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Illustration: Love doesn’t henpeck
◆ Love is never rude. I saw a cartoon the other day of a great, big, aggressive, bossy woman and a little, tiny, henpecked man. They were going in to see the counselor. The great, big, bossy, aggressive lady points to the poor, little man and says to the counselor, “Knucklehead thinks we need counseling.” Knucklehead was right.
Love never treats a husband like that. Love is civil. Love regards his interests above our own, goes to bat for him. You go to bat for him with other people. That’s what “honor” and “prefer” also mean. A wife who respects and regards her husband never gossips or complains about him to her girl friends. I have been absolutely appalled at the sort of things I have heard in Christian women’s groups. If you’re going to respect your husband, you honor and affirm him. It doesn’t mean you always agree with him, but you value his opinion.
Are there limits to submission? What happens if I’m married to a man who bears not the slightest resemblance to Jesus? If he never nourishes or cherishes me? What if he dominates abuses, stifles, and destroys my self-worth? What if he’s bisexual and expects to continue a sexual relationship with me? If he’s sexually abusing my kids? If he forbids me to tell the kids the gospel but he tells them he believes Jesus Christ is the illegitimate son of a Jewish dancing girl? All those things have been described to me this year as I’ve talked to people. Does “in everything” mean everything?
Many people say there are no exceptions. Mike Griffith, principal of London Bible College, though, points out limitations for Christians: when the law of God contravenes the law of man, or when Scripture limits the authority of the person telling you what to do, we ought to obey God rather than man. Jesus said he warned us that children would have to stand up against parents and not submit to them if it came down to committing themselves to him. Submission does not mean submission to any old thing.
Most husbands don’t come into the category. To the ordinary, imperfect, selfish, sinning husband, an ordinary, imperfect, selfish, sinning wife should submit as she would to Christ. It’s not going to be perfect, but we can shoot for a target. We can decide to make a bad marriage better and a good marriage the best. The biggest problem is that we don’t want to. The old nature is standing up on the inside. We’re obsessed by that personal insistence that things go the way we want them to go. Usually, there isn’t a principle or moral issue involved. Submission becomes a matter of obedience to Christ.
IV. Relating Ephesians 5 to Marriage Today
Illustration: “Submission leads to liberty”
◆ So, how does this now relate to you and me in the twentieth century? I believe that true submission leads to liberty. Richard Foster says, “Submission leads to liberty, the liberty to be able to let go the terrible weight and burden of always needing to get my own way.” I believe submission is self-denial. It says, “My happiness does not depend on my getting what I want.”
I’d like to share where I am with arguments on both sides of this debate. I can see why kephale can mean both head as authority and rule and head as source and nourisher and cherisher. Scripture seems to put forward both ideas, and I cannot pull them both together. But I don’t need to because I accept both the concepts.
Just as I believe in predestination, I believe in free will. Sometimes I react as if I’m a Calvinist and God is sovereign. Other times, when I’m dealing with somebody I’m leading to Christ, I’m an Arminian, and I believe in their free will. I can’t pull the concepts together, but I don’t need to.
I don’t know whether Stuart’s my head in the sense of ruler or my head as the source. I do know he is my head, for the Scriptures tell me. I do know I am to submit to him, and that’s my choice. I have discovered that my choice of submission leads to contentment.
I’m blessed beyond measure to be Stuart’s wife because he is a man willing to listen to other biblical viewpoints than those he was raised with. Otherwise, I might be somewhere today sitting down on the outside but standing up on the inside, crying out for permission to be the woman God made me.
Stuart considers it his responsibility as my head to see to it that I am his equal. He’s nourished and cherished me. He’s provided the environment in which I could grow as a wife, mother, grandmother spiritual teacher, and a writer. A man who sees biblical headship as source is a mature man and a secure man. And a secure man is never threatened by his wife’s gifts. A man of quality is never threatened by a woman of equality.
By the same token, a woman of equality will never be a domineering, bossy person but rather one with a meek and gentle spirit. She’s a person who counts it all joy to submit.
In 2 Corinthians 9:7, Paul is talking about giving money. He says there are three ways to give. You can give grudgingly, of necessity, or hilariously—cheerfully. The word in Greek is hilaros. I have discovered I can submit grudgingly because I have to or because that is how it is. Or I can choose to submit first to Christ and then to my husband and then to you and then to my world, to my children, to my grandchildren, to the traffic man, to whomever I have to submit to. I can do it. It’s a hilarious thing. It’s freedom.
Sound Clip: Conclusion
Illustration: The Briscoes’ hilarious marriage
◆ Let me just give you one glimpse into that from a family letter that Stuart wrote this year to our friends around the world. It will give you a flavor of the hilarious submission that we enjoy together.
“Jill and I are still together and have no desire for anything else. She continues to lose her keys, worry a lot, run in circles, organize the family, overextend, laugh at herself, forget where she is, give people new names, dream up new ideas, enthuse people, confuse people, write a lot, talk a lot, pray a lot, and cook occasionally. In other words she’s had a perfectly normal year.
“I have been busy finding her keys, traveling, telling her where she is, finding her keys, restoring people’s original names, finding her keys again, thoroughly enjoying being with her, and eating her cooking.” At the end of the letter, he says, “I have to go. Jill has lost her keys and doesn’t know where she is.”
He’s given me freedom to run in circles and to organize the family, all sixteen of us, and to overextend and to laugh at myself and to dream up my new ideas and to enthuse people and write a lot and talk a lot and pray a lot, and he’s even forgiven me when I lose my keys over and over again.
One key we never lose is the key of our commitment to Christ and to each other. That key has unlocked the door for both of us to hilarious hupotaso. A selfless, giving life leads to the liberty of living, for husband and wife, a joyous death to selfishness, a yielded will. That gives new warmth and color to a marriage cold and plain. Hilarious hupotaso is the way to start again.
Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. Husbands, love your wives. Nourish and cherish them as Christ loved and cherished and gave himself for the church. To all of us: submit ye, one to another.
© 1993 Jill Briscoe
Preaching Today, Tape 117. To order this one tape or to place a subscription, call 1–877–247–4787 or visit www.preachingtoday.com.
Jill Briscoe is lay adviser to the women’s ministry at Elmbrook Church in Waukesha, Wisconsin, and a director of “Telling the Truth” media ministry. She has written more than 40 books and is editor of Just Between Us, a magazine for ministry wives and women in ministry.
https://biblia.com/books/ws-0-4835
https://www.youtube.com/@tellingthetruthwithstuarta5270/videos
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