gengwall

Hi Mark. I agree with Cheryl in comment 79 to a great degree*. That is, I agree that Paul is addressing gender specific problem areas. what is important to note is that just because wives are told to submit and husbands to love, that doesn’t mean that husbands aren’t ever to submit any more than it means wives aren’t ever to love. Do you see the parallelism? Paul’s instructions are not for one gender to universally and unilaterally do one thing while the other gender does another. Submission and love are to be characteristics of all believers toward each other. But, and it is a big but, the dynamics are such in the unique relationship of marriage that each gender needs extra instruction, or, might I say, encouragement, to address areas they are weak in when it comes to marriage under a fallen world. Such instruction would have never been necessary in the pre fall world. But the fall has made such instruction essential.

*The small quibble that Cheryl and I have deals with the cause of the female state of resistance to free submission. Whereas Cheryl believes the resistance of wives to free submission is culturally based (and is therefore somewhat impermanent), I believe it goes all the way back to the fall (and is therefore a permanent condition). It is a small difference that doesn’t detract at all from the reason Paul gives his instructions in such a gender specific way.