So here is a break from my normal musings into my own personal spiritual struggle and life to address an issue that is more and more misunderstood within our culture and even church daily: male headship. I know that I might seem like the very last girl in the world to want to lend any of my will to a man (and I'm not going to any time too soon) but more and more I have heard married women speak with such disdain for their husband's authority, his spiritual leadership, and have taken their own opinions to action, claiming God's guidance. I want to set the record straight...or at least the Little Record.
Marriage is a really big deal to God. Not only does He institute it within the first pages of the Bible, but Christ also confirms the importance by performing his first miracle at a wedding. Regardless of your feelings about feminism or equality, I think it is important, at the onset to recognize how very important order is in God's plan. During the creation narrative, God does not simply create things that he wants to without giving consideration to when they are created. First land and water are created to sustain life before wildlife, and finally humans are introduced to Genesis. In much the same way, Man is created before woman, in Genesis 2:7. With God creating Adam, he also bestowed upon him responsibility immediately, putting him in the garden to work (2:15) and giving him the task of naming all livestock (2:20). From the onset, man was given specific tasks and a place of headship over creation.
Now enters woman. After looking at the entire created order, God decides that it is not good for man to be alone, so God specially forms woman. Woman is not created out of the dust of the ground like man was, but rather out of the side-rib of man. She is created not out of dirt, but out of something that was already formed in the image and likeness of God. (2:18-22)
This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.
Genesis 2:23
From our origin, we were created, as women, to be adored, cherished, and loved in a way that nothing else in creation ever could be. Remember the next verse:
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother
and hold fast to his wife,
and they shall become one flesh.
Genesis 2:24
It is only the second chapter of God's entire story He would leave His people, and already he is setting up His natural order. A man will give up his own life, desires, family, everything to cleave, hold fast, and become one with his wife. These sentences in the Bible make the point that marriage creates the closest of all human relationships. It is important to observe that God creates only one Eve for Adam, not several Eves or another Adam. The kinship between husband and wife creates obligations that override even duty to one's parents.
Here is where I would like to make a few statements out of the New Testament, quoted directly from the Word of God, that almost always get modern-women up in arms, so bear with me.
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
Ephesians 5:20-24
and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.
Titus 2:4-5
And We can't forget the boys:
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Ephesians 5:25-33
Now to unpack these verses. I am well aware that feminism did wonders for my gender in terms of allowing us to vote, have equal place with men in the workplace, and divorce us from typical female duties...bravo Rosie the Riveter. All the same, I have become sickened seeing and hearing talk from "godly women" on TV, and in the church not model the relationship and order God set out from the beginning.
I think a lot of people will be surprised with my take on the question of male headship for several reasons: first, I am a very strong, willed and opinionated woman that almost always speaks her mind; secondly, I am very firm in my religious belief system and am going to take a very special and God-fearing man to "lead me" in the Lord, and finally I am twenty six and have never been married or engaged. I realize this makes me the prime candidate to "hate on" men being in charge in the Bible and find new was of "interpreting" the irrevocable word of Almighty God ;) (sarcasm implied) Nevertheless I do not view God's created order or the idea that a woman should submit to her husband as an attack on my gender as being weak...and I encourage every woman married or single to take a very long and fast look at what the Word really says.
Women have been treasured from creation. Yes, we are to submit to our husbands spiritually, financially, emotionally, and in every possible way. I wholeheartedly believe this. Not because men are a stronger, smarter, or greater sex, but because God has given them an even greater responsibility, and we...a much greater honor. Marriage was instituted not simply for procreation, but to mirror the love and relationship that God has for His Church. Love without bounds, limits, or reason. Love that cannot be expressed in the human language. Love that breaks yokes, forgives misdoings, and never relents...regardless of how much we screw up.
I doubt any woman would say that the church can be in charge of things spiritually because God is not holding up to His end of the bargain. Yes, we are human. Men (we all know) make mistakes, but so do we. Culture, however, is pushing women further and further away from the order created at the breath of creation...pushing us to desmasculinize men so that we can get ahead, feel more spiritual, or get pity from our friends. Whether you are married to Billy Graham or Billy the Kid, God is for and in every marriage. Think back to the Garden. God created one Eve for Adam...regardless of what brought you into this relationship (barring biblical reasons for dissolving), you are with that man for a reason...and only that man. God would not have created Eve to be in relationship and start the human race with a man who could not lead or love her. And God is still as involved in every marriage as he was the first marriage in Eden.
So why have men cowered in the corner and not taken initiative in their families, their marriages, their finances, their spiritual walk in the modern church? Yes, things like sin, temptation....yadda yadda yadda play a role, but I wager that a great deal of good men who want to live lives of integrity and honor have been so demasculinized from the women in their lives, they wonder what the use is. From the way their mothers treated and spoke about their fathers to the way their wives nag at their every move...men are afraid to lead because they don't think anyone will follow them. And that terrifies me when I think of humanity's future.
So here is a word to women: edify the man God has brought into your life. Don't down talk him to your friends but continually life him up to the Lord in prayer that he might step into His god-given role to lead you, provide for you, and love you as Christ loves His church. No one is giving Christ advice on how to love...Calvary set the example for love and that is the love that is available to every marriage. Women who are still single: look for the characteristics of a Godly man in the men you date, associate with, or even spend time with. Conduct yourselves in a way, dress in a way, and lead lives that men worth following will want to be around. Don't settle for anything less than your Adam.
To men: Women want nothing more than to be led. Although culture won't back me up, women put on a tough front that is rooted in severe insecurity and fear of rejection. Model strength not to get your way, but to look to the good of both your lives. Live your single lives in a way that honors your future wife whether she is the woman you are dating now or will meet ten years down the road. God was thinking about your marriage from the day you were born. Model love, integrity, and honor in every relationship you have with women, from your sister to the waitress at Pizza Hut...be a man...that's what will bring you your Eve.
I do not believe that men are superior to women, nor should either partner in a relationship be lorded over, but women and men both need to come to a much clearer understanding of God's natural order...if and when we do we will live lives of peace that exemplify the Holy Marriage of Christ and His Church. A relationship that will lead and guide others to Him.
I leave you with the most famous quotations of what love really looks like, 1 Corinthians 13:
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
