August 21, 2007

oops

Oops, i let the blog sit too long again and there are no pretty pictures to see.

I thought I'd share some thoughts from our ladies Bible study tonight. We're about to finish up the book, which i really don't recommend... and the subject tonight was "women being subject to their husbands" M. Peace didn't really have much to say that I fully disagreed with, but there were a few points and Her general stance of not leaving much room for exceptions for various circumstances and various interpretations bothers me. So, I had plans to pull out my doctrines book and do a little bit of research on the Greek words from the verse to see what others had to say.

Well, an hour and half before the study was to begin, I was called and asked to facilitate the study as the current leader would be unavailable. (The ladies have been taking turns.) I said sure, why not! I have my doctrines book and the person told me to look for an article by Beth Moore that they had found. So, I pulled out my doctrines books, looked up what little there is on the subject of wive's roles in marriage (the main focus of the book is the "big" doctrines) and then went to the internet. I googled "Beth moore wives submission marriage" and the first link is this excellent article.

I was very impressed with what I found and little light bulbs were flashing in my mind in excitement. I tried to find some more, but was coming across lots of sites like wayoflife.org which weren't impressed with the "anti-biblical" fact that Beth Moore was teaching sunday school at her church. Anyways--another set of thoughts for another day.

Moore uses one of the key passages as reference for wive's role in marriage--Ephesisans 5:22, Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. One statement in the article really flashed out at me and I used this to open the study after prayer:

"First, notice verse 21: "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." The attitude of all Christians is to be submissive to one another. No discussion of this topic can stay on track apart from that spirit."
I thought this was an excellent starting statement for what can be a...heated...discussion sometimes.

We began discussion with some basic points from the article--submission does NOT imply inequality/inferiority, submission does not mean submission to all men in general, and in contrast to the Martha Peace's point of view in the book, that "as to the Lord" does not necessarily mean, "submit to your husbands as you submit to God", but rather, "as to the Lord" means submission to husband as an act of service to the Lord.

Then I explained a connection of this passage to the Fall from something I read in Moore's article. Grudem, in the Doctrines book, points out that the curse of Adam and Eve from the Fall distorts the roles of marriage as intended in marriage. For example, Eve's curse: "desire for your husband"--desire can be translated as a desire to take authority from her husband, a distortion of Eve's willing and intelligent submission as a helper to Adam. Adam--"he shall rule over you" is given a strong term for a monarchial authority--implying a misuse of the authority given him by God in marriage,a distortion of a loving, considerate and humble leadership of Adam over his family.

Moore, in the article makes an interesting point herself that I connected to Grudem's discussion as summarized above:

Paul's primary directive to women dealt with submission, while his primary directive to men dealt with love. Could it be that he was targeting the areas most likely to be our weaknesses?

I find it very interesting that Paul could be referring to the weaknesses in marriage created by the fall--submission for women, loving leadership for men.

Next we discussed the Greek word used for submission "huptasso". I was very intrigued when Moore made the point that submission is not slavery to husband as Paul uses a very different word for this kind of obedience in Ephesians 6: "huakouo, hupaaakouo"--submitting as a lieutenant to a captain, slave to master. Hupotasso is a compound word with a meaning of "to olace under or in an orderly fashion"--referring more to having order in marriage with a role of submission to the husband as the leader and responsible one. Peace in her book had described submission more in line with huakouo than with hupotasso--Hupotasso was a military term for arranging troops under the command of a leader. in non-military use (and the word is used frequently throughout the New Testament), it was to mean a "voluntary attitude of giving in, cooperating, assuming responsibility, carrying a burden" (blueletterbible Lexicon)

Husbands lead by giving loving consideration the thoughts and opinions of his wife--because we are both still imperfect human beings and sometimes she might have a strength that will point out the weakness in his ideas. It works both ways too-and as Moore admitted and I will admit--I have to face it, sometimes there are times where I really am emotionally irrational and the lines to logic in the brain have been pulled down by hormones. Other times, I am more of the pushover and my husband can be the tough one.

The key in the roles of marriage is that there is a third player in the marriage--Christ. decisions need to be made between the three parties of marriage in prayer--to give honor to the one who created marriage and the only one who can really keep a marriage together in face of imperfect human beings.

It was a good discussion, and we had some time to let things rabbit trial into other discussions--like abusive relationships and if there is a biblical basis for divorce. It's hard to accept that God would want someone to stay in a relationship where one of the partners is abusing their role to an extreme. My personal view is that, biblically, the situation needs to be confronted--first between the spouses, then with friends, then with the church--try and get help to beat the sin. If the spouse will not repent and change his ways after this method has gone through, I think a case can be made for biblical separation at minimum in similarity to taking the final extreme measure of asking someone to leave the church. At minimum, my own personal stance is separation without divorce, or divorce without remarriage unless the abusive spouse has broken the bonds of marriage further by adultery--which is clearly given as a reason for divorce in the Bible.

Well, it is late and i need to sleep. Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comment box.

Posted by Anna at August 21, 2007 11:14 PM | TrackBack