Cheryl Schatz

gengwall,

You take the position (correct me if I’m wrong) that the root cause for any reluctance to submit on the part of wives is primarily (and maybe even exclusively) cultural.

Perhaps I should start a post on Ephesians 5 sooner than later. We’ll see. However my position isn’t a cultural one. It is a position of reaction to mistreatment. This mistreatment has become cultural in many areas but it isn’t limited to culture. The treatment of women is part of the fall. It is a natural outgrowth of human nature that when one is freed from a bad position, that when one looks back at the bad times, one can feel disdain for that place and to never want to go back there again. So a modern day woman even that has been mistreated as if she was a second-class human, when she understands her place in Christ, she may not want to voluntarily place herself as a willing servant for the good of her husband because she had in the past been treated as if she was nothing more than a servant. I don’t know if you can understand that or not. I can because I have been there. And I have heard from many women who have been so hurt by their husbands that they fight against submission. They see it as a weakness instead of power under control. I have been shunned by some because I believe that submission is to be a characteristic of *all* believers. Submission isn’t being a door mat or allowing someone to control you or take away your person hood. It is a loving act to help another person by treating them as valuable and special in the Lord. So even though I would never go back to being a person with no options except the life of being controlled, I can embrace submission as a Christian because I now control what I give and I have choices.

However I do understand the feelings of women who have not yet come full circle. They can serve everyone but their husbands because they have been taken advantage of and treated as if their views are not important and as if they were created to be the maid, the doormat and the yes-girl. It is difficult for them to see their husbands as Christ sees them and they have not yet come to understand how empowering submission and love and acceptance can be. My life is very full when I can serve others. And I cannot withhold my service and care from my husband as I give it to others as well. When I see the writings of Paul in Ephesians 5, I look through the lens of what a woman might feel who has been hurt and taken advantage of and who has seen the green grass on the other side because of freedom in Christ. Without the instruction to willingly submit, she might naturally disdain her husband as if he had been her tormentor. When a wife has full healing in her life, she can forgive him for everything that he did that was wrong and she can treat him as a true brother in Christ. And as a true brother in Christ, she will give of her best to him in service.

I don’t know if this makes any sense to you or not, but it comes from my experience. More later in whatever I post on Ephesians 5.