Cheryl Schatz

Continuing on with #175 Tiffany,
You said:

Usually by well meaning men who want to be good husbands so they try and find out “How can *I* be a good husband? What must *I* do?” But the thing is it isn’t about *I* doing anything. There isn’t some magical formula. We can’t pull ourselves up by our bootstraps to be better husbands/wives/Christians/friends/parents/children/etc.

Well if the man isn’t supposed to wonder what *he* can do to be a good husband and just lets the chips fall where they may then what kind of husband will *he* be if he isn’t trying? I get the feeling that you may be working around about to blame my husband for trying to hard. I won’t let anyone do that. He is a good man and if he did not have the wrong system that set him up for failure, our best friendship would have grown and developed to the place where we are now. No one is going to blame my husband. I know him better than those who might want to blame him. The fact is that there is no textbook that tells a husband how to operate within his “authority over” his wife. The only example is Jesus giving examples of not taking authority over his disciples and washing their feet and dying for them. If Jesus had meant for us to understand the the husband had this “higher” authority, then it is cruel to assume it while not giving any guidelines for the expression of overriding the wife’s will without taking away her personhood. If you think about this long and hard when you have a serious disagreement and your husband pulls out his trump card and rides over your will, I think that you might understand what we have been through. His good intentions is not enough. There has to be a rule book for godly rulership and there has to be a divine authority instituting this “higher” authority in marriage and my friend, it is just not there.

We can surrender to Christ as our Lord, be filled with the Spirit of the Triune God and live our lives enabled by His power, His grace, His truth. But it isn’t something we do.

It all comes back to Christ as Lord and what that means practically? How does that play out?

But all of that isn’t an earthy master and lord. We are not filled with our husband’s spirit and our lives enabled by his power. If we were we would be a spokesperson for him. We do not operate with the grace and truth of our husband. These are idolatrous things.

What we are is equals together in one body and we serve and love each other as one body without lordship.

This has already gotten quite long, and I must go to bed. Sorry I haven’t addressed the questions directed towards me. I might be able to tomorrow.

Again, I really appreciate you sticking around for this discussion. Having a complementarian woman here to help us understand how you think is important. It takes us back a bit to a time of pain, but that’s okay because we are free of that pain and we are free to work on oneness in a new and Spirit-filled way. Perhaps you can learn from us too.

One other thing that I should mention is that in love we can tell you that you can live out your marriage any way that you want. If hierarchy works for you and this is what you both decide on – you go for it. You are free to live this way.

Are we free to live the way of love without hierarchy? I think that the Bible is clear that love without hierarchy is not a sin. I think the only time that these issues are really vitally important is if love without hierarchy was a sin (it’s not) and if the love with hierarchy becomes a strain on the marriage. We are here for you and will never judge you. You can be loved just the way you are. If we are a help that’s great. If we are not, then that’s okay, we can patiently wait for those who do need a hand of love to untangle a mess that hierarchy brought to them.

Lots of love,
Cheryl