"I think husbands have a far greater accountability to God and their wives, than a wife has to her husband."
That is very true Jeff. However, there's still verses like this to wrestle with:
Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives be subject in everything to their husbands. (Ephesians 5:22-24 RSV)
Hi Rose,
This excerpt from ray might help you. Believe what God has written. Its the biggest stumbling block to the vast majority of humanity, they just can't believe what is written.
http://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,5506.0.html-------------------------------------------------------------------I got an email from a girl name Pat. She said, ‘I submit personally that God is a woman hater and showed it from the beginning. The original sin was Adams’s fault, that’s how sin entered the world. But God already hating women, gave the woman the blame and the worse punishment and set her low. Yes this great experiment had failed, but God already proved Himself to be gender prejudice and yes knowing the beginning from the end, He set the woman up and let her take the fall. I hate God, I really do. I hate most Christians.’
I get interesting emails. This girl is bitter. Now, what about it though? Don’t some of you women feel a little bit, that you have been a little lower than men, even from God’s perspective? I mean when we read scriptures like this, and here we have these apparent contradictions, when we read scriptures like Acts 10.
Act 10:34 And Peter opened his mouth and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:
Alright we’ll accept that, the word of God says it, we should believe it. Notice this in Corinthians.
2 Cor 6:18 And will be to you a Father, And ye shall be to Me sons and DAUGHTERS, says the Lord Almighty.
Did He leave women out? No, “sons and daughters.” Even though sons is used more often, daughters is in there, sons and daughters. God will be a Father to His sons and daughters. God is no respecter of persons.
Gal 3:28 There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free, there can be NO MALE AND FEMALE; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
There is no male or female, you’re all one, you’re sons and daughters. God is no respecter of persons.
But then on the other hand….did you know that there are over 1700 personal names in the Bible, names of people. It took me about 3 hours to learn this one statistic, so I hope you will appreciate what I’m going to tell you. Over 1700 personal names in the Bible, but there are only 104 that are women. Wow, you’re out numbered 16 to 1, 1600 for the men, 104 for the women.
1 Tim 2:11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.
Does that sting a little bit, women?
1 Tim 2:13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve.
v. 14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.
v. 15 Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.
1 Cor 14:34 Let your women be silent in the churches;
Wow, does that sting a little bit women? I thought God was no respecter of persons. I thought there is no male and female. I thought we were sons and daughters in the kingdom of God. What is all this?
Eph 5:22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
v. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body.
v. 24 Therefore as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.
Does that sting a little bit ladies? Does that seem like a little bit of a put down? Do you see the same equality there with men? Here is another one.
Deu 24:1 When a man has taken a wife and married her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes, because he has found some uncleanness in her, then let him write her a bill of divorce and put it in her hand, and send her out of his house.
v. 2 And when she has departed from his house, she goes and becomes another man's;
v. 3 and the latter husband hates her and writes her a bill of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house; or if the latter husband dies, he who took her to be his wife
v. 4 her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife after she is defiled.
And the Pharisees came to Christ and said, “can a man put away his wife for every cause?” (Matt 19:3)
Well what is this? Does that sound a little chauvinistic to you women? A man could put away his wife for any reason that she displeased him. Do we have a commandment like that for the women, that she could away her husband for any reason, is there such a commandment? No. Does that sound a little chauvinistic from the scriptures to you? Does that sting a little bit when you read these things women and you say, ‘I’d like to believe that God is no respecter of persons, but it sure seems like maybe He’s a respecter of gender.’ And He calls the woman the weaker vessel, that might be thought of as a put down a little bit. The weaker vessel. Well I guess they could just bite their tongue and live by it and say, ‘I don’t quite understand it, but it does seem like we have been put down.’
The true of the matter is, that’s not true.
Now didn’t you know that I was going to say something like that. You didn’t think I was going to dig a hole that I couldn’t get out of, did you? Let’s go back to Ephesians so I can clear something up really fast here.
Eph 5:22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
v. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife….
How? To lord it over her, to be the boss, to crack the whip, to insult her, to have her walk 3 paces behind him, to cover her face with a veil in public, like the Muslims? Is that what it means?
Eph 5:23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body.
v. 24 Therefore as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.
This is not as bad as it sounds, it is not nearly as bad as it might sound to you women. You are subject to your husbands, in the same way that your husband and the church is subject to Jesus Christ. Now let’s ask ourselves is that a bad thing? That the church should be subject to Jesus Christ, is that a bad thing? Well of course not. First of all it puts Jesus Christ in the seat of responsibility, He has to love, provide and protect His church. Is that not comforting?
What is the analogy of the husband to the wife then? The same thing. The husband is to love, provide and protect his wife. This is a beautiful thing! This is not chauvinistic and there are lessons to be learned for both. Men should learn the finer traits of femininity. Women should learn the virtuous quality of masculinity.
The perfect balance in all of this is Jesus Christ, who created them both. If Jesus Christ created man and woman, male and female, don’t you think He drew upon something to come up with what they are? The creation came out of the mind of God. So there is no inequality there. They are both to learn. Just because the man is over the wife and the wife is subject to the husband, is not a degrading position anymore than the church being subject to Christ is a degrading position. It is a very honorable position. Can we not agree on that?
But I know what some of you are thinking, ‘but you don’t know my husband, he ain’t no Christ.’ I do know that. But Christ will deal with your husband if he uses or abuses you or whatever. By the way, there is no law in the scripture that says a husband can use and abuse his wife and children and she has to put up with it. The husband is not the god over the woman and she has rights.
You know it says, except for fornication, she be put away, you that commit adultery (Matt 5:32). So is that the only thing that can dissolve a marriage, adultery? Well actually it doesn’t say adultery, it says fornication and if you’re married, you can’t commit fornication, I mean not technically. If you’re married you can only, technically, commit adultery you see.
But the word fornication comes from the Greek word ‘porneia,’ like pornography - porneia.
It can mean a whole host of sins - immorality. If a husband will not provide for his family, Paul said he’s worse that an infidel. I mean he’s worse than if he had no religion at all, worse. That’s immorality, that grounds for leaving your husband. If he abuses the children, that’s porneia, that’s grounds for leaving your husband. If he beats you, that’s porneia, that’s immorality, that grounds for leaving.
Now don’t try to stretch your mind as to how thin you can take that. Like, ‘he said a cross word to me, I think Ray was saying that would probably be porneia.’ No, I’m talking about real abuse. You don’t need to stay in an abusive relationship, where you are beaten, where the children are abused, where your husband runs around like an ally cat, those all come under porneia - immorality. So God did not stick you in a situation that would be sheer hell and allowed no way to get out, He did not.
This shouldn’t be a problem to us, if we see that the proper relationship between the husband being over the wife, is the same as Christ being over the church. It shouldn’t be a problem with us. This is a beautiful thing. This is not chauvinism.
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God bless,
Alex