A couple months ago I wrote a post entitled The Wisdom of Submission in which I explored the context of Ephesians 5 and its teachings on submission. Marital submission is generally taught as a kind of umbrella formula by which all “good Christian wives” should abide, but that does not appear to be the context of the passage, nor is that a healthy way to think of submission. Were your husband to ask you to sin or to remain in an abusive relationship, it’s important to have a read on Ephesians 5 that would allow you to resist your husband without contradicting God’s Word. That said, it’s helpful to think of submission as a matter of wisdom versus foolishness–when is it wise to submit to your husband, and when is it unwise?

Of course, this manner of thinking about submission might make some people uncomfortable. Isn’t that incredibly subjective? Can’t women abuse it? Well the same could be said about male headship, which is why it’s important to remember that this issue is ultimately between you and God. You will stand before Him in how you have honored or dishonored your spouse, a very sobering thought indeed!

Bearing that in mind, I came up with a few diagnostic questions to assess the motives of your heart in how you respond to your husband. When you are tempted to control, manipulate, or simply be stubborn-headed, these questions can help you search your heart and determine the wisdom or foolishness of your actions:

Is it worth getting your way?
I don’t know about you, but there have been a number of times in my marriage when the win was actually a loss. My husband caved in because I was being so obstinate, and it ultimately wasn’t worth the hurt that it caused. My husband didn’t respect me more because of it, nor were we closer as a result.

Could he be right?
My husband is a very capable, wise and intuitive person, and there have been a number of situations in which I forced my way, or begrudgingly let him get his way, only to find out later that I was totally in the wrong. Even so, I have a short memory and the next time a similar situation arises I am still slow to trust him despite his consistently good judgment. Given that God matches us with mates whose strengths complement our weaknesses, it’s important for me to remember that my husband often has the clearest vision in my greatest blind spots.

Would submission be more effective than force?
Something else I’ve noticed in my own marriage is that when my husband realizes he was wrong, I don’t have to point it out to him. He sees it. In fact, he is most teachable when I am least aggressive about it. Given this reality, God can actually use my submission as a tool to teach and grow my husband. If I let him make a mistake and refuse to gloat about my rightness, he is much more likely to learn from the experience without any residual feelings of bitterness or frustration toward me. Submission gets me out of the way so that God can teach my husband.

Are you acting out of fear, or trust in God?
At the heart of this issue is ultimately your trust in God. Ephesians 5:29 reminds us that God gave us our husbands as a provision of protection and care, which means He will also hold them accountable for how well they did their job. God is in control of this whole set-up, which means that if you’re having trouble trusting your husband, you might also be struggling to trust God.

How does your marriage witness to Christ’s love for His people?
The overall thrust of Ephesians 5 is to draw a parallel between marriage and Christ’s relationship with the Church. In marriage we demonstrate the kind of loving surrender that Christians are to have with God. God loves us so profoundly and unconditionally that we can trust Him with our marriage, family, job, future–everything! But that’s a hard idea for many people to swallow. In a world where people sign pre-nups before they ever get married, this kind of radical trust is foreign. We’re not used to trusting someone else THAT much. Christian marriage, however, demonstrates that this type of love is possible, which provides the world with a small taste of what they can have in Jesus. The question is, does your marriage demonstrate this type of loving relationship. Do you surrender to your husband in a way that echoes the Christian’s surrender to Christ?

These are just a few diagnostic questions to consider when you and your husband are in a gridlock. You may have all the best reasons in the world for standing your ground, but unless your husband has asked you to sell your kids and rob a bank, consider the wisdom of submission from God’s perspective. God’s wisdom is not like the world’s, so live according to the God who can take unusual or difficult circumstances and use them for good. When your heart is first and foremost submitted to God, He can and WILL use your faithfulness!

In my last post I examined one of the reasons more and more women may be evacuating their marriages: the need to be independent from men. In this post I want to examine a second reason women may be leaving their marriages: a preoccupation with beauty.

Women in our culture are OBSESSED with beauty. Practically flawless models are airbrushed in magazines, and women spend millions of dollars each year on products ranging from wrinkle cream to spankx. Beauty is a highly valued commodity, and the Christian world is no exception. If you ever walk through the women’s section at a Christian bookstore you will see title after title dealing with beauty. We are just as obsessed with beauty as the culture around us. We may veil our obsession with language about “true beauty” but the fact of the matter is, we can’t get enough of it. We desperately want to feel beautiful.

Now let me be clear: beauty is not a bad thing. God created beauty. He defines beauty. He gave us beautiful people and beautiful things. However, we too often flirt with the line between good and ultimate good. C.S. Lewis described this distinction as follows:

“Every preference of a small good to a great, or a partial good to a total good, involves the loss of the small or partial good for which the sacrifice was made…You can’t get second things by putting them first; you can get second things only by putting first things first.”

In other words, there are many partial goods, but there is only one total good: Christ. However, many Christian woman draw dangerously close to treating beauty as a total good, not a partial one. They do this by placing an inordinate emphasis on beauty, as if the Christian life is ultimately about responding to this desire of your heart. As the teaching goes, God created women to be beautiful, so we will always have a desire to be beautiful, a desire that is constantly attacked and manipulated by the Enemy. The only One who can make us feel truly, irrevocably beautiful, is God.

And all of this is true. But it’s only a small part of the picture. First and foremost, it’s not even about us. It’s about God. And second, it’s not about feeling beautiful, but being in right relationship with God. Yet it is easy for these truths to get lost when we only want to read and hear about beauty, beauty, BEAUTY! Pretty soon, Christianity is just another type of makeover.

So what does all of this have to do with marriage? Between a culture that urges us to be outwardly beautiful and a religion that tells us to be inwardly beautiful, it is easy to make beauty into an idol. And when we do, we can face great disillusionment when marriage gets ugly. While marriage can certainly have its moments of romance and bliss, it’s also hard work. You don’t always look your best, and neither does your husband. He burps and farts. He doesn’t hang up the wet towels and they sour. He doesn’t use coasters. He eats things way past their due date. Then come the kids. You lose control of your body and it’s all you can do to get through the day, let alone take care of your skin, hair and nails. And whose that crazy lady screaming at your kids to quit running around the house? Oh wait, it’s you.

What happened to that beautiful life that the world says you should have and Christianity promises to give? Where did it go? How did it escape you? If you signed up for beauty and instead got struggle and strife, it’s easy to feel short-changed. It’s easy to yearn for the days when you had time for yourself. It’s easy to miss the times when you got dressed up for a night on the town with your girlfriends. Back then you just wanted to get married, but now that freedom seems glamorous. Why didn’t you appreciate it when you had it?

While not all women may struggle with these thoughts, I suspect that many do. And when we struggle with these doubts, we are sabotaged all the more by an anemic theology that emphasizes beauty but says little about the ugliness of suffering. Yes, God heals us and restores us, pursues us and ravishes us. But the call to follow Christ is also a call to suffer. It is a call to take up your cross and follow Him. Suffering is not a possibility but a guarantee, and this aspect of discipleship is generally glossed over when it coms to conversations about beauty.

The Christian life is not all about beauty. Beauty is good, but feeling beautiful is not God’s ultimate goal for your life. His ultimate goal for you is holiness, and that may come as a result of very ugly circumstances. We must therefore be wary of making beauty, a partial good, into a total good. If you are motivated by the pursuit of the beautiful life, then you will abandon whatever hinders your pursuit, whether it be your faith, or your marriage. So be sure that beauty has been properly prioritized. Beauty is good, but the total good, the first thing, is Christ. Christ, not beauty, must drive women’s discipleship.

Today I listened to my mom recount yet another story of a woman in her 40′s who decided she was tired of being a wife and mom, so she abandoned her kids to start living the single life again. Now she drives a trendy SUV and socializes with 20-somethings. Her kids are age 8 and 10.

Several months ago I wrote a post entitled Why Women Leave in which I contemplated the growing trend of women leaving their marriages. Since writing it, I’ve heard many more stories and I’ve continued to ponder this strange pattern. One the one hand, there are plenty of single women who are dying to get married, but on the other hand there are many women who are dying to get out of their marriages. What gives?

As I mentioned in the original post, there are a lot of reasons for this trend, many of which deal with unrealistic expectations of marriage. However, I’ve also begun to suspect some of this behavior is rooted in our culture’s conception of womanhood. In particular, I’ve pinpointed two particular areas of confusion and misdirection when it comes to understanding what it means to be a woman:

1. Independence from Men

2. A Preoccupation with Beauty

Both of these issues have repercussions that can negatively impact our marriages. In this post I’m going to examine the first point. I’ll examine the second in the next.

Independence from Men

To be perfectly honest, there’s a part of me that is definitely a feminist. If feminism means treating women as possessing equal value and granting them equal rights and opportunities in our society, then I am a feminist. Women should be able to vote. Women should be paid the same amount as their colleagues. To that end, I fully support feminism.

However, feminism has a tendency to go awry in so much as it values women more highly than men. To be fair, feminism has offered a much needed voice at times in history when women were treated more like property than people. But there is a temptation to swing too far in the opposite direction. Just the other day I read about a study funded by gay and lesbian activists in which the children of lesbian parents were compared with the children of heterosexual parents. Shockingly, the study concluded that children do better with two moms than children with a mom and a dad! The subtitle of the study might as well have been “Why We Don’t Need Men Anymore.”

More and more, strong womanhood has been equated with independence from men. To confess that men bring something to our culture that women do not is to somehow imply that women are weak or incomplete. So who needs them! We don’t need no stinkin men!

We see this “I am woman hear me roar” ideology espoused in shows like “Sex and the City.” Marriage is viewed as a kind of compromise or a limiting box. It is only truly valued by the Charlottes of the world who don’t have much personal ambition in life. But strong, adventurous women don’t need marriage, and they certainly don’t need men. They’ve got their girlfriends and their careers, and that’s all they need.

Or, you might watch a sitcom in which the beautiful, sassy smart wife is married to the chubby dufus of a husband. Her life is reduced to laundry and putting up with her husband’s latest hair-brained schemes. Her life is little more than a faded shadow of her previously glamourous, single self.

These are just two examples of the very clear message our culture is selling: Men will hold you back. They stand in the way of you and self-actualization. You can’t realize your potential with the dead weight of a husband slowing you down. Men are great accessories, but if they get in the way of your dreams or the glamourous life you KNOW you were destined to have, then kick ‘em to the curb.

This is the message that women are constantly being fed. And as a result, it’s affecting our marriages. The call of freedom can be intoxicating when marriage is a struggle, and the culture is whispering an oh-so familiar lie into women’s hearts: “Did God really say that? Does God really want you to give up your calling, your freedom, or your happiness to stay married?” And like Eve, many women conclude, “Of course not! My God wouldn’t say that!”

In response to this cultural trend, let us not be like the catty middle school girls who tear others down to build ourselves up. We need not denigrate men in order to affirm the value of woman. To do so betrays weakness, not strength. The position of true strength is not threatened by the strength of others.

As Christian women, we have two dogs in this fight. The first and most obvious is our marriages. If we do not affirm the value of men and esteem them as important contributors to our society, families, and lives, we can expect our marriages to suffer as a result. The devaluing of men is the perfect foothold for bitterness and discontent to set in when marriage is challenging.

But more importantly, the character of God is at stake. Scripture tells us that both women and men are made in His image. When we devalue men we belittle the image of God in them. When we question their value and purpose on earth, we question the God who created them.

With all of this in mind, be on guard against the messages you are consuming. How are they shaping the way you see men? How do they affect your relationship with your husband? Are they filling your heart with bitterness and ingratitude towards the men in your life? Are they making it difficult for you to worship God because of the ways He reveals Himself to us through the male gender? These are questions we need to be asking, because our marriages are clearly at stake.

Today is a very special day to me. Today my cousin, Kristen, is getting married.

Kristen was born exactly 9 days after me. As the only female grandchildren for the majority of our childhoods, we bonded together quickly. She has been much like a sister to me, and it’s been a blessing to grow up together.

We’ve seen each other through a lot, including our horribly awkward middle school years in which achieving a normal haircut, outfit, or personality was always way beyond our grasp. This photo should give you the idea:

All I can say about that picture is YIKES!

Years later, we presented a united front as the single women of the family after all of our brothers got married very young. We remained single for what probably seemed like forever to our families, but we were content in where God had us and we laughed our way through it. Who would have guessed that we would get married within a year of one another!

But perhaps the greatest blessing about our sisterhood is that God eventually knit our hearts together in Christ. As we grew older, we both became increasingly committed to the Lord, which has served as a new layer of intimacy for our relationship.

Last night as we talked about her coming wedding day, Kristen showed me a letter that she plans to give her fiancé today. It’s a letter she wrote to her future husband when she was 18 years old–11 years ago. What was remarkable about the letter was her profound focus on Christ at such a young age. She KNEW that her husband would be a godly man! But even more amazing was the promise she made to wait for him–both emotionally and physically. A promise she has kept.

We live in a world that increasingly treats the Christian calling as unrealistic. We are taught to believe that young people shouldn’t be expected to seek purity. It’s just not possible. But that kind of thinking just goes to show how unimaginative we are. Just because we don’t see it often, does not mean it is impossible. And my cousin is evidence of that. She is a woman of faith and virtue. She has stayed the course of Christian discipleship every since her teen years, and I know she will continue to do so in marriage. What an amazing testimony to single Christians out there! You CAN do it, and it is worth the wait!

So on this wonderful day, I want to affirm my cousin, Kristen, in the woman she is today. She is a woman of excellence, and the Kingdom of God will be even stronger a result of her union with Ben. There are many more things I could write about her, but on this most special day I think I will close with this verse from Proverbs 31:29-30:

Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all. Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

I love you, cuz!!!!

There is a Psalm that captures my imagination every time I read it. It’s Psalm 115, and in verses 4-8 we read about the consequences of looking to idols instead of God:

“Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.
They have mouths, but do not speak;
eyes but do not see.
They have ears but do not hear;
noses but do not smell.
They have hands but do not feel;
feet but do not walk;
and they do not make a sound in their throat.
Those who make them become like them;
so do all who trust in them.”

“Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.” Those are powerful, haunting words. Ever since I read them I have been praying for insight into their meaning for my own life, and I want to share it with you now.

Since reading these words, God has identified 2 key idols in my life (though they are countless more) that have shaped my identity as a result of “putting my trust in them.” The first is the way I look. Last night my husband and I talked about walking the line between looking good for him versus looking good for sinful reasons. Because it’s important for me to take care of myself and look good for my husband, I often allow this pure motive to disguise my impure motives. My more superficial or insecure motives slip in the back door under the excuse of pleasing my husband. But in reality, there is an idol there.

As I reflected on what the above Scripture means for my soul in this regard, I realized that when I make material things into an idol, I “become just like them.” That is to say, all glamour but no substance. The things I wear look pretty, but at the end of the day they’re just cotton, plastic or glass. What I wear may look pretty but only for a moment. That with which I adorn my body is only passing away because it’s not made of anything that lasts. It’s cheap and poorly made.

According to the above Scripture, I am becoming just like the adornments I just described. The more I put my trust in how I look, the more my identity will become like them. I will become superficial. My soul will abide in things that do not last. I may look glamorous, but the substance of my soul is cheap.

The second idol that God identified to me is my husband and my marriage. I had to think a little bit harder about what it means to “become like them” in regard to my husband. While it is certainly true that the two of us can become like one another in negative ways, pulling one another down instead of building one another up, I think the better interpretation here is that my identity becomes too intertwined with his. It’s not that I am literally turning into my husband, but that I cannot distinguish my own identity apart from him.

This becomes most noticeable when he hurts my feelings or disappoints me. It can be devastating, and because my identity is tied to his in an idolatrous way, I am wrecked by it. I have no resource for stepping outside of the situation and speaking, hearing, seeing and feeling like Christ because I am more tied to my husband than I am to Him. So while it is true that a husband and wife are to become one, that unity is to be sustained by Christ, not apart from him. From this perspective, there have been times when our union has gone rogue.

Those are just two of the countless other idols with which our identities get entwined. Our children, our careers, getting attention from the opposite sex, our abilities, the size and beauty of our house and even our hobbies can become idols that shape who we are instead of being shaped by Christ. So I challenge you to examine your own life in light of the above passage. What are your idols, and how are you becoming like them? This Scripture is a helpful reminder that worship is not simply a matter of God wanting out attention, but because what we worship determines our identities and He designed us to be like Him, not our impotent idols.

Recently I’ve been doing some investigative research into the male mind. What I’ve learned has important implications for my single readers, but it impacts married people as well. It all began a few months ago when I saw a movie with my husband in which a number of married men were discussing whether the “highlight reel” constituted cheating. I honestly wasn’t sure what they were talking about, so I brushed it off and never thought about it again.

Until last week. I was sitting in a waiting room so I picked up a magazine and began thumbing through it. I stumbled upon an article that was written by a man, explaining to women the phenomenon of the “highlight reel.” He referenced the movie that I’d seen several months prior, and he explained it like this:

The highlight reel is a series of visual memories of past intimate encounters with other women. Unfortunately, the highlight reel is most frequently used to stimulate a man when he is being intimate with his wife (or committed partner). In fact, the writer of the article (who was not a Christian) said that for most men, this practice is the rule, not the exception. And what was particularly interesting about his article is that he specified the reel’s “contents” as primarily being composed of memories from past relationships, not random visual images of women they’d seen on t.v.

After reading this article I decided to ask my own husband if this was true. Do men really do this? My husband confessed that it’s an ever-present temptation, but for men like him it is only that: a temptation. He works hard to guard against allowing those images to creep in when he is trying to focus on me alone. Even so, the temptation is there.

Having this information, I first wanted to share it with my single friends who are navigating the rough waters of physical intimacy before marriage. Until you have actually said the words “I do,” you don’t know if the person you are with is the person you will actually marry. Which means you risk featuring yourself on the highlight reel of some other person’s marriage. But even more troubling is that your physical intimacy before marriage will haunt you later on in your own marriage as well. For men, it is a constant struggle to command your thoughts and be present with your wife. For women, the memories of past physical relationships can also be a problem in the bedroom but in an entirely different way. Unlike men, who have to resist using these images to excite themselves, the memories of the past often have the reverse effect on a woman’s arousal: hitting the breaks.

So if you want to guard against the ghosts of boyfriends and girlfriends past, watch what you do now. You cannot unsee things. Once they enter your brain, they are there forever.

And in case it’s unclear why this is such a big deal, the first reason is obvious–it is extremely hurtful if your partner is mentally with someone else while you are together. But the main reason the highlight reel is so dangerous is that it hinders intimacy. Not only does it bring other people into a space that is designed for a husband and wife to share alone, but it also invites a standard of comparison. Intimacy cannot thrive if a man (or woman) is constantly comparing their spouse to past partners, even if the comparison is unintentional.

Unlike the writer of the article, who felt this phenomenon was completely natural and that us women should not be threatened by it, he is sorely mistaken, if not grossly naive. The highlight reel is just one example of why sin is so dangerous. It is not a finite action that we can tuck away and forget about when it’s over. Sin is like a virus that affects every part of your life, and though it may sometimes lie dormant for a time, it will always cause sickness and harm. So if you’re single, guard your future marriage today. And if you’re married, encourage your husband in this battle by guarding what you watch on t.v. and in movies. No matter where you are on the relationship spectrum, be the kind of sister in Christ who encourages her brothers to think only on that which is noble, right, pure, lovely, and admirable. (Phil. 4:8) It is a call that begins in singleness, but will continue the rest of your life.

After my last post I received a comment that I really want to respond to because it raised an excellent question: How does female leadership relate to submission in Christian marriage? The commenter also wondered if our constructs of marriage are at all culturally based. These are truly important questions, and the answer to the second one is both a yes and a no.

One of the dangers of applying a passage of Scripture incorrectly is that it often leads people to conclude that the passage itself is altogether invalid. This has often been the case with Bible verses on submission and roles within marriage. These verses are not only universally true, but are beneficial for marriage (and women, I might add!), however our interpretations of them have often been so mangled by culture that it is tough to distinguish one from the other.

That said, I want to back up and briefly and explain what marriage should look like according to the Bible. And by that I mean I am going to spend little time talking about application (which tends to be more cultural) and most of my time talking about purpose. First I’ll begin with male headship and the spiritual leadership of men, and then I’ll take a look at what this means for women.

Male Headship

For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. – Ephesians 5:23

The idea that the husband is to be the “head” of the home has often been misinterpreted as a type of power play. However, to interpret this verse in such a manner is to totally ignore the majority of the verse. We can only have a proper understanding of “head” by looking at Christ. And what do we see? We see a kind of leadership that is exercised through service and sacrifice. In other words, men signify themselves as head of the home by choosing to lay themselves down for their family, sometimes in ways that can be humiliating.

(I emphasized the word “choosing” because it is not the job of the wife to force humility upon her husband. Rather, there are times when a husband may choose to serve his wife in ways that the world would tell him he is above doing, or that it is his wife’s job to do, such as cooking meals, changing dirty diapers, etc.)

The second implication of this verse is that men are to exercise a type of spiritual leadership that models Christ’s example to the church. While the analogy is not a perfect one since men are not divine, and both the husband and wife should seek to model Christ through their lives, it is the relationship between Christ and the church that we are nevertheless seeking to display. What this means is that the husband is given the responsibility for setting the spiritual pace of the relationship. In the same way that the church looks to Christ as an example, women should marry men to whom they can look up to as an example. If the husband is not a Christian or is less mature than his wife, then the couple will fail to demonstrate this relationship between Christ and the church as taught in Scripture.

That is not to say that the husband and wife cannot be equally mature in their faith. While my husband is certainly the spiritual leader, it’s not because he is necessarily more mature but because he works hard to be intentional about setting the spiritual climate and direction of our marriage. In addition to this, my husband primarily models his “headship” in the ways that he serves me. He puts my interests before his. He hops up to get me a glass of water so that I can stay in my seat. He cleans the dishes because he knows that I don’t like to. He empowers me in my calling to serve God. And he does all this, not because he’s “whipped,” not because he’s a doormat, and not because I demand to be treated like a princess, but because he desires to model Christ’s sacrificial love and service so radically that I will be encouraged all the more in my own love for Christ.

It is service and sacrifice, not absolute authority, that model Christ. While the world believes strength is displayed by force, Christ redefines strength as meekness, faith in God, and unconditional love. Any definition of headship that overlooks these attributes is definitively cultural.

Women’s Leadership

The other question of the commenter relates to women and leadership. Although we hear a lot of talk about men being the spiritual leaders, does this mean that women should not be leaders? Well as Paul would say, by no means!!! If you are a Christian, you are called to be a leader. You can either be a sheep and follow the cultural tide, or you can be a leader and stand against it. This leadership can manifest itself in different ways–from teaching a small group, to directing a ministry, to leading in mercy and compassion, or leading a person to Christ–but it is something that every single Christian is called to, regardless of gender.

The reason that male leadership is emphasized in marriage is because of the picture that marriages display. The ULTIMATE purpose of marriage, above ALL ELSE, is to model the relationship between Christ and the church. Why is this so important? Because most people don’t want to give up their lifestyles to follow Christ, so we model for them the freedom and joy that comes in submitting to one who loves you so much he will lay himself down for you. Our marriages can spark the imaginations of a people who cannot conceive of such a love.

And in response to one final question–Is there a time when men submit to women?–I would have to say yes. If a female police officer pulls a man over for speeding, he darn well better submit to her authority. There may also be times in a marriage when a husband chooses to submit to his wife in an area that he knows she is more knowledgeable about (If, for example, the wife has her MBA but the husband knows nothing about finance, he may defer to her on some financial matters).

There is not an exact formula (as I described in my last post), but Scripture gives a lot of helpful directives that we are wise to heed. The main goal is that the overriding picture of your marriage models the relationship between Christ and the church, the husband serving as the spiritual head and the woman honoring him as the church honors Christ. This requires that you first submit yourselves to God, setting your own agendas aside and seeking that which glorifies Him most greatly. You should be far more concerned with honoring God as much as possible than making sure you get yours.

And as a final caution to those of us who are married and are seeking to live this out, be careful about how you judge the marriages of others. It is all too easy to judge a marriage that looks different than your own, but we often deceive ourselves as to how profoundly the culture, and more importantly our pride, has influenced our own understandings of marriage and family. Do not forfeit the integrity of Scripture by condemning those whose marriages do not conform to yours. While Scripture has certainly given us boundaries, some are less clear than others, and we are all different parts of One Body seeking to honor God as best we know how.

Last week my husband’s small group discussed Ephesians 5 and they had a fascinating discussion about submission that I want to share with you today. The whole conversation began after reading verse 22–Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord–after which one of the group members asked the following insightful question:

“Is there ever a circumstance in which a woman should disobey this command?”

By this, he was asking whether a woman should submit to her husband even if he asks her to do something sinful or if he is abusing her.

I particularly like the wording of his question because it reveals a gaping hole in the way I have traditionally taught this passage. While Scripture does teach wives to submit to their husbands, it is also clear that a woman should not sin by bringing a third party into the bedroom, nor should she permit her husband to beat her or force himself upon her sexually. That said, I simply threw out Ephesians 5:22 if any of the above circumstances applied. Unfortunately in doing so, my interpretation implied a rather low view of Scripture–I essentially concluded that some Biblical commands trump this one.

Scripture, however, does not work that way. It does not contradict itself. Nor should any passage be interpreted in such a way that would either lead us to sin should we adhere to it perfectly, or simply be discarded at times.

With this in mind, there has to be a slightly more nuanced way of interpreting this passage, and my husband pointed out something that was very helpful to me. The context of this immediate passage begins in verse 15. Because a lot of Bible interpretations divide the paragraph up between verse 15 and verse 22, it doesn’t appear that the two are connected but they are. Verse 15 marks a major transition in Paul’s argument, which is followed by a series of commands, including verse 22.

And what does verse 15 say? “Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise.” The command to submit appears underneath this larger command to be wise. My husband therefore suggested that verse 15 should serve as the dominating paradigm of interpretation for the entire passage. In other words, the big picture of Paul’s message is to live wisely, in such a way that is conducive towards unity and a powerful witness. And one way that wives can do that is by honoring and respecting their husbands through the act of submission.

As humans, we like our teachings to be black and white. It’s easier that way. However this more nuanced approach to submission is necessary. By reading the passage within the larger context, women are advised to submit to their husbands, but they are also given the freedom to not submit when it is unwise to do so, without disobeying Scripture or flat-out contradicting Paul.

Does this give women license to submit when it convenient but resist their husbands when it’s not? Of course not. Submission is wise because it encourages your husband as a leader, even as he makes mistakes along the way. It also testifies to the relationship of sacrificial love and profound trust between Christ and the church. You should seek to model this relationship whenever possible. However, if your husband asks you to engage in a behavior that is a blatant contradiction of other parts of Scripture and will cause spiritual or physical harm to yourself, then it is clearly unwise to submit. To submit in such circumstances is to violate the heart of Paul’s message, as well as the heart of God.

Finally, this perspective reminds us that how we treat our husbands is not only in our hands, but a matter on which we’ll be held accountable. Wives are not to submit to their husbands simply because Scripture commands us to blindly obey, but because we are seeking to be women of wisdom. Submission is just one of the many ways that we can exercise wisdom in our marriages and our lives.

This week I learned a startling statistic about Facebook. According to a British newspaper, Facebook is “being blamed for an increasing number of marital breakdowns.”

The article goes on to explain that social networking websites create a greater source of temptation to cheat. Consider the following excerpt:

Mark Keenan, Managing Director of Divorce-Online said: “I had heard from my staff that there were a lot of people saying they had found out things about their partners on Facebook and I decided to see how prevalent it was I was really surprised to see 20 per cent of all the petitions containing references to Facebook.

Flirty emails and messages found on Facebook pages are increasingly being cited as evidence of unreasonable behaviour.

Although the above statistic has not been tested here in the States, I would not be surprised if the numbers were similar.

This information was a huge wake-up call for me. In fact, as soon as I heard it I called my husband and wanted to talk about it. We both have Facebook accounts, and we enjoy using it as a source for connecting with people, seeing pictures of happy milestones, etc. but I certainly do not value those things more than the health of my marriage.

After talking through it for awhile, we decided not to pull the plug just yet but we have set up some strict boundaries on how we use Facebook. If you are married and have not had this conversation with your spouse, I encourage you to do so. The temptation to check in on ex-boyfriends or former/current crushes is very great, and while the motives may initially be innocent, you have already crossed a line in doing so.

Facebook can be a good thing but it can also be abused, so do not become complacent. I hope the above statistics grabbed your attention the way they grabbed mine. I don’t want to be legalistic but I do want to be wise, and Facebook is certainly no exception.

If you and your spouse have set up some helpful boundaries for Facebook, or have decided to get off Facebook altogether, please feel free to share your thoughts here! I have no doubt other couples will benefit from your insights.

I can hardly believe it, but in less than a week Ike and I will hit the 7 month mark since our wedding! It’s gone by so fast and it’s been the best 7 months of my life!

It has, however, also led us to a new phase of our relationship. The last month or so has drawn us deeper into what I call the “sanctification phase” of marriage (though I’m not sure this phase ever officially ends).

We’re getting to the point where we’re both a bit on edge, and our little annoyances and quirks are grating on one another’s nerves. Take, for instance, the fact that Ike has had the song “Nothing But the Blood of Jesus” in his head for the last 4 days. I know this because he whistles it ALL THE TIME. A better women would recognize this as an opportunity to sing along and worship God while I work in my apartment.

You know when you think about it, marriage is kind of like a dog fight: You take two animals that, by nature, are predisposed to hurt one another and then you throw them into a confined space together where they inevitably duke it out.

Actually, before I single-handedly destroy all things romantic about marriage, let me rephrase that in a less appalling way: Marriage is kind of like a chemical reaction. You combine two combustible substances, they react (some more dramatically than others) and the result is an entirely new substance.

Hopefully you get the picture. Marriage can be tough at times. By definition, two sinners will never mix very well, but by the grace of God He transforms them into something new and beautiful in the process.

That said, as I work through my own sanctification and learn how to love my husband as best I can, I keep telling myself the following two things:

1. Sharon, get over yourself.

2. Jesus died on the cross for Ike’s sins, so stop trying to re-crucify them.

I think the first one is pretty straightforward, but let me elaborate on the second. On the rare occasions when Ike is the transgressor instead of me, it’s easy to feel self-righteous and bitter. It’s easy, not because Ike sins against me so frequently, but because I am so forgetful of God’s grace.

It’s funny how willingly I accept God’s forgiveness for my own sins, and how reluctantly I do the same for Ike. I act as if Christ didn’t already die for his sins, and I must somehow restore justice to the universe by giving him the silent treatment. Sometimes I treat him as if Christ’s atoning sacrifice does not apply.

But bestowing justice is not my job. Nor do I want the same unquenchable standard of justice applied to my own life.

The truth of the matter is that God knew both Ike and I would sin against each other many, many times. And that’s why he had to die. So rather than re-crucify each sin that is newly committed, why not rest in the justice and mercy that has already been accomplished for us?

Jesus died on the cross so that your husband wouldn’t have to. Bearing this truth in mind, I pray that my own actions will be that of a wife who reflects back to her husband the redemption accomplished on the cross. I also pray that I will not be the kind of woman who lives as though Christ’s sacrifice was not enough for my husband, or myself.

**And for the record, Sanctification Phase or not, my husband is incredible. I couldn’t be a more fortunate women!!