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Does a husbands authority wax and wane?
- Thread starter steve
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I grew up in the Pentecostal movement and I sat through a lot of very long wprship services where there were a lot of people "under the annointing" including myself a couple of times. I am not now convinced that any of it was a legimate move of God. It certainly never bore any fruits in my life.
Work up? Probably not the best description, although it is a decision and a submission of the heart to the Holy Spirit. It is a heart attitude of a desire to give thanks and praise. The scripture tells us in Psalm 100:4 to
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.
I find this a protocol for worship. Begin with thanks, then begins praise. Oddly, it doesn’t tell us when to enter the Holy of Holies. My belief is that’s when our Father says something along the lines of “hey, come here son/daughter, what’s on your heart?” I use this during prayer time and also during worship time.
I have and do use this in both personal prayer/worship time and during corporate prayer/worship time. In fact, this is how I would lead worship in Baghdad, and to watch God touch the hearts of battle crusted soldiers, private’s to generals at the USEmbassey in Baghdad, was nothing less than humbling.
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.
I find this a protocol for worship. Begin with thanks, then begins praise. Oddly, it doesn’t tell us when to enter the Holy of Holies. My belief is that’s when our Father says something along the lines of “hey, come here son/daughter, what’s on your heart?” I use this during prayer time and also during worship time.
I have and do use this in both personal prayer/worship time and during corporate prayer/worship time. In fact, this is how I would lead worship in Baghdad, and to watch God touch the hearts of battle crusted soldiers, private’s to generals at the USEmbassey in Baghdad, was nothing less than humbling.
I forgot to say, I saw many of those battle crusted soldiers with tears going down their cheeks. God can really be amazing at times.
Feminism is the reigning worldview of our time, and it teaches women to rebel and rule their houses. That's not a cop out, its an accurate diagnosis of the problem. And I'm not talking about the man-hating radical form either.
But that's not to say men aren't responsible either. Part of the problem here is that men ceded their authority to women, that they fail to step up and lead and act when their women get out of hand.
But that is the case in virtually ALL marriages today; if a man failing to lead appropriately means he looses authority then none have authority today.
I agree that as head, men are ultimately responsible before God. But these things aren't necessarily zero sum games. Also, responsibility and blame are two different things.
To my knowledge God didn’t write anything we have in print. I could be wrong about that but I think everything we have was written by someone besides God. Even Christ didn’t write anything we have in print.
Apparently very learned Jews wrote the Talmud from Babylon. Which is why it’s called the Babylonian Talmud, not because it was written by Babylonians.
The BT is a series of commentary about Torah from the Jews who actually lived the culture, in which they explain much about the culture and Torah that could be otherwise open to creative interpretation by those unfamiliar with the culture.
For example, your interpretation of the passage restricts it solely to slaves as your Zec commentary / interpretation above shows.
Both interpretations are commentary.
So which commentary would carry the most weight? A commentary by men considered by their culture to be the experts on understanding Torah, or would the most accurate commentary be the one given by someone who could care less about Jewish culture.
Not meaning to be harsh but it’s a fair question
I'm not claiming to be an expert on this one but... one understanding I always had was that the commands God gave regarding how to treat slaves, was the bare minimum applicable to how we should treat everyone. If we are going to treat anyone differently it should be to increase their rights and not reduce them. Why would this instance be any different? Free wives would be given those same rights to provision from her husband and rights to divorce him for neglecting her...
Not trying to argue this is a legit question... And it has some very real world implications for someone I care about ...
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The Law can be summed up by love, love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. So I don’t think applying those rights to a free wife is a stretch. But I too am very hesitant to put a lot of stock in the rabbis interpretations, because they seemed to be very off base on so many things and Jesus had to constantly correct their understanding. I think it’s more profitable to interpret the Law through the lens of the New Testament and the understanding that the weightier things of the Law are judgement, mercy, and faith, and it is aummed up by love.
The first problem with extending the passage in question to wives is it contradicts the other scriptures which make it clear marriage is for life and only the man can end it and only in limited circumstances. God only wrote this teaching about bond-women, not wives. That's not commentary, that's speaking only as far as the law speaks and not adding to the law.
If God wanted it to apply to all, he could have said women in that passage, not bond-woman. If it was true of other women as well, God would have given that teaching. But He didn't. Maybe you can make the case for this same teaching for women, but you can't make it from Exodus 21 without using fallible human logic; logic from humans whose culture finds the literal rendering offensive. If what is claimed about it is true, neither Christ nor Paul would have spoke they way they did about divorce
The second problem is everyone misapplies the passage. It only speaks of unequal distribution of resources; not feeding and providing. But Christians use it to condemn men who are laid off, men who don't go into debt to give their wives an upper middle class life, men who don't keep up with the Joneses. I've seen it used to justify a woman divorcing her husband because the husband attempted to reign in her credit card spending on extraneous clothing which was bankrupting them.
1 Tim 6:6-8
No one, and I mean 99.999% of all Christian men are not starving their wives. Notice what's not on that list from Paul: designer clothes, multiple closets full of clothes, fancy houses, eating out, uncontrolled spending on consumer goods. Yet when couples argue about spending issues it's not about her fighting to get enough money to buy flour for the week. It's about how much they spend on eating out, on consumer goods, on her new iphone so she can look at facebook in maximum resolution.
You're being pedantic. It's not about who physically wrote the text, no one argues that, but which are considered inspired by God. And not only does Christianity not consider the Talmud inspired of God, it was those very human traditions of the Pharases that Christ condemned.
Furthermore, that it explains the Jewish culture doens't mean what you make it to mean. By the time the BT was written the Hebrews has been heavily influenced by many different cultures than their own, had been sent into exile, invaded, propogandized, and the like many times over. They had added many human traditions to their law and culture. And all that came after they FORGOT about the law in taking on pagan worship. Who are the Jews? But the decendents of a people who had so thoroughly taken on the worship of false gods and all it's traditions and mental frames that they forgot about the Law of God until one day when cleaning out a dusty room in the temple they rediscovered the scrolls of the law.
I don't hold the opinions of the BT much higher than yours or mine and have a good number of reasons to hold them a lot lower.
If God wanted it to apply to all, he could have said women in that passage, not bond-woman. If it was true of other women as well, God would have given that teaching. But He didn't. Maybe you can make the case for this same teaching for women, but you can't make it from Exodus 21 without using fallible human logic; logic from humans whose culture finds the literal rendering offensive. If what is claimed about it is true, neither Christ nor Paul would have spoke they way they did about divorce
The second problem is everyone misapplies the passage. It only speaks of unequal distribution of resources; not feeding and providing. But Christians use it to condemn men who are laid off, men who don't go into debt to give their wives an upper middle class life, men who don't keep up with the Joneses. I've seen it used to justify a woman divorcing her husband because the husband attempted to reign in her credit card spending on extraneous clothing which was bankrupting them.
1 Tim 6:6-8
No one, and I mean 99.999% of all Christian men are not starving their wives. Notice what's not on that list from Paul: designer clothes, multiple closets full of clothes, fancy houses, eating out, uncontrolled spending on consumer goods. Yet when couples argue about spending issues it's not about her fighting to get enough money to buy flour for the week. It's about how much they spend on eating out, on consumer goods, on her new iphone so she can look at facebook in maximum resolution.
You're being pedantic. It's not about who physically wrote the text, no one argues that, but which are considered inspired by God. And not only does Christianity not consider the Talmud inspired of God, it was those very human traditions of the Pharases that Christ condemned.
Furthermore, that it explains the Jewish culture doens't mean what you make it to mean. By the time the BT was written the Hebrews has been heavily influenced by many different cultures than their own, had been sent into exile, invaded, propogandized, and the like many times over. They had added many human traditions to their law and culture. And all that came after they FORGOT about the law in taking on pagan worship. Who are the Jews? But the decendents of a people who had so thoroughly taken on the worship of false gods and all it's traditions and mental frames that they forgot about the Law of God until one day when cleaning out a dusty room in the temple they rediscovered the scrolls of the law.
I don't hold the opinions of the BT much higher than yours or mine and have a good number of reasons to hold them a lot lower.
I think that too much is being made of the last phrase, the go free part.
I would propose that the same YHWH who hates divorce also hates the starving out of the first wife when a man adds another.
You can dance around the parsing of Scripture all day long and argue over interpretation, but starving a woman is abuse and I would never stand in the way of a woman leaving if she is in ACTUAL abuse.
“He has me on a diet that she isn’t required to follow” doesn’t qualify.
I would propose that the same YHWH who hates divorce also hates the starving out of the first wife when a man adds another.
You can dance around the parsing of Scripture all day long and argue over interpretation, but starving a woman is abuse and I would never stand in the way of a woman leaving if she is in ACTUAL abuse.
“He has me on a diet that she isn’t required to follow” doesn’t qualify.
As far as the “Never accept anything that a rabbi says because they are always wrong and Jesus was always disagreeing with them”, he agreed with them a whole lot more than you seem to realize.
Yes, his disagreements with them are recorded and recognized, but I guarantee that he was of one mind with them on the vast majority of issues. We just don’t hear about that because it wasn’t considered by YHWH a big enough deal to record.
Yes, his disagreements with them are recorded and recognized, but I guarantee that he was of one mind with them on the vast majority of issues. We just don’t hear about that because it wasn’t considered by YHWH a big enough deal to record.
I agree that it is used to justify leaving for the wrong reasons and I would be the first to condemn those women in those circumstances.
The person I have in mind is completely neglecting his wife and children. Not providing a penny towards any food clothing or shelter. If she had not gone and gotten a part time job as well as getting on government assistance they would literally be living in a box. Her husband is a piece of human garbage and is the epitome of someone who has denied the faith and is worse than an infadel. He has very marketable skills but hasn’t held down any consistent job for at least 5 years. He is more concerned with the temporal pleasures of this world (including another mans wife) than with taking care of his family. She is not frivolous she is not asking for anything from him and has willingly submitted to him throughout this entire time. Before the house got sold off by the sheriff because he didn’t pay the taxes she was living in a construction site for several years because after a fire he preferred to spend the insurance money on alcohol and this other woman rather than making the house livable again. All the while homeschooling his 4 children.
These situations do exist and I’m having a really hard time saying she should stick it out...
Sure those exist, but they are very rare, and far rarer than the wife who kicks the husband out because she's bored and is looking for an excuse to justify her divorce. Or the man who can't get a job because all their skills are obsolete and his wife can more easily get a higher paying job working for the corporation which actively discriminates against men.
The number of marriages legitimately suffering from an Ex 21 type situation will be far outnumbered by the number of just fine marriages torn asunder using it as an excuse.
My question is does it apply when the husband truly is neglecting her basic needs (not wants) such as the situation I described. Is she within biblical rights to seek a divorce? My stand thus far is that she should seek a divorce...
I don't think so. I think its much the same as the high standard we have in court for getting a conviction. Yes it allows some guilty parties to get away, but it prevents a far greater number of innocents from being caught up. And if she leaves she's going to have to provide for herself anyway. So she's working for her food one way or another. Far better to stick around and by her example (1 Peter 3) bring him to Christ (1 Cor 7).
But as Paul said, if she does leave then remain single or go back to him. Few will too strenuously object to her avoiding starvation. But if she then goes on to start sleeping around, tries to get another husband, etc; she's got a problem.
But really, we're probably talking about a one in a million situation here. The problem by saying it is ok in some extreme example is everyone then goes on to deceive themselves that they too fit the example even when to outside observers they obviously do not. And most of the church today lacks the backbone to contradict any women seeking divorce. To the women who truly wants to serve God and is facing starvation: God will provide, through the church or by other means. People don't sit idly by while a child of God goes wanting.
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Not trying to mean or anything, but have you asked to be filled with the Holy Spirit?
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Your stance would pervert judgement for the victim in the hope of preserving marriages through manipulation rather than truth.
It seems like the baby is being thrown out with the bath water. Our job is not to build fences like the Pharisees but to judge accurately and righteously on each and every occasion.
Who gets to decide which passages are considered inspired by God?
For the record, I do not consider Jewish commentary to be inspired, rather a historical record and in the case of the BT, a historical legal record. It’s literally the equivalent of someone 2300 years from now, examining the Federalist papers to better understand the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution.
As to the second part of your statement, you really should educate yourself further into which traditions the Pharisees created. The Babylonian Talmud predates the Pharisees by hundreds of years and is the oldest record I’m aware of outside of the Bible of Jewish culture from Jewish sources. In fact, I do not recall any place in the BT that would qualify as something Christ corrected in the Scriptures. I am also not a fan of the Pharisees or their attempts to edit scripture or their historical revisionism or any other method they used to attempt to disprove the divinity and import of Christ, however, an attempt to discredit the BT based upon a Pharisaical Bias is the height of folly as the Pharisees did most of their traditions about 300 years later and their anti - Christ revisionism about 5-600 years later.