Brother, you have got to lead. Get into the scripture and study it, learn it, then take authority and lead. Be loving and kind and don’t do stupid stuff, LEAD, and she will follow.The trick is how it applies when the 'Church' is at odds with the husband.
Whether that be because the issue relates to polygamy or to something else where the church historically believes but the husband holds a different view (say a guy who accepts alcohol but is in the Baptist denomination), the trick becomes, who do you go to?
This is something my wife and I have had to deal with lately.
Most of the friends and family and people we know are of the 'typical conservative' type. Which means any issue relating to sex, marital authority, or, God forbid, polygamy, automatically puts me at odds with them. When my wife feels we should do/not do one thing, and wants counsel and asks me to seek counsel, I don't feel I can go to 'the Church', because I already KNOW the church is wrong, and is just going to further contaminate my authority and try to turn my wife against me. Conversely, I have been trying to get her and I both into closer counsel with members of this board, for example, but the wife views us as 'fringe', so to speak, and it is (understandably) harder for her to trust the wisdom of someone she doesn't know as well. Which I completely sympathize with, but it's a catch 22.
Also, every person has their own spin. God does speak through others, yes, but relying on others to interpret what God has directed you to do is dangerous. Wise advice and counsel is one thing: asking someone to tell you what God wants you to do (not like they need asking most of the time) is foolish. My experience in life is that 'Christians' are all too eager to tell you exactly what God wants for your life, from your birth to death and every detail in between. But they are not you. I'm not Jesus, but even Peter, one of His closest friends, contradicted what God had told Him to do at times.
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If you do feel it is appropriate to seek counsel, what about choosing two people to seek counsel from - one you feel you can respect deeply, one she can respect deeply, but both people that you each see as wise elders to some degree - and make it very clear to your wife that the two of you will judge their counsel based on the scriptural depth of their reasoning. Then talk to both, together, carefully noting their perspectives and the scriptural basis they give. Then the two of you study this together, with you taking the lead in that study, to try and determine the truth of the matter.
Such an approach is involved and time-consuming, but if the issue is important it may be worthwhile. It also shows your wife that you respect her views and concerns and are not just listening to the words of some weird cult. It gives you a way of getting her willingly into the room with someone you respect, as you're willingly going to someone she respects also. And it makes the final decision something that comes back to the two of you, with you as the leader, figuring out what God truly teaches rather than just following the beliefs of someone else because they said so.
Suggest? You’re killin’ me man
lol. JUST FOR YOU.
No. In all seriousness. I have told my wife that we are going to meet with @Verifyveritas76 and his wife some time after this week. She responded that right now she doesnt feel like she's ready for that but she will try to submit when it is time. I also told her I want her to keep working on this, and she agreed to study more, and that she would dive into the Bible herself. To which I told her I'd like to do it together instead, and she accepted. I will tell her about this meeting two people thing
It's just that I prefer to phrase it/offer it as a suggestion and request first, and only make it a command if I have to.Haha very good
Unless I'm misreading that, it sounds like when she doesn't like your idea, she appeals up the chain to a higher authority by telling you to get council. That is her already being against you; if she wasn't she'd take your word as final.
A man should seek out Godly council when he thinks it is warranted. But unless you choose to talk in detail about your decision making process this may well be transparent to the wife. This is because it is council, advice/wisdom, to you, not to her, to inform your decision, not hers. From her perspective all she need know is the final decision after you've considered her and others opinions.
Well said
Well again, I meant that only in terms of when I initially make a suggestion. Once I say something will be as it will be, she doesn't really question it.
...except in this case, of PM.
Just piggybacking on what WOHY said....
There's a reason that Paul, when admonishing the Corinthian church that the women should stay silent, said that "if they will learn anything let them ask their husbands at home". The wife is supposed to be looking to her husband for direction and instruction. That and older women about woman stuff. Period.
There's a reason that Paul, when admonishing the Corinthian church that the women should stay silent, said that "if they will learn anything let them ask their husbands at home". The wife is supposed to be looking to her husband for direction and instruction. That and older women about woman stuff. Period.
Hallelujah!
@WifeOfHisYouth
That deserves a thumbs up button.
That deserves a thumbs up button.
And this is why you're the rock star. Can I give this half of my lifetime likes?
Thank you for the best belly laugh of my day, Steve!
I find this particular thread of great interest for deep pondering. I tend to believe that the primal source for God's speech to us is His Word but that He also speaks to us through the exercise of His Will, which includes just about everything that happens in our lives, including the people who cross our paths, the dreams and nightmares we have, and the choices we make (perhaps most especially the choices we 'make' that we seem to make without purposefully directing ourselves to make them). God has His plans for the eons, and He will not be thwarted.
Personally, the issue of which of us He spoke to about polygamy is cut-and-dried between Kristin and me, because God clearly wrote this on my heart before Kristin was even born (she's 15 years younger than I am). I don't know what that means in regard to chain-of-command, but it is what it is, so I assume it to be part of God's Will.
At the same time, I thought what Curtis wrote in an earlier post resonated with Scripture, and I applaud Andrew's post . . .
I'm no longer a church belonger, but when I did attend one of the most prevalent behaviors I observed over and over at every single variety of Christian church, paradoxically the more frequent the more fundamental and supposedly Biblically-based, was "Godly wives" literally using "obedience to Christ" as an excuse to undermine their husbands and go around their husbands to shift their authority to pastors. Perhaps for the purpose of job preservation, many of those pastors respond by weighting the subject matter of their sermons towards topics that further undermine the men. It reminded me of how standard it is on television sitcoms to portray husbands as one doofus after another, while wives are always the strong heroines without whom families would spin out of control.
I see this, over and over and over again. All the time.
The other common thing is Church marriage classes essentially operating to get husbands to be ok with being in submission to the wife.
Hi @Cap, what a great question and so impressed you’re asking. Haven’t read any of the other replies so just jumping in here. BTW, 19th wedding anniversary this weekend and 4 kids is my perspective. Christian since I was a little one.
In my wife and I’s experience, he speaks to us about the same time (over a period of months) but in different ways. Most our things are about what church to go to, how to be involved in church, where to live, what schools to put kids in, how much to give to which things, etc.
I’ve found it’s important to ask my wife what she feels, sees and thinks. Sometimes what she sees happening is differ than what she feels or thinks. Ditto for me. But if I don’t draw it out, sometimes there’s a perspective we miss.
The tension is between hearing the Lord‘s voice clearly myself while at the same time listening to my wife as well. My wife is not the Lord but God speaks to her, so I want to hear what God has been saying to her, to her mind and heart.
In the last 19 years of marriage I can count on one hand the number of times where a quick decision had to be made where we were not in agreement. And it was usually because we merely did not have the time to hear everybody’s point of view out.
When we’re in disagreement, it usually means God is moving us in the same direction but it’s not clear to us yet. So we pray for each other and wait and come back at it again later.
I picture this a bit like Romans 12 — we each have different gifts and we’re different parts of the same body — so maybe I’m the eyes and she’s the ears... I’m going to see something a long way off before she hears it. But she might hear something sneaking up behind us before I see it. In other words, He is moving us together in the same direction but we’re
Going to experience His leading differently. So, for us, if we are in disagreement, and don’t know which way to move forward, I prefer to typically Pray together and ask God for clarity and wait until we have clarity from Jesus. Sometimes there isn’t clarity and yet a decision needs to be made and so we make it, but again, that’s very, very rare.
Just my $0.02. I’m impressed with any person asking this kind of question. Keep at it!
In my wife and I’s experience, he speaks to us about the same time (over a period of months) but in different ways. Most our things are about what church to go to, how to be involved in church, where to live, what schools to put kids in, how much to give to which things, etc.
I’ve found it’s important to ask my wife what she feels, sees and thinks. Sometimes what she sees happening is differ than what she feels or thinks. Ditto for me. But if I don’t draw it out, sometimes there’s a perspective we miss.
The tension is between hearing the Lord‘s voice clearly myself while at the same time listening to my wife as well. My wife is not the Lord but God speaks to her, so I want to hear what God has been saying to her, to her mind and heart.
In the last 19 years of marriage I can count on one hand the number of times where a quick decision had to be made where we were not in agreement. And it was usually because we merely did not have the time to hear everybody’s point of view out.
When we’re in disagreement, it usually means God is moving us in the same direction but it’s not clear to us yet. So we pray for each other and wait and come back at it again later.
I picture this a bit like Romans 12 — we each have different gifts and we’re different parts of the same body — so maybe I’m the eyes and she’s the ears... I’m going to see something a long way off before she hears it. But she might hear something sneaking up behind us before I see it. In other words, He is moving us together in the same direction but we’re
Going to experience His leading differently. So, for us, if we are in disagreement, and don’t know which way to move forward, I prefer to typically Pray together and ask God for clarity and wait until we have clarity from Jesus. Sometimes there isn’t clarity and yet a decision needs to be made and so we make it, but again, that’s very, very rare.
Just my $0.02. I’m impressed with any person asking this kind of question. Keep at it!
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