- RSS FeedSubscribe
- « Previous PostA La Carte (1/19)
- Next Post »A La Carte (1/20)
Whose Wife Are You?
- 01/19/11
- 18
On November 11 I bookmarked 2 blog articles. Bookmarks usually last about 24 hours before they get a) archived b) used in A La Carte or c) erased. But these ones are still sitting there. Several times I have gone back to read the articles and each time I’ve wanted to think about them a little bit more. There is nothing in them that is earthshaking to me. And yet the way they are phrased has given me a lot of food for thought (just ask Aileen if you doubt me).
The first article I read was by Amy Scott and it was titled simply “Be You.” In her article she references another, one titled “Just Whose Wife Am I Anyway?” They both deal with a common them: submission. In particular, they deal with the biblical command that a wife submit to her husband. Those are fighting words in many parts of the Christian world, not to mention outside of the Christian world. I won’t allow that to distract me here.
Both women write about their own struggles with what submission really looks like in a godly marriage. And as I read their thoughts, here is what struck me: We spend a lot of time talking in general about how men and women complement one another—generic men and generic women. This complementarity is obvious from a physical standpoint, but also from many others. But I wonder if we spend far too little time talking about how this husband and this wife complement one another. When we move beyond the generalities of gender roles, we find that the specifics may look very, very different from one couple to another. Within the Bible’s general guidelines, there are many ways to work out the details. Amy puts it like this:
My own husband would knock me silly (...figuratively) if I called him yesterday from the flooring store to solve and negotiate the huge issue that came up. He trusts me. He knows I am capable, and we are a team. (On the flip side, many husbands feel very respected to have their opinion asked about how to handle disasters.) We found a rhythm that works for us.
Greg has one Patriarchal rule for me. He will not let me use a paintbrush under any circumstances in our house. But I am OK with this.
Which is to say that the way my wife submits to me, as the leader in the home, may look quite different from the way another wife submits to her own husband. The big picture should be the same—he is to lead his wife and she is to follow within the role of a helper. But the particulars of that leading and following will vary a great deal based on the two personalities, based on the dynamics of the relationship, based on the stage in life, based on their individual strengths and weaknesses.
And this is why Laurie is asking, “Just whose wife am I anyway?”
I am to be subject to my own husband, and to learn what it means to be his wife from him. After all, every man is different. Every woman is different. Every marriage is different. That’s the way God intended it. We are not clones but uniquely gifted individuals. Not only that, but every culture is different and so is every age. The Scripture is meant to be versatile and timeless, valuable to every person in every era.
So the job of a husband is not to hand his wife a book and tell her to learn to submit from the experts—from the wife of a different husband or the husband of a different wife. A husband is to lead his wife in what it means to be his helper—the helper who will be perfect fit for him. And yet too often we choose to outsource that work. We as husbands abdicate leadership in this area. To quote Laurie:
Instead of treating each man and each wife as individuals complementing each others’ own strengths and weaknesses, encouraging them to fill in and support each other as needed, whatever that may look like, many influential church leaders have chosen one single example from from the host of possible complementary relationship styles and set it up as a pre-fab model for all Christian men and women, expecting them all, no matter how different they may be, to conform to it.
The color wheel offers a useful metaphor. If I am green on the wheel, my complement is red. Green is who God has made me to be—the sum of my gifts and talents and personality and everything else that makes me who I am. But I may well hand my wife a book written by a woman whose husband is a yellow. What she may do is train my wife to be a violet. And in the end, while my wife is doing the right thing in seeking to be a godly wife, she may be shaping herself into something that is less than complementary. Whose fault is it? Mine, I suppose, because I have not been leading her in such a way that she truly helps and complements me. God has called her to be my wife, my helper, and how can she be that if I won’t help her understand what that looks like? How can she feel fulfilled in her God-given role if I don’t help her?
What I am seeing is that we are prone to look at what a wife does and think, “That doesn’t look like she is submitting to her husband.” But when we do that, we are inevitably judging her by our own standards and by the particulars of our own husband-to-wife relationship. If a wife wants to know if she is submitting to her husband, it may be that the better question for her to ask is, “Am I actively rebelling against his leadership?” It’s not a matter of the particulars of what she does compared to other women, but whether she is following her husband as he leads her into being his perfect complement.
Here is how Laurie closes out her article: “From here on out I submit myself to my own husband. When it comes to what it means to be a good wife to him, beyond the Scripture, no one but he has a right to inform me. I will learn from him at home.” To which I say, Amen.
The question is, are the men willing to take this kind of leadership?
I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a husband to Aileen and a father to three young children. I worship and serve as a pastor at 
Releasing on April 1, The Next
Published in 2008, this book
This is a guide that calls men,
This review of the bestselling
New to the site? You can get
This is a guide written
Comments (18)
Tim- thanks so much for the article, I appreciate your use of the color wheel in conveying your point on complimenting your spouse.
A shameless plug for Driscoll: From his Trial series, there are two “must watch” sermons- Marriage and Men, and Marriage and Women. I’ll link to one for ease for your other readers. I can’t stress enough how much every married dude should watch Marriage and Men. I’m certain the flavor of Driscoll’s delivery was specfic to Mars Hill, but it is applicable on a much larger scale. The first time I watched it I could hardly talk for two days (almost true story :) ).
Here’s the link:
http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/trial/marriage-and-men
I’m new to blogging, but I can’t thank you enough for the solid stuff you continually put out here for us.
Blessing to you an yours,
brian
www.countedasrighteousness.com (shameless plug for my new blog)
Great post. And timely for me as a wife of only seven months as I try to navigate what submission looks like. The cited blog posts express what I’ve felt as I seek advice from friends (whose husbands & marriages are very different from mine) and read books written by women and men (who seem to be from a different era and reflect ONE way of doing things). Thank you for writing this.
Tim, I appreciate this article and agree that submission isn’t going to look the same for everyone. I also agree that men aren’t very good at leading their wives to be their own helpers (including me).
One thing that threw up a red flag for me was this: When it comes to what it means to be a good wife to him, beyond the Scripture, no one but he has a right to inform me. I will learn from him at home.
Maybe it’s just the tone of this statement, or its absoluteness that sets me off a bit, but this kind of thinking precludes the kind of teaching and accountability commanded in http://esv.to/2tim2.3-6: “Older women likewise are to…teach …and train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be …submissive to their own husbands…” (emphasis mine). God’s word itself acknowledges the point of the the article: be submissive to your own husband, but it also asserts a role for the church (via “older women”) in teaching younger wives how to do that.
One of the reasons her closing statement stood out to me is that it sounds a bit akin to one of the problems of the contemporary evangelical church (at least the kind of church I’m familiar with): our own self-righteousness and an over-individualistic certitude, rejection of authority, and unwillingness to be held accountable by anyone (“Jesus is the high priest; I don’t need to be discipled by anyone but the Holy Spirit” are the kinds of things you might hear said to justify such sinful attitudes). I don’t know Laurie and don’t know her attitude; I have only your excerpts here to go by - but learning to submit to a husband and learning to lead a wife are not areas in which the church ought to be shut out.
Certainly some good points here, especially for those who are tempted to sinful judgment of other people’s marriages or women who judge themselves “unfeminine” next to that woman they know who wrote the books or the woman at church who seems the perfect model of “biblical womanhood.”
Yet, even in this helpful complementarian corrective, you rely very heavily on the husband “leading” the wife… and by implication, you continue to judge any couple who don’t make the focus of their relationship his leadership and her submission.
In reality - at least for many couples - complementarity is organic. It is an IS to be discovered, not an OUGHT to be prescribed by either an outsider or one of the spouses. There is no biblical warrant for saying that it is a husband’s job to teach his wife how to complement him. Rather she DOES complement him and they both have the opportunity to realize what grace God gave in providing that complementary. To use your color analogy, you and your spouse are both unique. She is a red and you are a green - you don’t make each other’s personalities, gifts, talents and passions.
Both husbands and wives can choose to discover and delight in the way God brought them together to complement each other. They can study and learn from each other. Or they can try to re-make their spouse into the person who they think they need, rejecting the unique gift God gave them. Or they can try to re-make themselves into someone else’s image of the “perfect” husband/wife, rejecting the person God made them to be.
So, for both husband’s and wives, we don’t choose how our spouse complements us, but we do get to learn and appreciate how they do. We also get the privilege - both of us - of releasing our spouse to be who they were created to be, of encouraging them to use their gifts, pursue their passions, and glorify God with all of who they are.
My husband has been amazing at releasing me in ways that would be frowned on in many complementarian circles (and by a good many of those women who run the Titus II speaking circuit in our churches) - he’s proud of me and so supportive that I can just be amazed by how blessed I am to have him. But I get the honor of doing the same thing for him… letting him know that I love and appreciate who God made him to be - that he doesn’t have to fit stereotypes for me to appreciate his unique gifts, talents, personality and passions. We both get to point each other to Christ in hard times and easier ones, and I hope we’ll get that privilege as we walk each other to death’s door.
By the way, Laurie M’s blog post is beautiful. She speaks something many Christian wives, including me, need to be reminded of. She does not suggest that it is the husband’s job to “lead” his wife in becoming his complement… Rather she says that the wife should learn how to be her husband’s complement - and he hers: “to fill in and support each other as needed”
Right on! We get to learn from, serve, love and respect each other in the uniquely complementary pairs God has brought together..
This is a huge struggle that will never be resolved until Glory, I’m afraid
Tim - I really appreciated this perspective. Christians can at times be unusually judgemental if the marital mold they see elsewhere is not like their own.
Blessed is the person who does not hurry into marriage, only to find that the complements are in fact few and the differences many; and blessed is the couple who, in spite of their many differences, love God even more than their spouse - as they will inevitably seek to please Him and obey His commands to lead or to submit rightly.
Those were my thoughts exactly. I LIKE a lot of what she says—married myself to a not-so-average man—but you can’t dismiss Titus 2.
My wife and I have been married for four years and I have just begun to understand the meaning of this “complementarian” talk. She is extremely passionate and bold (comparitively) in her worship and emotional expression, I’m a bit more reserved; I fear people see her as disrespectful to me for being who she is. We are thankful God has paired two opposites in that realm, she presses forward in some respects and I pull back the reins but we usually end up about where we should be when our movements stalemate.
Good work as always Tim!
http://chiefofleast.com/
Thanks for the post, Tim. When I first saw the title, I thought “I’m going to read that, and send it to my wife immediately”. I realized quickly that it was probably intended more for me, as I’m struggling with leadership issues. No wonder she doesn’t want to follow me.
I agree with you Ben.
I think the closer proximity we have to a couple, the greater the privilege and responsibility we have to inform, train and correct (about all of life and godliness, including submission and leadership). This is where impersonal resources lose their power.
It is a challenge to set up our churches and relationships so that people share lives enough to have this level of godly influence.
Personal relationships (where a particular husband and wife know another particular husband and wife) allow for the nuanced “training” in what is mature and godly in their particular marriage.
Another barrier I see for these type of relationships is “women’s ministry” as a separate set of events in itself. Often women will know each other really well, but not each others’ husbands. We talk about being wives, but don’t see each other being wives. Which means “informing” becomes legalistic and abstract. And correcting either can’t happen (because we don’t see enough of their marriage), or correction is hurtfully misapplied (for the same reason).
Good to be thinking through it. Thanks Tim for the post and Ben for your helpful observations.
Thank you for your post. When I read this article I was cringing. I am presently living with a husband who every three months brings out a list of the things I do that “need to be corrected”. These can range from not cleaning the floor to his specifications, sleeping too much when I am ill, not putting the mail in the mailbox in a proper manner, to being called lazy, irresponsible you name it. He tells me he needs to “show me how to do things a certain way” because he has discovered for himself the right way and I just need to follow it. This has created in my heart a fear of continual scrutiny and rejection. To be honest I do not even want to be around him. Knowing that I am constantly under the microscope only causes fear and anxiety. I do not feel loved and do not feel like he is “laying his life down for me.” If you ask him “he is just teaching me how to be his complement”. If you ask me, he is a dictator who treats me like another posession, I have no voice, I am just a project that needs to be molded into the “perfect” wife for him, so that I can learn to “do things the right way”. Nevermind that I managed to survive to my 44th birthday before I met and married him. While I believe in complementarian, I reject the notion that a husband gets to decide what this should look like. After all the Bible tells “wives to submit to their husbands” not “husbands make your wives submit.” This article to me sounds more like a prescription for creating a “Stepford wife” than anything else. Sorry, but I do not agree that a husband gets the priviledge to dictate how a wife should behave, especially when the wife is doing her part to submit to his leadership. Submission does not preclude a wife having an opinion or will.
Anonymous, I only know what you’ve described, but can I say how sorry I am you are experiencing this?
I hope you are in a strong Christian community that can be a support to you. Sadly, not all Christian leaders are equipped to be genuinely helpful in situations where abusing is ongoing. Regardless of what people say though, our heavenly Father knows what you are going through, and his word provides guidance for you.
From what I’ve observed, well intentioned people in our complementarian Christian communities - who would NEVER even think of exercising the kind of belittling and controlling “leadership” your husband does - have no idea how articles like the above can be heard by the abuser and victim in these situations (the victim hears that she needs this kind of “leadership” so she should put up and shut up and the abuser hears that affirmation of the way he is “leading” for the victim’s own good).
You know better.
Theologically, what he is doing is wrong. It is sin. It is not right for him to lord it over you, belittle you, treat you harshly, disrespect you, or dishonor you. Before you are your husband’s wife, you are his sister in the Lord. That means you have a Matthew 18 responsibility to confront his sin for God’s glory and redemptive purposes in his life.
Don’t ignore this behavior. It will get worse if you do.
You say you lived for 44 years without him. You can confront him. You can tell him this is not an acceptable or godly way to treat you. And if you need help - which is likely - get it. Go to a Christian counselor or pastor who understands how to deal with domestic abuse and break through the code of silence that keeps this kind of sin hidden. Again, Matthew 18 provides a model for what to do when your brother offends you - and it doesn’t make an exception where you have to submit to the offense if he happens to be your husband as well as your brother. If he does not listen when you confront him, bring mature believers into the situation who understand that and are willing to help you.
Caveat: If you or your children are in danger, don’t start by confronting him on your own - take someone with you and have an alternate place to go if you are not safe.
God bless you, sister.
Thanks for sharing! I hope you don’t mind if I link you on my blog. I’ve been writing about marriage in the last couple of days, so this post will be pretty great to share with my readers.
http://lovedoesntletgo.blogspot.com
This is SO helpful! I’ve been married 6 months, and one thing that I struggle with a lot is knowing how to submit. If my husband thinks we should save $x a month, I can get on board with that, but I struggle with finding the line between having my own opinions and views and submitting. My husband has told me he loves that I can think for myself and doesn’t want me to be a “yes woman.” It would be helpful if more Christian writers and speakers/pastors would talk more candidly about what submission means.
AMEN, AMEN, AMEN!I was struggling with my reply until I read yours. You said it so well - I don’t need to. What a wonderfully articulate and thoughtful response. Thank you.
I cannot thank you enough for this post. I look forward to sharing it with my women’s Sunday school class!
Going to share that at “woman’s Sunday School class”….kind of ironic. We wonder why husbands and wives aren’t on the same page - part of the reason may be for many of us, most of our corporate Christian lives are lived in segregation (with the exception of the worship service)…