But wives have accepted a husband's authority. That is a one time decision. After that if they are to be good wives then they submit. No one is perfect and we all fail but that doesn't change the standard.
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- Thread starter WifeOfHisYouth
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Samuel, I'm with Zec here. You're using language that doesn't address his core contention. The wife doesn't choose whether to give a husband authority, and a husband's authority doesn't come from his wife, it comes from Christ. Redefining authority as "that which comes when someone allows you to tell them what to do" really obfuscates some important issues, and I would say is a residual artifact of our cultural conditioning.
A man's authority comes from his head. The choice a woman has is not "whether to give a man authority". The choice a woman has is to submit or rebel.
A man's authority comes from his head. The choice a woman has is not "whether to give a man authority". The choice a woman has is to submit or rebel.
Jesus's authority cannot, should not, and does not depend on whether I give it to him. It has already been given, by the Father, and exists whether I like it or not. I choose whether to submit, and my choice has consequences. But I do not grant him his authority when I submit. I acknowledge it and surrender to it.
Amen, amen and amen.
I would posit though that while I agree that a *wife* can either submit or rebel, an *unmarried woman (potentially only one who does not live in her father's house)* can chose whether or not to enter into the marriage covenant in the first place. Our authority as human husbands may be a reflection of God's authority, but it is granted to us by him as husbands, and is not innate to us simply as men.
Note that this is a whole different debate for me as to whether the husband can do anything to void the marriage covenant, thereby releasing the wife even if he doesn't say the word "divorce".
Note that this is a whole different debate for me as to whether the husband can do anything to void the marriage covenant, thereby releasing the wife even if he doesn't say the word "divorce".
I do agree with you both Andrew and Zec, but that's not the entire picture, I think I am struggling to find the right language to express what I am trying to convey.
We choose to follow Christ at one point, and we get baptised as a symbol that we have put away our old self and are now going to live our lives fully for Him. At this one point in time, we say that we choose to obey Him.
But then he actually starts telling us to do stuff. And we find that just because we made one decision to follow Him, does not automatically mean that we will actually do what He says. We then have to every day make an ongoing decision to actually "take up our cross" and follow Him.
Because "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." (Matthew 7:18). It is this ongoing daily decision to actually do His will, to obey Him, that is the evidence that we truly chose to accept Him as Lord. And this actual obedience is far more important than the initial statement (Matthew 21:28-31).
In the same way, a husband and wife are given their roles in the marriage by God when they marry, and say that they accept these. But that's only the start.
Then, every day, they have to actually choose again to live out those roles. And it is those daily decisions that truly make the marriage work, or not.
I can't just tell my wife "I love you" on the day we marry and then decide that I have fulfilled my obligation to love her and never do anything further about it for the remainder of our lives. I have to choose daily to love her. And in reality, despite the fact that I have scriptural obligations that I will be sinning if I don't fulfil, she will only receive the amount of love that I actually choose to give her.
In the same way, a wife must choose daily to submit to her husband, and only if she makes these daily decisions to obey will her husband truly, in practical reality, be the head of the family in real day-to-day life.
To put it another way, there are two matters here that I am trying to distinguish - the roles delegated by God (at marriage) that you have explained well - and the real-world expression of that which requires each spouse to actually choose to live out those roles, and allow the other to live out theirs, on a daily basis.
We choose to follow Christ at one point, and we get baptised as a symbol that we have put away our old self and are now going to live our lives fully for Him. At this one point in time, we say that we choose to obey Him.
But then he actually starts telling us to do stuff. And we find that just because we made one decision to follow Him, does not automatically mean that we will actually do what He says. We then have to every day make an ongoing decision to actually "take up our cross" and follow Him.
Because "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." (Matthew 7:18). It is this ongoing daily decision to actually do His will, to obey Him, that is the evidence that we truly chose to accept Him as Lord. And this actual obedience is far more important than the initial statement (Matthew 21:28-31).
In the same way, a husband and wife are given their roles in the marriage by God when they marry, and say that they accept these. But that's only the start.
Then, every day, they have to actually choose again to live out those roles. And it is those daily decisions that truly make the marriage work, or not.
I can't just tell my wife "I love you" on the day we marry and then decide that I have fulfilled my obligation to love her and never do anything further about it for the remainder of our lives. I have to choose daily to love her. And in reality, despite the fact that I have scriptural obligations that I will be sinning if I don't fulfil, she will only receive the amount of love that I actually choose to give her.
In the same way, a wife must choose daily to submit to her husband, and only if she makes these daily decisions to obey will her husband truly, in practical reality, be the head of the family in real day-to-day life.
To put it another way, there are two matters here that I am trying to distinguish - the roles delegated by God (at marriage) that you have explained well - and the real-world expression of that which requires each spouse to actually choose to live out those roles, and allow the other to live out theirs, on a daily basis.
Sorry, Samuel, God gives the husband his authority, not the wife. The woman's choice is to submit or not, it is not whether or not to 'allow' her husband to be her head, and he is yet the head even if she refuses to acknowledge that.
It occurs to me that you may be confusing a husband's decision not to exercise his authority and instead to tolerate rebellion and defiance in his house with the actual absence of authority (happens all the time in this culture). Or the problem may be the way the secular government has interfered with the God-given authority of the husband to the woman's advantage and restricted the husband's ability to actually manage his family.
A man that is busy trying to convince his wife to give him more authority is a sad sight. That is not how it works. Pray, seek God's will, hear his call, and 'quit ye like men' in accomplishing your mission. Be the head you are called and equipped to be. She'll either follow or she won't, but that's her journey.
It occurs to me that you may be confusing a husband's decision not to exercise his authority and instead to tolerate rebellion and defiance in his house with the actual absence of authority (happens all the time in this culture). Or the problem may be the way the secular government has interfered with the God-given authority of the husband to the woman's advantage and restricted the husband's ability to actually manage his family.
A man that is busy trying to convince his wife to give him more authority is a sad sight. That is not how it works. Pray, seek God's will, hear his call, and 'quit ye like men' in accomplishing your mission. Be the head you are called and equipped to be. She'll either follow or she won't, but that's her journey.
And that ladies and gentlemen is called preaching.
Once again, I agree with you, but clearly am still struggling with the right language to use to express my additional thoughts on the practical expression of this since you perceive disagreement in my statements. I give up! 
Just when it was getting interesting! If you're agreeing with what I'm saying but I'm still arguing with what you're saying, maybe it's me!
On re-read of your post (which I can agree with if I look at from a different angle), I want to try another slant.
Samuel said: "[A] wife must choose daily to submit to her husband, and only if she makes these daily decisions to obey will her husband truly, in practical reality, be the head of the family in real day-to-day life."
I've been messing around with E-Prime lately, and rather enjoying the results. I don't make a huge deal out of trying to translate all ordinary English into E-Prime, but it's useful to take into consideration as you're decoding sentences. In this case it helped me find the rub (I think) between me and what you've written so far.
My positional authority as head of my family is a function of biblical ethics as we (I and the women) understand them. If somebody in my household doesn't like the way I'm exercising that authority, they can take it up with God, but meanwhile, I am the head of my house whether they like it or not and whether they are submitting to that headship or not. I don't need my wife's or child's submission or permission to be the head of the family.
What I think you're really meaning in the sentence quoted above—saying it with a casual shorthand that I would have gone along with as recently as a few months ago—could be expanded to something like this (Andrew's Amplified Paraphrase - tell me if I'm close):
"A wife must choose daily to submit to her husband, and only if she makes these daily decisions to obey will her husband be able to exercise his God-given authority without running afoul of the secular law-order and/or pissing off his wife to the point where she extends her lack of submission to full-on rebellion, mutiny, and ultimately divorce (taking the kids and 1/3 of the income for the next several years). Faced with this prospect, as a practical matter, the husband typically exercises his 'authority' only as far as he can without pushing his wife over the edge. Given that his authority in tangible terms is limited by culture and politics to what his wife is willing to submit to, it is not too much of a stretch to say that if she is not choosing to submit to him, he no longer is the head of the family." (Something like that?...)
So why am I being such a stickler about this? Because it assumes that the man has already capitulated to the spirit of this age. What if our positional authority remains? What if most of the world's oppression is based on deception? What if many women still want men to be the head of the family, no matter how much they sh*t-test that relationship? Most importantly, what if God still expects us to accomplish our missions, even if those on our teams are giving us resistance?
I think men need to see themselves as still accountable to God for the success or failure—on God's terms—of their families, regardless of the pushback they're getting. In military terms: "A commander is responsible for all that his unit accomplishes or fails to accomplish in combat." Period, end of discussion. Complete responsibility/accountability focused in one person.
And yeah, the spirit of this age infects all of us, and our wives, and our friends, and her friends, and our culture, and we're outnumbered and sometimes it looks like we're losing and sometimes you just want to throw in the towel. Been there, done that.
That is the exact time that we men have to remember that we are the heads of our houses and we are responsible for what's happening therein, that it's not up to our wives, and what God is going to hold us accountable for is not limited by what's comfortable for or desirable to our wives. "The woman you gave me, she gave me the fruit and I ate." Sound familiar?
David took on Goliath stripped to the waist with a handful of rocks. In Christ we can do all things God calls us to do, and if he has given us the authority to be the heads of our households, we can each be that head of household in the face of great opposition and rebellion, and prevail.
Now we're getting somewhere! That's not quite what I meant, but you're showing me how I am explaining it wrong. I don't quite get E-prime on first reading of that article, but it sounds a good thing to study further. I'll try and avoid my worst errors and reword it again. Also, I've just been reading through the "mechanical translation" of Genesis, and in that the Hebrew words usually translated "good" and "evil" are rendered "functional" and "dysfunctional", I'll try and use that terminology as it is clear.
A husband has been given authority over his family by God. He is the appointed leader. However, in order for the family to actually function as intended with him actually leading on a day-to-day basis, his wife must choose voluntarily to submit to his leadership. If she chooses not to submit, two results occur: 1) She is at fault before God (future consequences delayed until the final judgement), and 2) as her husband's instructions are not being obeyed, in practical terms he is unable to function as the leader of the family, because even if he issues an instruction it will not be followed (present-day consequence). He could theoretically choose to physically force her to obey, but that would have many obvious negative consequences both relationally and legally. And that is not how our Master, Christ, treats us - he does not force us to obey, just asks us to, allowing us to choose to disobey and to bear both consequences ourselves, both the consequences of (1) future judgement and (2) present-day effects of our sin. He instead asks for voluntary obedience. In the same way, a family will only function well with the willing and voluntary participation of all parties, and without voluntary compliance it will become dysfunctional.
As I ponder that further, I realise that this means that His Church is filled only with those individuals who voluntarily choose to submit to His authority, and those who choose to disobey Him tend to voluntarily stay out of church fellowship. In the same way, in marriage, possibly a functional family will only contain those individuals (both wives and children) who voluntarily choose to submit to the man, with those who choose to rebel voluntarily abandoning the family at least for the period for which they choose to be in rebellion. And a functional man (loving and fair as well as firm) will end up with a larger family actually physically living in his household at a single point in time than a dysfunctional man (harsh, unpredictable, wishy-washy, unloving...) can maintain. This isn't the original point I was trying to make though, just where my brain wandered right now.
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Whew! Clearly worded, qualified, defined statements like that get me excited!
I can fully agree with your new and improved statement!
As to your further pondering, I would make perhaps a few alterations. My suggestions will all be in brackets:
...His Church is filled only with those individuals who voluntarily [to one degree or another] choose to submit to His authority [or at least give the appearance of submitting], and those who choose to disobey Him tend to voluntarily stay out of church fellowship [or are unable to function well within it. Note that a believer who is submitting to Him may not be able to tolerate being part of a fellowship that is not submitting, but that would be a separate topic]. In the same way, in marriage, possibly a functional family will only contain those individuals (both wives and children) who voluntarily choose to submit to the man, with those who choose to rebel voluntarily abandoning the family at least for the period for which they choose to be in rebellion [, or not being allowed to coexist with the family until they submit]. And a functional man (loving and fair as well as firm) will [ or perhaps may] end up with a larger family actually physically living in his household at a single point in time than a dysfunctional man (harsh, unpredictable, wishy-washy, unloving...) can maintain.
I can fully agree with your new and improved statement!
As to your further pondering, I would make perhaps a few alterations. My suggestions will all be in brackets:
...His Church is filled only with those individuals who voluntarily [to one degree or another] choose to submit to His authority [or at least give the appearance of submitting], and those who choose to disobey Him tend to voluntarily stay out of church fellowship [or are unable to function well within it. Note that a believer who is submitting to Him may not be able to tolerate being part of a fellowship that is not submitting, but that would be a separate topic]. In the same way, in marriage, possibly a functional family will only contain those individuals (both wives and children) who voluntarily choose to submit to the man, with those who choose to rebel voluntarily abandoning the family at least for the period for which they choose to be in rebellion [, or not being allowed to coexist with the family until they submit]. And a functional man (loving and fair as well as firm) will [ or perhaps may] end up with a larger family actually physically living in his household at a single point in time than a dysfunctional man (harsh, unpredictable, wishy-washy, unloving...) can maintain.
Eh, we're converging but we're not there yet. What consequences do you see as on the table for persistent rebellion by the wife? And how does a man's obligation to love his wife work with that? Is "love" defined as continuing to provide for and protect a stubborn, ungrateful, rebellious wife? Or is their room for "tough love" that refuses to enable such witchcraft?...
The first thing that comes to mind there is David's treatment of the ten concubines defiled by Absalom. Now bear in mind I'm not saying the concubines were rebellious, they were not. They were victims, but I'm using it as an example of how to treat a wife who you can't *treat as a wife*.
3 When David came to his palace in Jerusalem, he took the ten concubines he had left to look after the palace and placed them in seclusion. Their needs were provided for, but he no longer slept with them. So each of them lived like a widow until she died.
So here's my thought on a wife that won't submit. Offer the same deal. If she is willing to abide by that (perhaps call it a lesser submission?), then so be it, and she could even "return to the fold" if you will by coming into full submission and reconciliation. So to me that option is there as perhaps a temporary measure for a wife "on the outs", or a potentially permanent measure for a wife who has gone so far into rebellion that you have no ability to have her as a functional part of the family. Now if she doesn't choose to accept that deal, then that's on her. Like if she wants to do drugs and sleep around, then I don't think you should be funding that lifestyle. As a husband you must provide for the wife, but if she cannot accept the terms of the provision (and I'm assuming we're talking reasonable terms here) then that is her choice and her rebellion, not the failure of the husband.
3 When David came to his palace in Jerusalem, he took the ten concubines he had left to look after the palace and placed them in seclusion. Their needs were provided for, but he no longer slept with them. So each of them lived like a widow until she died.
So here's my thought on a wife that won't submit. Offer the same deal. If she is willing to abide by that (perhaps call it a lesser submission?), then so be it, and she could even "return to the fold" if you will by coming into full submission and reconciliation. So to me that option is there as perhaps a temporary measure for a wife "on the outs", or a potentially permanent measure for a wife who has gone so far into rebellion that you have no ability to have her as a functional part of the family. Now if she doesn't choose to accept that deal, then that's on her. Like if she wants to do drugs and sleep around, then I don't think you should be funding that lifestyle. As a husband you must provide for the wife, but if she cannot accept the terms of the provision (and I'm assuming we're talking reasonable terms here) then that is her choice and her rebellion, not the failure of the husband.
I don't believe this is an option for a Christian man whose wife is acting a fool.
1 cor 7:4 The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.
The husband doesn't have the authority to withhold sex from his wife, because he doesn't have authority over his body at all. I don't see that her behavior can change that.... of course if she really IS sleeping around, then the option is there to divorce, because that is pretty clearly sexual immorality.
I don't have much of an opinion about the rest, though, so long as the husband is treating his wife like he would treat his own body and attempting to love her as Christ does the Church.
My tendency with my own body when it is rebelling against me is to pamper it and excuse it from doing anything that it doesn't feel like doing. I take healing measures, not 'disciplinary' ones. I did know a guy who was so irritated with a wound he had sustained on his hand (because the pain was distracting him from focusing on the transmission that he was installing) that he turned from his work and grabbed a bottle of brake cleaner and sprayed it on his open wound and yelled "You wanna hurt!?!? HURT NOW!!!" at his hand. I might imagine his idea of cherishing and nurturing his own body differs from mine.
There's certainly a place for "tough love". God supports us while we choose to submit to Him, when we choose to rebel he leaves us to suffer the consequences of our own actions. Tough love is exactly what He does. I am reluctant to illustrate this with examples, as we could get into a very long discussion on the specifics of hypothetical situations, and I really don't want to prolong this discussion. But in brief:
Husband decides "we're moving to a different city". Wife stubbornly intends to stay. Husband doesn't force her to come (he doesn't tie her up and throw her in the car...). Rather, he may choose to say "I love you and will always support you - in my home. If you choose to not be in my home, you choose to not have my support, financially or otherwise, if you stay here you can fend for yourself. My support is always available to you, and the moment you choose to join me I'll pay for your bus fare to come home." The wife must choose voluntarily to follow him, or to not and accept the consequences.
This is an extreme situation that makes a clear distinction between forcing obedience and giving a wife the freedom to choose to obey or not. It also closely parallels how Christ requires us to voluntarily choose to follow Him. Reality would be far more complex and nuanced (e.g. if children were involved). I would not want to try and pronounce from my soapbox what is the "right" approach in a situation someone might be actually facing, as the details of every situation are very different and I am fallible. I'm just illustrating that submission is voluntary - even when consequences are involved.
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UG, I agree with pretty much everything you said, but wanted to call out this one conclusion statement for some discussion.
We may find ourselves moving into territory that wants its own thread, but I cannot agree with this statement, and would consider any outcome of the marriage to be the responsibility of the husband, and therefore, if we want to talk in those terms, an unsatisfactory outcome would by definition be the husband's failure. More on this in a minute....
It would probably be helpful here to draw a line between bedrock principles that are to be defended at all costs like the Constitution and individual cases that sometimes need some adjudicating in lesser courts to make room for human frailty to aspire to the higher standard. I'm not saying compromise but when rebellion has happened then practicalities about the remedies can be looked into.
Seems like he has removed his own covering or removed himself from stewardship
Exodus 21:8
If she please not her master (adown), who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed: to sell her unto a strange nation (or stranger?) he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her.
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