We have started a 'Read the Bible in a Year' plan with the kids. I thought it would be pretty cool for them to be able to say that they have read the whole Bible and pretty cool for us to be able to say we read it to them. You naturally start in Genesis 1: "In the Beginning....". We read through creation days 1 to 6, God resting on the 7th. Chapter 2 speaks of the Garden and where he put man. Then I noticed something for the first time in this very familiar text. In Genesis 2:16-17 God gives the command to Adam not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Wait a minute, where is Eve? She is the one who disobeys and is 'tricked' by Satan to break God's command. We tend to pin the entire fall of man on Eve, but think about it, she wasn't even created until God puts Adam into a deep sleep and forms her from his rib in verse 22!
When we read on to Chapter 3 we see Eve falling for the trick, "Did God really say, You must not eat from it?" She eats, gives it to Adam- he eats, and get this...."He was WITH HER!" (verse 6) They sew together a quick covering from fig leaves, then they hid from God. When God confronts them they point at each other, Adam blames 'the woman' and the woman says 'the devil made me do it!' They are equally punished and equally held accountable. Finger pointing doesn't work with the God of all Creation.
I think it is safe to say that when we don't fulfill our God defined roles we are open to falling. God made everything with order, including limits and boundaries. Man was created to rule and subdue the creation God had made and was told to obey it God's way. Woman was made to help man with the monumental task. God called it all good. It was not a flawed plan, it was good. God called them one flesh and (saw them equal) with different roles. The Husband loves, leads and protects wife; wife submits and respects husband. (Ephesians 5:22-33)
Submission can bite us in the modern day. Women don't even really like to say the word, type it, or especially discuss it! I am about as strong willed as the Lord makes them and I was raised by a very independent woman and passive father. Submission was as foreign of a concept to me as nuclear science and yet, I have made peace with it :)
God's design for the man-woman relationship is good. Man is the one who distorts it. I had a boyfriend in college who pretended to be godly. He took me to church with him on Sunday like a good boy and proceeded to sin the rest of the week. He would sit in the pew and point with authority and gloat to Ephesians 5:22, 'Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.' He would scold me for not being submissive and obedient. It never even occurred to me that he wasn't my husband and I wasn't a wife yet! After I moved onto a healthy relationship and did become a godly wife, I was totally against the concept of submission because of the distortion it had become to me. As I matured I was surprised by the following verses of Ephesians 5 detailing the relationship of husband and wife, especially the husband's role. (You see, I never got that far before, because I would slam the Bible closed at the first part!)
Ephesians 5:23- 31 says, "For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds it and cares for it, just as Christ does the church--for we are members of his body. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."
God sees us as equal in the husband-wife relationship. He calls the woman to submit, because that was the design. It doesn't mean she isn't smart enough or strong enough. We were designed to do different things and in different ways, yet called to unity and wholeness as a couple. When we are standing face to face with the Lord and He asks us "Why did you........?" finger pointing isn't going to get us out of it!
I have had many women ask me questions like these:
"Do I really have to submit to my husband?" No, you don't. BUT, when you don't you leave yourself open for the craftiness of the enemy, just as Eve did.
"What if he won't lead and I have nothing to submit to?" Pray. Ask God to help you take a step back so that your husband can take the step forward. Pray that the passive nature our culture has bred into our boys and feminism into our girls will be overcome with the Truth.
1 Peter 3:1-2 says, "Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives."
"Do I have a say at all or am I subject to his every whim?" Yes, you have a say, but he has the final decision. God made you a team. He fully expects you to share your thoughts and opinions with your husband. We are not called to be doormats, but to be support to our husband. 1 Corinthians 11:11-12 says, "In the Lord, however, woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God."
Submission may be the dirty word in our world today, but with God's help we can understand it, apply it and strengthen our marriage by returning to God's original design for husband and wife, and it is very good.
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