Enough of this frivolity; back into the theocratic trenches. Back to the anti-feminist “Biblical” reactionaries. It’s time to wade into The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.
There is One Woman’s Wrestling Match with Submission, Part IV. Yes, part 4 – we want to be thorough about our wrestling matches with submission (provided, of course, we end up by submitting).
Christ’s purpose and joy was to glorify his Father, and he did this by submitting to him, thus elevating submission and the role of a servant for all time. The Holy Spirit, for his part, was to glorify Christ. If God gives me, as a woman, a task, that is the place and position from which he wants me to glorify him. His intention is that my position of submission to my husband would bring glory to God. And not only to him – ‘The woman,’ wrote the apostle Paul in I Corinthians 11:7, ‘is the glory of man.’ What if God has glory in store as I joyfully submit to my husband?
Yes but why? Why as a woman? Why not the other way around? Why not alternating – man submits on Tuesday Thursday and Saturday, woman submits on Monday Wednesday and Friday; on Sunday the whole household submits to the cat.
Well no doubt she explained all that in parts 1-3, and I’m just too unsubmissive to go and find out. Very well: your submission to your husband would bring glory to god. If you say so.
Now I am going to play devil’s advocate for a little bit. What if, after all, the apostles Paul and Peter did not really mean that a wife should submit to her husband? What if-after all-I have been living under an undue stricture? What have I lost -my pride? But is that not what I am supposed to lose? What about my identity? But does not the New Testament teach me that my identity is in Christ? What about possibilities for self-development? Helping one’s husband obey and rule will lead to plenty of self-development, I’ve noticed, without even looking for it-whether or not it is the sort I had in mind.
No this isn’t working, because there it is again – why is it just the woman who is supposed to lose her pride and find her identity in Christ and get plenty of self-development from helping her spouse?
She doesn’t say; instead she says she did it rong.
I had said I believed in submission – and I came to believe in it more, not less – but I had not been living as a truly submissive wife. I recognized that I had not been honoring and respecting Trent as my head when it did not fit with my personal ideas. I had not let him truly lead me when I thought I knew better. That gets to the crux of the matter, I suppose. I went to him and asked his forgiveness. He forgave me.
Yes, that gets to the crux of the matter, and you took the wrong arm of the crux.
So that’s that trench waded into for a moment. Back to light and fresh air now.