Cheryl Schatz

Kristen,
You said:

Logically, choosing not to force authority upon someone is not the same as not having authority.

Yes, you are right. However the question I still have is how do we know someone really has authority? With Christ we know that he has all enemies under his feet and he rules over them. He has authority to judge all lawbreakers whether they like it or not. Christ has true authority.

Now we know that each of us as believers also has authority. But what is that authority? We have authority over the earth and the animals and all spiritual authority that Christ gave us. But do we have authority to make decisions for other believers? If we did, they wouldn’t need to give us authority, we would already have it.

Mark shows us no way that we can tell that he truly has authority. We know that his wife gives him her own authority to make a decision, but we don’t see any authority that is inherent in him that would make it morally right to override his wife’s will.

Mark also has given us examples of how his wife has given him the right to make the final decision but he has not shown us through making those final decisions that he is sacrificing for his wife.

I think that however a husband and wife mutually decide to run their marriage should be up to them. After all if Mark were to sacrifice himself to make a final decision that would make them go his wife’s way, then what difference would that be to those marriages where sometimes it is the husband who submits to the wife’s desires? In the end it is the same thing. However if a wife gives the final decision to her husband and he uses that authority that she gives him to promote his own way every time, I would submit that she has given him the power to be selfish and I don’t think that should be something that is encouraged in men (or women!)