http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/jan2013/abigail11.htm

Dear Abigail:

Thanks for considering my comments and for your response.  Nothing in my article or in what follows is intended to give cover to husbands, Christian or otherwise, who refuse to love their wives as Christ loved the Church.

Jesus paid the ransom, the "bride price" for His church, but that was the starting point.  He also provides loving leadership, guidance and direction.  I don't believe His love is "cafeteria plan," nor do I believe it is subject to definition or modification by the church, or by us.  I believe that many men are willing to provide loving leadership and protection and all the rest, but the wives won't receive it.  They want "love" on their terms.  And one of their terms is "shared headship."

Marriage is not a partnership.  It is two people becoming one.  The one new person has ONE head; a two-headed person is a monstrosity.  This does not mean subservience, but it necessitates Biblical submission.

For all those readers who can't see this, or refuse to accept it (which I believe is most often the case), they will continue to look for an excuse in either the husband's alleged shortcomings or in 1 Cor. 16, incorrectly understood.  And their marriages will continue to founder as the blame-game continues.

Speaking of Ahab:

But there was no one like Ahab who sold himself to do wickedness in the sight of the LORD, because Jezebel his wife stirred him up.

And he behaved very abominably in following idols, according to all [that] the Amorites had done, whom the LORD had cast out before the children of Israel.

So it was, when Ahab heard those words, that he tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his body, and fasted and lay in sackcloth, and went about mourning.

And the word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying,

"See how Ahab has humbled himself before Me? Because he has humbled himself before Me, I will not bring the calamity in his days. In the days of his son I will bring the calamity on his house."
                                                                                  - 1 Kings 21:25-29

We can only wonder what it would have been like had not Jezebel "stirred him up."  We don't read about the "spirit of Ahab," nor does he, for all his nastiness, appear in the New Testament as a model of anything. 

Again, this does not justify lovelessness, bitterness, or any of the other wrongs that are properly the fault and responsibility of the husband.

The rubber is about to meet the road.  Men want respect; women want security.  Christian women should find their security in Christ and should realize it through their husbands.  Often, they instead seek security in "things" - career, possessions, and control.  These things are about to be stripped away, and then .... w e    s h a l l   s e e ! !

A Christian man is a man on a mission.  He has a purpose selected by God (some think man may participate in the selection) and his wife's role is to be his suitable helper.  She is assigned by God with the responsibility of helping him fulfill his purpose, not to find her own purpose that she may like better, and not to compete with him for leadership in the marriage.

Your understanding of the Ananias and Sapphira incident is a little imaginative.  She paid for her loyalty with her life?  And Peter, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, got it wrong??  She and her husband "agreed together" in this matter (Acts 5:9).  She was not the unwilling co-conspirator.  I encourage all to read the account and decide 1) whether Sapphira acted out of loyalty, and 2) whether this case illustrates a problem that resulted from Biblical submission.

You bring up a lot of examples that you seem to think are Biblical justification for women being in submission directly to God and leaving their husbands "out of the loop" (Abigail) or making decisions without their husband's participation (Hannah).  Neither of these women treated their husbands in a shabby or disrespectful way.  If you see these as Biblical examples for women being justified or receiving divine approbation for not submitting to their husbands, bring it up at the Bema seat.

I'm not going to respond point-for-point.  Christian marriage is a mess:  don't take my word for it, ask George Barna (quoted in The Kingdom That Turned the World Upside Down by David Bercot) who found that "the divorce rate among born-again American Christians was higher than the divorce rate among Americans as a whole."  Crenflo Dollar presents an unBiblical opinion; another hammer-blow to the foundation of Christian marriage.  I wonder what the divorce rate is in his congregation.

If it's your opinion that 1 Cor 11:3 is being misinterpreted and misapplied, that we each get our separate "marching orders" from God, that a man has his mission and a wife has hers, and that marriage is a "separate but equal" sort of arrangement, then continue on and let us know how it works out.  I didn't come here to argue or to tick anybody off.  We'll continue in this moral freefall, the "blame game" will go on, and we'll all be even more severely wounded when we hit bottom.

Very best,

Steve
Anakypto Forum