You are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Gal 3:26-8)
Wives submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. (Col 3:18)
Lord, you have given me a wonderful wife and life partner in Leanne, and I am so grateful. By your grace, make me a leader who honors her.
Before you read this blog, please read both Scriptures quoted above. OK. Understand that both of those Scriptures are true. In Christ there is no male or female. Men and women stand equally before the throne of God. But within marriage, God commands wives to submit to husbands.
If you have lived in the West for even a short time or have extended exposure to Western media, the Scripture on submission rubs your hair the wrong way, doesn’t it?. Don’t your insides rise up against the idea of women submitting? Isn’t this sexist and old-fashioned? Hasn’t society come a long way in order to throw off these oppressive notions? This is your reaction, isn’t it? You have questions about this. So let’s deal with some of those questions
1. Doesn’t submission negate the equality of the wife? If the wife must submit to her husband, then the two are not equal.
This objection always comes up and in various forms, for this objection lies at the heart of all the other objections we shall discuss.
So, let’s discuss. Equality is a matter of essence. Roles do not change equality because roles do not change essence. On a basketball team, the point guard is not superior to the power forward, even though the point guard runs the offense. In a symphony, the conductor is not superior to the violinist, even though the conductor directs the violinist when to play. Before God conductor and violinist are equals. Their role does not change that equality. When people say that submission negates equality, they are saying that equality is tied to a role and not to the essence of a person. This concept of equality is shallow. It bases equality on externals, but Scripture bases equality on something deeper. Submission does not negate equality.
In addition, the objection assumes that the different roles themselves are not equal. It assumes that a leadership role is superior to a servant’s role, but Jesus contradicted this idea. He said that the last shall be first and that the greatest would be the servant of all. The idea that leadership roles are superior to servant roles comes from broken, sinful thinking, a result of the Fall. It does not come from God. I do not believe that the angels in heaven see a husband’s role as superior to a wife’s. Sometimes good leaders see this truth. On a football team, a good quarterback will be the first one to tell you that the linemen in front of him are just as important if not more important than he is. But he is the one that gets the credit and awards. In a company a good manager will quickly tell you that his team is far more important than he or she. The manager recognizes the significance of their contributions. Serving is not inferior to leading. This is a kingdom principle that we need to remind ourselves of.
So then, real equality has nothing to do with one’s role, and even if it did, the role of the wife is in no way inferior to that of her husband. You might as well say that the screw is more important than the nut. The two pieces are complementary. If you want to accomplish the task, you need both.
Finally, let me give the ultimate example of this principle of equality with submission. I assume that if you are reading this blog, you are a Christian. If you are not, forgive me.
I want you to think of Jesus for a moment. In Scripture, Jesus is clearly equal to the Father (Jn 1:1-3; 10:30; Col 1:15-19; 2:9; Rev 5). They share the same essence and value.
When we look at the New Testament, however, we find that Jesus on earth and in glory submits to His Father (Mt 26:39; Jn 6:38; I Cor 15:28). He sees it as His role. But Jesus’ submission does not negate His equality with the Father, nor does it make Him less important.
All Christians acknowledge the Biblical facts that Jesus is equal to the Father and that Jesus submits to the Father. Here is what Paul says about this relationship: “I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God.” (I Cor 11:3) Notice that Paul likens the relationship between Christ and the Father as the same as the relationship between a man and woman. He uses the same language (headship), in a context that discusses gender roles (I Cor 11). Christ is equal to the Father, but the Father is the head of Christ. In this same way, the husband and wife are equal, but the husband is the head of the wife. If submission negates equality, then we must say that Jesus is not equal to the Father. If we see Jesus’ role to be just as important as the Father’s role, why can’t we see a wife’s role to be just as important as a husband’s? They are equally necessary.
2. Isn’t the submission of wives sexist?
This objection is a variation of the first one. Underneath the question lies the idea that submission means inequality. But if submission does not mean inequality, what’s wrong with it? How can it be sexist? To some people the very word “role” is sexist.
Perhaps we need to rethink our idea of what sexism is. Sexism is a word that Western culture throws around constantly. Anything related to gender that the culture dislikes gets labeled “sexist,” but our view of sexism is a culturally conditioned concept, and we need to be careful when we call something sexist, for if the submission of wives to husbands is sexist, then God is sexist. But God does not dislike, hurt or hinder women. He made women, and He loves what He made. God is pro-woman. And that same God who is pro-woman said that within the family the husband is the head of the wife. He said this for the good of the marriage and for the good of the woman.
For more discussion see the previous blog “Does Christianity Harm Women?”
3. Doesn’t the submission of wives oppress women? They are like slaves.
This objection misunderstands what the role of helper means. Peter, who tells wives to submit to their husbands (the command is common across Scripture), also said that wives are joint heirs with their husbands of the grace of life (I Pet 3:7). That language was revolutionary for the first century, and it is not the language of slavery or oppression. The wife is the chief operations officer, not a lackey. Her role has great honor, and Scripture commands the husband to love and cherish her. One gets the idea that this objection is more rhetorical than substantial, for it highlights one concept, interprets it with a negative spin, and ignores everything else Scripture says about marriage. This objection relies on loaded words and a shallow caricature.
4. Why should the man lead and not the woman?
My first reaction is “why should the woman lead and not the man?” Is there a good reason why it should be her? It needs to be one of them. Even if God randomly picked the man (which I don’t believe He did), His choice would have been better than no leader or two leaders.
So why the man and not the woman?
Ultimately, I don’t know, nor do I feel that I have to know. But perhaps God’s reason gets at what Paul referred to in I Tim 2, when he appealed to the created order and the Fall for why women were not to teach or have authority over men within the church.
God made man first and He made woman to be a helper for the man (Gen 2: 18). This is part of the original design. Male and female are not identical. They complement one another . . . like Christ and the Church.
5. What about husbands who abuse their leadership? Doesn’t male headship encourage such abuse?
When I was in the army, I saw officers abuse their position all the time. Does that mean that the army encouraged the abuse because it had a protocol for putting those leaders in place? Do you suppose that if the army had some different protocol in place that officers would no longer abuse their position? Abuse of leadership happens in government, corporations, committees, sports teams, churches, schools, everywhere. You’ve seen it often. Having a leadership protocol that clearly establishes a leader does not cause the abuse. It simply eliminates a fight over who that leader will be. If anything, it, thus, alleviates abuse.
In addition, Scripture is aware of such abuse. That is why it tells husbands how to use their leadership. They are to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. (Eph 5:25) They are to lead as Christ led.
You can point to husbands abusing their leadership all day, but what you cannot do is come up with a leadership protocol for marriage that improves the abuse. Abuse will happen no matter how you decide the leader, and it will likely happen more if you leave it up to the two of them to work it out. Then husbands will be more likely to use their physical strength to gain what they want. Abuse is the result of a sin nature, and it is that sin nature that makes this protocol even more necessary.
I’ve been brief in addressing these objections, but I want you to see that Christianity does not fit the simplistic caricatures of those who would malign it. Instead of reacting based on a culturally-driven feeling, stop and think through the full counsel of what Scripture says about marriage and why it says it.
Next blog, we need to talk about what Biblical leadership within marriage should look like.
