Tiffany

(this will be my last big post. I will gladly answer and clarifying questions about what I have written but I need to be wrapping upmy end of things here.)

Cheryl said

Pastor Dave, you are a gem of the gems. I wish that you would create a seminar teaching men how to love and sacrifice for their wives by putting them first. If you could teach these godly men how God really wants them to see their wives as Christ sees the church, I don’t think there would ever be a problem in our marriages as we submit to receiving all that our husbands have to gift us with!

Kristen said

Dave, I have to say you are an amazing example of following Ephesians 5. You could have just jostled your wife and told her the baby was crying (many husbands would have), but instead you laid down your own needs and sacrificed for her. You nurtured and cared for her like your own body (because I’m sure your own body would rather have stayed in bed!). You loved your wife more than yourself, just as Christ loves the church. I’m totally impressed!

Let me add my praise for Dave! This is indeed exactly how a husband should respond to his wife exercising his authority in a Christ like manner to love her, nourish her, and care for her. This is a perfect example of “my life for yours.”

I am a little confused by one thing though- is this not normative? (please don’t misunderstand me, I am not saying that by something being normative that it isn’t praise worthy. It is. Self sacrificing love even when normative certainly is a praiseworthy thing. Just want to be abundantly clear on that point. I give big large props to Dave for these actions). But rather this is something my husband does as well (in addition to getting up early to work before anyone else gets up so he can go into work later and be there to make breakfast for our children and let me sleep as long as possible, and then staying up late most nights to work as well to make up for the frequency he comes home early when I am ill.) And this is the most natural enactment of our theology of the husband/wife relationship. This is the practical example everyone has been wanting from me for how the Biblical authority of my husband is lived out in our house daily.

I guess in summary my confusion is, that if this isn’t normative for egalitarian marriages, then why should I consider your doctrine? And if it is normative, why the surprise and the suggestion that many husbands wouldn’t have done this and need to learn the lesson?