today's baseball chapel devo
i just read it. it's not as convicting, but that's because it has to do with being a baseball wife. but it gives a little peek into their lives. it talks about the transition that has to be made when baseball season is over and their husbands are back at home. one thing i liked was that this wife talked about her husband being the head of the household and her need to submit to that when he comes home. for some reason it always makes me happy to see a woman acknowledge her Biblical responsibility to submit. it makes me think that she must be deep and that she must have a good grasp of theology. i know it's very wrong of me to judge like that, but it seems that families in which the wife is openly submitting to her husband's headship tend to be families that are rightly ordered under CHRIST, and thus are famlies in which GOD is glorified. like i said, this is all me judging people, and i have no right to do that, but in general i do find it to be true.
and this makes me all the more excited about baseball chapel - that they are supportive of that doctrine (not trying to avoid the issue like a lot of non-denominational organizations do). it seems to be further evidence that GOD is truly working in this.
posted by melilotnfosco | 3:57 PM
25 Comments:
the whole idea of submission is so politically incorrect (largely because people don't try to understand it), that it's refreshing to see someone take a stand, choosing God's way over the world's.
exactly
Praise God too that you are coming back to devotions! (I still need to do that :( ) God took an obsession and turned it back onto Himself. How cool!
By the way, I'm caught up! Not in any of the comments except this one I'm posting in, but at least I read every word of every post since I left off somewhere before you started work again :-) And yes it was overwhelming that there were so many I missed in just a couple days, but I did it and I'm glad I did because baseball chapel is SUCH an awesome concept! I want to marry a sports player now hehe. submission would be really hard for me though; probably for any of us who have been single most of our lives. Thanks for sharing your devo info!
sorry chelleybutton, i know u said u didn't like long comments....
but it's not your blog so >=P'
hehe
um, i don't remember saying that, autosmiler... i'm gonna need you to prove it -- find the comment under the post or else the conversation under your messenger history ;)
I just like comments! And if I don't like long comments, then I'm a hypocrite b/c I post them all the time! (or several short ones like I'm doing now;)
I read all these new posts earlier but didn't have time to comment, and now it's really really late & I need to go to bed, so I'll come back & read & comment later :) (same to the rest of your guys' blogs too!:)
sorry to bring us back to the topic at hand ( :) ) but Mel, I would appreciate if you would further explain your thoughts on submission: def'n, practical play-out, what it looks like in a church, etc etc. I've only ever seen bad bad BAD examples of wives "submitting" to husbands, including in my own relationship, so I would appreciate some clarification. Thanks! (Although, if you don't want to talk more about married life, that's fine, I totally understand.)
kim, i don't know what your experience is (and i hope i don't offend you at all), but i think the reason people say they've only seen bad examples of submission is because true Biblical submission isn't really overt. wives don't walk around calling their husbands "master" and catering to their every whim.
it's sad that the world has twisted submission into cowering obedience. that was never God's intent.
a Biblically submissive relationship involves respect and love from both sides. my husband and i make all decisions together. our marriage and child-raising requires complete teamwork. but if there's ever an issue we disagree on, we talk it out. sometimes he sees it my way and says 'ok', sometimes i see it his way and say 'ok'. but if we can't see eye to eye, it's my place (unless I truly believe we'd be going against God's will) to say 'ok'.
Biblical submission means i don't try to manipulate him to do things my way (we women are SO good at that!). it means i don't say "told you so" when his decisions turn out to be wrong. i support him and work with him. it means i don't whine when i don't get my way (still working on that one :) )
in all honesty, looking at Ephesians 5, i truly think God gave men the harder task. the responsibility for the direction their family is heading lies on their shoulders. that's why they need us to encourage them and not try to fight everything they're working at.
i think hobbitsister pretty much covered it :)
i just e-mailed these further thoughts to didder, and then decided to post them:
as i was writing the response to kim, it struck me how often women (myself very much included) use our feminine wiles to get our own way. we are SO stinkin' manipulative. we cry, nag, and whine to get what we want. we twist men's words and bring up past hurts. we tell our girlfriends things that maybe shouldn't be shared. i think when GOD told us to submit, He meant "stop undermining the leadership role I gave your husband".
i think He was talking to me...
that is very cool (the devo & the chapel -- and your comments!:) ... that would be really hard to have to make an extra effort to submit when they come back home... and I agree, hobbitsister, that the guys have the harder role. But something inside of me also rises up to fight when I'm told to submit or that the man comes first or I shouldn't get my way, etc., etc. ... and yeah, it can be abused, of course. And I think that for the most part, the abusive way is how we/society generally view submission. But yeah -- that's not how God meant it to be.
(the boys aren't reading this, are they?;)
it doesn't really mean the man comes first, and it doesn't mean men are any better or more important.
it's like i told erma when we first started leaving the girls home alone - "in charge doesn't mean bossy. it means you're the one who'll get in trouble if something goes wrong." :)
i also think we tend to forget that the beginnning of the passage says "submit to one another" - not just wives to husbands
This comment has been removed by the author.
I'm not at all offended. :) No worries, just tell me what you think!
I totally agree that a lot of women use horrible means to get their husbands to agree with them, but I don't think that has anything to do with submission in terms of wife to husband. Neither partner should engage in such crap. It's not about submission, but about decent human interaction.
I'm so confused about this whole idea. It seems that in the beginning Adam and Eve were equals. She was his completion. (The book "Captivating" has a really good chapter on what "helpmate" means in the original language and context.) It wasn't until after the fall that God said that her husband would rule over her. So if it was a result of the fall, why does Paul advocate for submission. What exactly does that word mean in the Greek- no one seems to agree! Grrr! Paul also talks about a whole lot of other things that we write off as cultural. (However, we completely agree that deacons should only have one wife!) In the social context of the time, it makes complete sense that Paul would talk about it but we can't just pick and chose what we want to listen to. I realize that so many Christian women have this ideal husband- worship leader type, super encouraging leader guy, Bible reading, family devotions, drive to build God's kingdom kind of guy that they can support and do all sorts of "wifey" things for, but what happens when those roles are reversed and the husband is the quiet steady as a rock likes to bake type and you're the go-getter? I don't think God doesn't give women (and men) those gifts just because they don't fit into our 20th century Evangelical ideal.
As to the decision making thing- have you ever actually come to the point where you've gone with his decision? We never have, and the only times I've seen it, it's been disastrous with the wife hiding behind the husbands poor decisions because it's "Biblical." On the other hand, I know lots of women that claim that they would listen to their husbands if it came down to that, but it never does because they don't let their husbands make any decisions! My friend says that they model submission much better than we do, but he can't even change a diaper correctly in her eyes.
What does it mean for the man to be the "head of the household" in day to day life? What is the baseball wife submitting to that is so noticeable?
I'm so confused! Thanks for indulging me in this topic. Please continue to let me know what you think.
There, that's better. The deleted comment was me, but the post needed some paragraphs!
Oh- and I'm not out to try and offend anyone with what I think is the ideal Christian husband. That description is what I wanted and it sounded like all my friends around then wanted too. I understand that that might not be what you guys want(ed).
In the bible it says that God created Eve to be a "help-mate" for Adam, which I personally think implies that he was technically "in charge".
I also think true submission only works in a Christian marriage, when a wife has the reasurrance that her husband is seeking God's will above his own desires. But a husband needs to understand his own role as a spiritual leader or else you run the risk of "the blind leading the blind". God never tells us to submit to the SINFUL will of our husbands. Taking in context, God is saying that when a husband is choosing to lead his household the way God intended it to be run then the by-product of that will be a submissive help-mate. A wife who willingly follows her husband's will knowing that he is seeking God's will for their family.
I think that when we hear "bad stories" about submission what we are hearing is how a sinful man or women twists God's commands to suit his or her own sin and justify it. That isn't true submission, it is abuse and it isn't okay. It makes me sad that anyone would use God's word to justify the abuse of another person and yet it happens so often, not just in the case of submission.
Sorry if this got a little preachy. I just think that if we choose to use the model God laid out for our families we would have a lot less unhappiness, not to mention divorce.
in 15 years of marriage, enrique and i have never not agreed on a major issue. i'm not trying to say we have the perfect marriage, i'm just saying that when you work together as a team, you work these things out. the only things we really disagree on is whether to watch "master and commander" or "while you were sleeping" - sometimes i give in, sometimes he does.
yeah, we've only been married for 4 but it's never come down to that, and I can't see it ever doing so... so why is that the def'n (or most ready example) of submission. Shouldn't it be more than that? Shouldn't it be more to do with the "one another" verses? And as much as a marriage is like following Christ, it's not, because Christ was perfect and husbands are not. Neither are wives, but I don't see why "headship" gives husbands that final authority that we in the Evangelical culture seem to want to give them.
i do not believe that God's design for marriage in ephesians 5 was a cultural thing, because it was given as an example of Christ's relationship with the church.
God said "husbands, love your wives as Christ loves the church" and "in the same way, wives, submit to your husbands". that's what God said. not what paul said, not what the church said, not what men said. what God said.
maybe the best day-to-day example of headship that i can think of is that when we have family devotions, it's enrique who leads them. i participate, and often say more than he does, but he facilitates it and closes in prayer. not because he's smarter, better, or more important. not because he's any closer to God than i am. because he's the head of our family. because God said so.
ok - i did some research. maybe it will help both sides.
according to strong's concordance, the word "submit" in eph. 5:22 means "to place oneself under, covertly or moderately". to me, that implies a willingness on the part of the wife to put her husband's needs ahead of her own.(it is not the husband's duty to MAKE the wife submit!)
in contrast, a different word is used in eph. 6:1, "children, obey your parents". "obey" here is not the same as "submit", used earlier. this word means to "hearken unto, as a subordinate". i read this to mean that there is a hierarchy in a parent-child relationship that is not present in a husband-wife relationship. children obey because parents have a higher authority. a wife submits because she willingly gives her husband a place of honor ("covertly and moderately" - she doesn't go around kissing his feet)
does this help? i'd love to hear other thoughts!
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