? “If you do this -and mean it mind you! -God will give you paradise. If you fail to, God will give you torture.” Who responds to that with “Okay, thanks for the info”? Christianity is not devoid of this thinking, unfortunately. I heard once of a VBS event where the children were presented two boxes at the front of the room, one labelled “heaven” and one labelled “hell.” The children were told to write their name on a piece of paper and told “If you accept Jesus, you will go to heaven. Otherwise, you will go to hell.” Then they were told to come up front and put their name in one of the two boxes. They all went with heaven. How many of those kids made a true decision to follow God?

Any heartfelt follower of Islam is under such fear-based compulsion. Let’s assume that I am a sincere person who simply says, “I am serious enough about my religion that I want to obey and follow whatever it teaches.” If I then embrace Islam, I am handed a list of do’s and don’ts upon which my fate hang. There is obligatory salah, obligatory ramadan, obligatory zakat, obligatory hajj, obligatory shahadah, obligatory hijab if you’re a woman, and a host of “highly recommended” things that any ambitious follower would feel pressure to do. If I, being a sincere person, am to maintain full sincerity in my obedience, then for me, there is compulsion. Saying “There is no compulsion in Islam” is saying, “Well, you always have the choice to be a blooming idiot and choose torture in jahannam.” So, whereas it is true that you cannot be actually compelled to follow Islam, it is nevertheless a religion laced with compulsion.

Gift
Christianity is different from Islam principally in one factor: unconditional forgiveness through the blood of Jesus Christ. Christianity hangs on the concept of grace – unmerited favor. “There is nothing you can do to make God love you more or to make him love you less.” Christianity does not deny the need for good works, but describes them very distinctly as the result of our justification and forgiveness, not as a prerequisite (cf. Ephesians 2:8-10). A common saying among followers of Christ: “It’s not that we obey, therefore we are forgiven. We are forgiven, therefore we obey.” The Christian lives through hope in past, present and future grace that comes to him through Jesus Christ.

This grace removes compulsion. It is a gift. Islam says “do,” Christianity says “done.” Islam says “perform,” Christianity says, “stop trying to perform, be still, and receive.” Loving obedience springs out of rescue, as naturally as the fair maiden is willing to ride away with the knight who has rescued her from the dragon.

Abu Huraira RadiyAllahu `anhu narrates that once Muhammad asked his companions, ‘Do you think that dirt can remain on a person bathing five times a day in a brook running in front of his door?’ ‘No’, replied the companions, ‘No dirt can remain on his body.’ Muhammad remarked: ‘So, exactly similar is the effect of salat offered five times a day. With the grace of Allah, it washes away all the sins’.(Bukhari, Muslim)

What can wash away my sins?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus
Oh precious is the flow
That makes me white as snow
No other fount I know
Nothing but the blood of Jesus
(Robert Lowry)

Good people

I don’t think good people exist.

Not that people don’t do good. Of course we do, sometimes a lot of it. I mean, I don’t think anyone is a good person in the sense usually intended by the phrase. If I’m not mistaken, the phrase “good person” (used for example in a sentence such as “I know Kyle did some bad things, but he was generally a good person”) usually has the following definition:

good person. n. A person who, because the deeds he has done that benefit humanity (and nature, somewhat) outweigh those that have done it harm, is or ought to be justified by the ultimate moral standard of measurement in the universe (what or whoever that may be).

This definition carries two presuppositions which I accept, and two which I challenge. I accept that (1) there is a standard by which good can be evaluated, and (2) it is important for a person to be justified by this standard. I challenge that (1) the moral standard is (chiefly) concerned with measuring deeds and (2) the criterion for measuring deeds is (chiefly) their effect on humanity. Here’s why.

I don’t believe that it is possible for a person to be justified (according to the ultimate moral standard of measurement implicit in any value judgment about goodness) based on the deeds that they have done.

Scales vs. perfect. I have done good things most of the time and bad things only some of the time.

A standard is dependent on an authority. Imagine that an American is driving on the Audubon and a car flies past at 140 mph. Although he might feel that were unsafe, and demand that the car slow down to 70 mph like his used to, he could have no basis for this demand, because there is no speed limit on the Audubon. The U.S. Department of Transportation has no jurisdiction there.

God is the authority that issues the moral standard, the sole member of the Universal Department of Morality. He is the creator of all people, and he defines and himself epitomizes justice, love, and every standard we expect from people.

Gratitude is a oosture of the heart.
God is concerned not only with what we do, but with who we are, because our nature is the wellspring of our deeds. A good doctor is concerned not with the symptoms but with an accurate diagnosis. A good psychologist is concerned not with the behavioral patterns but with the beliefs and perceptions that generate them. A good deity is concerned not with whether we act good, but whether we are good. God sees and cares about the root.

God alone is good.
God exists, and we were created by him. He created us to relate to him, to be in relationship with him. Our chief purpose is to be the recipients of his love and grace and justice, and in receiving them, to delight deeply in him, and in delighting in him, to be resonating chambers of the songs of praise in his radiance and beauty and strength. We are the receivers, not the doers. We are the moon, He is the sun. He is the source of goodness.

Human goodness is response to God’s goodness.
What is a good deed, then? Any human deed dipped in the enjoyment and value of God. Any deed of love or grace or justice that gives him credit, that cites him in a footnote. “This goodness made possible by God.” Why? Because actions that manifest an enjoyment of God above all else amplify and magnify his goodness. We bring God’s goodness into observable reality in our hearts, voices, hands, and feet, whenever we wash the dishes in an attitude of thankfulness to God, go on a walk to marvel at his creation, or serve soup at a homeless shelter to echo his love for the helpless. God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him, and a good deed is a deed that shows that. Turning down a work opportunity that would compromise your conscience, trusting God instead to handle your success, in light of his goodwill and generosity – that shows “God > money” in your heart, and thus, in your little portion of reality, God is made to be as good as he is.

The “good person” mentality makes me central.
The good person definition above supposes that good deeds elicit justice, love, or grace upon the doer. I did these deeds, therefore I am entitled to something. I have earned a huge heap of brownie points with the powers that be, so now there’s no way they can’t approve of me. The problem with such thinking is in the subtlety of this sentence: Because I did this good thing, I am good. This raises the self to a position of entitlement, where God needs to pay some approval. You owe me, God. God wouldn’t dare punish me, because I am good, and he has to However, in thinking “I am good,” one thinks that he is the doer, and God the receiver, of a good thing.
If a delight and enjoyment of God is the ultimate good stemming from our ultimate purpose, then no deed that is not done in response to God’s love can be a good deed in the greatest sense–and every deed that is a response to God’s love, is good. The adventures of Odysseus were good inasmuch as they took him westward. God is the ultimate satisfaction, the lack of him is the gnawing hunger for “something more” that besets all of literature’s protagonists. On what other basis can we evaluate boon or bane? Good deeds are deeds springing from the root of faith.

Can we bring

Sacrificial servanthood (the man’s role)

My last post discussed the concept of “respect” in man-woman relationships, as motivated by men’s heart-needs. Perhaps, to provide balance, it behooves me to mention the high duty of the man, which in some sense precedes or exceeds the duty of the woman. For that I will return to two points I made and unpack the masculine side of the coin.

Servanthood
First, I pointed out that greatness/leadership/influence is attained, in God’s economy, through servanthood. This is a great inversion of the world’s system, where might often makes right. In contrast, Christ “made himself nothing” before he was “exalted above every name” (Philippians 2:5-10). I used this principle to demonstrate that a woman living a lifestyle of service for her man is living an exceedingly noble, influential and “great” lifestyle in God’s eyes. However, the principle extends further to this:

Since men are supposed to be the chief leaders of their wives and families, they must therefore be the chief servants.

The remarkable inversion of this heavenly principle means that the call is stronger on the man than on the woman to place himself in an “under” position. He is to serve and care for his wife, valuing her welfare and happiness above his own. The woman and the man are in a dance where her servanthood is constantly mirrored and fueled by his servant leadership. This is captured in the language of 1 Peter 3:7, where men are called to “understand” and “honor” their wives. A man’s leadership must not be directed by his own preferences, to the disregard of the woman’s feelings, opinions and rights; rather, these must be his chief concern. I have on good feminine authority that it becomes a lot easier to submit to a man who is doing this right.

Initiating, like Christ
I discussed the need for both partners to give freely and without the demand for reciprocation. There are times where, empowered by the sacrificial love of God in Christ, we must be the first one to give up our “rights in this situation.” I suggest that, just as servanthood actually bears more on the man, so does this call to initiate. The reason is that, in a marriage, men have the role analogous to Christ Himself, and it was Christ who initiated love to mankind. Think for a moment about the dishonor and disgrace that Christ endured during his Passion. Contemplate the ultimate price the Father paid in severing relationship with his only begotten. Now consider how little we love him in return–not nearly as much as we ought. We are the adulterous bride of Ezekiel 16 and the Book of Hosea. Nevertheless, his relentless mercy in the face of an entire lack of reciprocation leads us to repentance.

And then, we are called to love our wives like that. What the heck.

So there is absolutely, absolutely no room in this healthy relationship model we are talking about for a man with the attitude that makes demands of his wife on the basis of her obligation to submit. Why? Because this is breaking the rule of initiation – a man with this attitude is forgetting that his wife’s submission is to be motivated by her receiving love and service from him. And if the situation is locked up (with insufficient care coming from him and insufficient respect coming from her), since he’s playing Christ, the tie goes to him. He has to start the process by relinquishing his right to have her submit in “this area” and proactively valuing her regardless.

This will demand all of a man’s courage and strength, but I believe men were given strength for the very purpose of making hard moves to protect and cherish their wives. If we have greater strength, then we have greater responsibility to get to the altar of self sacrifice before our wives.

The only kind of love worthy of submission
So, Christian men, let us love our wives with the ferocious devotion for their welfare, sincere desire to understand their hearts, high honor for their opinions, and above all, the willingness to serve them and step out in self-sacrifice. That kind of love alone deems us worthy of the trust and submission of women who are “heirs with us of the grace of life.”

Respect, gender roles, and sacrificial love

Love and respect
The Bible does not talk much about marriage relationships and gender roles. There are only a few passages that discuss this in the New Testament. I have tried to catalog most of the important ones here. The fascinating discovery is that women and men in relationships are not told to relate to each other in exactly identical ways. Men are told to “love” women, but women are told to “respect” men. Look at some of the patterns in the table below.

Scripture	Husbands	Wives
Colossians 3:18	Love your wives, and do not be harsh with them	Submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord
Ephesians 5:22-33	Love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her…to present her to himself in splendor, holy and without blemish	Submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its savior
	Love your wife as your own body	As the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands
	Love your wife as yourself	Respect your husband
Matthew 19:6	So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate
Titus 2:5		Working at home, submissive to their own husbands
1 Peter 3:1-7	Live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered	Be subject to your own husbands. …your respectful and pure conduct… but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit …submitting to their own husbands
1 Corinthians 7	Give to his wife her conjugal rights…for the wife has authority over his body	Give to her husband his conjugal rights…for the husband has authority over her body
1 Corinthians 11:3	The head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.

This is a key distinction that is overlooked by many in our culture. For men, the equivalent of what love does for a woman is a kind of love that is best called “respect.” Notice that most deep man-to-man friendships are built on this kind of love—gruff, unspoken, yet real and strong. Men are giving each other this respect-ish love.

This is important because husbands (or boyfriends) in our culture are often expected to accept from their women the exact same kind of love that women receive best. Asking a woman to respect a man is not cool—it sounds chauvinistic and archaic. But I suggest from personal experience (if sola scriptura were insufficient) that the Bible described things correctly. It is immensely empowering, refreshing and delightful when my lady honors me in public, defers the final call on a decision to me, or trusts my judgment. It makes me love her so much when I sense supportiveness, not competition, from her. Although submission has unfortunately been coerced out of women in former eras, the proper manifestation does wonders to the masculine psyche. We are missing some major aspects of how men are wired that I think are necessary for cultivating the healthiest relationships between men and women.

Equal value, albeit unequal roles
The first objection to the idea of submission is always that it makes women inferior. I suggest that, according to the Bible, women are not at all ontologically subordinate, yet they are at the same time functionally subordinate. In other words, women and men have equal value, but not identical roles. Women are not less important because they are under men in “rank”. We can see this for at least two reasons. First, the top of the hierarchy chain that establishes this functional subordination are God the Father and Jesus (1 Corinthians 11:3), who, although distinctly different in subordination, are nevertheless entirely co-equal. Second, in God’s economy it is not leaders, but servants, who are “the greatest among you” (Matthew 23:11-12); in this sense, the woman’s position is the one of greater honor.

Who has the harder role?
It is harder to do the man’s part of loving or the woman’s part of respecting? The answer is, “Yes.” Because both actions are nuanced by the tendencies of manhood and womanhood, this is really comparing apples and oranges. I can only assume that, in some ultimate sense, they are exactly equal in difficulty. But this is really outside the scope of human evaluation.

It will take sacrifice, not just compromise
When the system of love and respect is broken, one side must go out on a limb to give love that is not guaranteed to return. The simple application for a man is, “love her regardless of whether she respects you, and trust that God will (perhaps gradually) change her heart as you do so.” The application for women is the same. “Respect him regardless of whether he loves you, and trust that God will cause his love for you to grow.” This does not mean that we should perpetually cast ourselves as martyrs into dysfunctional relationships. That is not healthy or helpful. A long period of unreciprocated reaching out might be a red flag to run deeper diagnostics on the relationship. (“Okay, something is broken deep here.”) But we cannot always be waiting for the other person to “come half way” and “meet us in the middle.” No, I suggest that Christ does not model that. He initiated. “We love because he first loved us,” and paid us the intolerable complement of allowing us to never love him back. So, I cannot tap my fingers and wait for my partner to reciprocate. I must give freely. Even if they are in the wrong. (We were in the wrong, not Christ.) This is the difference between simple compromise, which works for most circumstances, and sacrifice, which is the apex and glory of love.

You can only give that kind of love if you have received it
This kind of love can only be motivated and sustained by someone who has a very deep reservoir of love. The natural heart is incapable; it will run out. But if we have the holy spirit of God as the “fountain of living water” in our hearts, by which we continually receive the incomprehensibly sweet love of God, which he showed us on the cross, then we too can love selflessly. If the Lord is my strength, if I commune with him and confide in him and drink strength from him deep in my heart, then I will be empowered to love my significant other with a wild, dangerous, foolish self-sacrifice. And God will thus be glorified in my heart and in my actions.

Gender roles extend into the community
Two passages of scripture, 1 Corinthians 11:1-16 and 1 Timothy 2:1-15, seem to extend these roles to the corporate gathering of believers. As women are to submit to their husbands within the family sphere, so they ought to submit to their husbands in the church sphere, but moreover, women, considered as a group, should corporately submit to men, considered as a group. As a husband leads a wife, so the churchmen lead the churchwomen. Thus, women should not teach the collected church, and when they pray or prophecy, they should do so with a mark of submission. What counts as “teaching” and a “mark of submission” in today’s church is a very difficult question, which I will not attempt to answer here. But the point is clear that the gender roles extend corporately. This is not a popular idea at all, because our culture hates “traditional” gender roles in public even more vehemently than it hates them in the home; but believers today must wrestle with these scriptures and to seek to respect them in contextualized methods.

**Note: read my subsequent post for part two, the role of a man who is to receive submission.**

Why the Bible isn’t a power document

Liberal strains of textual criticism of the Bible question whether it was really written (as we have it today) by the apostles. Some people think that early church leaders, hungry for the control that comes from “having the keys to heaven,” tampered with the words of Jesus, and the whole Bible in general, in order to get Jesus to say and be what they needed him to be to get power in his name. In reality, some people think, Jesus was just a teacher of love and peace, who never claimed to be God; but disciples-turned-propagandists put words in his mouth so that they could use his teachings and life as the basis for theocracy.

The problem is, what is contained in the Bible is destructive to any attempt at theocracy. Jesus destroys the concepts of centralized access to God and religious hierarchy. If there was tampering going on, the perpetrators did a terrible job of securing their own authority.

Jesus refused to set up an “establishment”
For example, Jesus reproves the apostle Peter for acting satanic, probably moments after he was told he would be the rock on which Jesus would build his church. I.e. Peter was the first pope. If you are trying to establish clean roots as a church politician, you might want to omit that one. What is most striking is why Jesus calls Peter Satan: simply because he said Jesus wouldn’t die. Peter wanted Jesus to use his power and destroy his enemies.

Jesus says that his kingdom is not of this world. (John 18:36)

He models service for the apostles of washing their feet- a job reserved for lowly servants. Peter doesn’t like the idea.

Peter was eager to establish a theocracy, but Jesus shot him down. Eventually, Peter himself wrote
1 Peter 2:13-17

at a time when Rome still ruled.

Jesus decried the religious establishment of his day.
Matthew 234:1-12

So if you’re trying to make people think that you’re God’s emissary, in charge of mediating between God and man as the vicar and successor of his incarnated self, you probably want to write a different scripture.

But, if you’re a real eye-witness who is telling the truth, you might say exactly what we find….

No mere teacher

And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.” (Matthew 14:32, 33 ESV)

If Jesus was just a good teacher, then how could he have accepted worship without protest? (cf. Peter and Paul’s reactions in Acts) God alone should be worshiped. Indeed, if those honest monotheist Jews were worshiping a mere man, they ought to have been rebuked. Jesus knew that. But here, as with Thomas after the resurrection, he takes it.

Jesus never behaved like a mere good teacher. Good teachers do not let themselves be worshiped. He did not leave that option for his biographers.

But if he was God incarnate…

Future joy

Psalm 13:5-6. I thought of these two verses in a new way this morning. Look at the tense contrast: I have trusted (present perfect), I will rejoice (future); I will sing (future), because the Lord has dealt bountifully (present perfect).

Now: we hope on God, remembering (1) our commitment to trust in him and (2) his faithfulness so far.

Some day: we rejoice and sing because of the consummation of his salvation, the forever end of our “how long”s.

Although this is also David resolving to sing and rejoice in the midst of suffering, I think it’s also his reminder to himself of a future joy, of a song he cannot yet sing. Which is in itself a joyful thought.