Tiffany

RE Cheryl #186 you state

“Submitting to the Lord is clear – we are to submit “in the sincerity of heart”. In the same way we are to submit to our husbands in sincerity of heart. But the Bible doesn’t say that we are to submit as to Deity because that would be idolatry. In fact many women are guilty of idolatry by putting their husbands before the Lord.”

you also say that is how the church submits to Christ. Could you elaborate some on what you mean by sincerity of heart? I think I understand you but would rather make sure before addressing that specifically.

And you are quite right that we are not to submit as to deity. Truth is determined by Christ, not husbands. A husband can’t declare to a wife “I believe the sky appears green and you do too.” It is a truth that is outside of them, one which they need to find together ideally. Although the Bible makes provision if they don’t, telling believing wives to submit to unbelieving husbands. (I can’t copy and paste references now, I am one handed with a baby at the breast, I trust you know whereof I speak). So if the unbelieving wife is submitting it obviously isn’t to ideas of false truth. So how is she submitting? I think I know what your response will be but rather than assume I will wait for it.

You state

“But the question I would have for you, if a husband doesn’t take authority, then what good is his having authority? Most staunch complementarians will agree that the authority that belongs to the husband is a trump card that is to be pulled out whenever the wife’s will is different than the husband’s will. It (the authority) decides whose will, will be followed. If it (the authority) isn’t brought out then the marriage is following the egalitarian model for unused authority is no different in reality than no ultimate authority.”

I am going to perhaps confuse things here and say that the husbands authority isn’t a trump card. In fact I would like to ignore husbands for minute. I would put that the issue of submission between husband and wife isn’t primarily about resolving conflict. Looking at the church’s submission to Christ it doesn’t seem that solving a fight is even a consideration. Rather as His bride it is the churches desire to serve Him, please Him, become more like Him (and yes follow His commands, but that should be a delight, not a forcing of the will). So my observation is that if you have gotten to the point where a trump card is needed that both husband and wife have already screwed up. That neither are operating by the rule of Christian love, that the husband isn’t loving and sacrificing as Christ did and that the wife isn’t seeking to submit (honor, please, etc) as the church. Now in human relationships the likelihood is that they are going to screw up at some point and then you come up to this idea of a trump card and the husband taking authority, but I think this is a symptom of something already gone wrong. So of course if the husband uses said trump card it is going to hurt both him and his wife. (I expect that you are going to disagree rather strongly with this idea of submission. I am not trying to lay blame or suggest specific sin on the part of anyone here. But rather explain how I don’t see “can the husband use his trump card to take authority” to be a question that has to be answered if we correctly understand other things first.)

You are right that we are not under Christ’s authority as conquered subjects, but rather as joyful worshippers. And this is a oneness. But it is still oneness on Christ’s terms. He is still Lord. And there are still things required of us. It isn’t a 50/50 split oneness, or even a 51/49 split oneness, but a 100/0 split oneness. It is a good and joyful not forced freely given 100/0 split onesness. I think this is directly applicable to the marriage relationship. Much has been made of the idea that the mirror of the marriage of Christ and the church is about representing onessness. I am with you all on this, but I am putting forth that it is this sort of onessness and that is what the marriage relationship should reflect. Once again I suspect you are going to strongly disagree (and that there will be some on here who will be mad at the suggestion. I suspect that we agree on the type of oneness of Christ and the church but not on it’s applicability. If we don’t agree on the Christ/Church part I will elaborate with references. Once again I am one handed and trying to only type what I must.) I will wait however to answer specific objections as they come up rather than a pre-emptive strike.

I think that is all the main question you had for me in 186. If I missed something please feel free to point it out.

Gengwall (if you are reading this) I am going to try and answer your questions next.

To all- I had opportunity to respond today as much as I did due to my ankle. If I wake up tomorrow and can comfortably function as normal there is a good chance I won’t respond again until tomorrow evening. Just giving fair warning.