Submission Of The Wife: How Serious A Matter Is It?

[Hidden In Him]

For one, God doesn't speak to me that way, and two, He will never do that for me. I am not the ministry type and God who knew me from the beginning knows that and will not call me for it.

Hypothetically, If he did, I am sure he would send my wife that same message so that we three are in agreement. If not, then I will drop it till we are in agreement. I will not do anything unless my wife agrees to it. Going against my wife is not the way I will be in my marriage.

I'm not trying to discourage your future marriage in any way shape or form, so I'll decline on pursuing this line of questioning. I just wanted to address a subject that many Christian men have not thought through before they married, and lived to regret it.

Very best wishes to you, sincerely.
- H

 

[Hidden In Him]

Well that’s hardly fair.

 

[Naomanos]

I'm not trying to discourage your future marriage in any way shape or form, so I'll decline on pursuing this line of questioning. I just wanted to address a subject that many Christian men have not thought through before they married, and lived to regret it.

Very best wishes to you, sincerely.
- H

Trust me, you would not discourage me in the least. If I don't like what you have to say, I will simply ignore what you are saying.

 

[stunnedbygrace]

For one, God doesn't speak to me that way,

He doesn’t speak to me that way either. It causes me to have to walk by trust and make my decisions with the trust that He’s guiding/ordering my steps. And I recently made a decision and then it didn’t work out, and I just take that as Him too. It’s quite restful.

 

[Naomanos]

It causes me to have to walk by trust and make my decisions with the trust that He’s guiding/ordering my steps.

Exactly!

 

[Mink57]

See, then how to works is you present a counter-exegesis to mine showing why it was wrong. You're just rolling passed it like it wasn't there.

Oh, NOW I see it! How'd I miss that?

So, what you did in post#8, is to use a bible version that applied 5:21, "submit(ting) to one another..." to the previous verses. Interesting.
I went to BibleHub, and saw that there are several bible versions that do the same thing.

Of course, this has sent me on my own research into this matter, one that I've been tackling for about 6 hours. I doubt I'll be able to present any counter-argument. At least, not TODAY.

I kinda hate to state the obvious here, and I'm assuming you likely don't need any reminders at this point, but if the above is true then don't you think you made a colossal mistake from the outset; one in direct conflict with Paul's teaching? How can one marry an unbeliever and not expect it to undermine the entire teaching? You can't marry an agnostic and expect him to manifest the Spirit of God to you, or reflect Lord Jesus Christ to you in marriage, can you?

In my defense, Your Honor p), back then, I wasn't nearly as into my own religion as I was later on! Even though I had a Bible, I didn't really read it all that often. By the time I did get more into it, well...

Maybe so, but now you can't go letting the sinners become the representatives of what Christianity is. You have to focus on the saints or your whole perception and presentation of the faith and its doctrines become kinda skewed.

I agree with you, but I also remind myself that many of the saints, including Paul, were once sinners.



No mercy! I sentence you to give me responses in perpetuity, so help me God.

[/QUOTE]
Well, if *you* won't show me mercy, perhaps Jesus will!

 

[marks]

Hmm…I wonder if God would take desire to remarry from someone and then…tell them to marry….that would be odd…
And He would have to speak in a great thundering and unmistakable voice for me to do it!

To everything there is a season. Yes, He can remove the desire, and perhaps only until the timing is His.

Much love!

 

[Hidden In Him]

So, what you did in post#8, is to use a bible version that applied 5:21, "submit(ting) to one another..." to the previous verses. Interesting.
I went to BibleHub, and saw that there are several bible versions that do the same thing.

That's correct. Generally speaking, Paul's letters were written to churches concerning how they should conduct themselves collectively, including during services, and the same was true of Ephesians. V.18-21 was addressed to the church as a whole, whereas (by contrast) v.22 begins a section addressed specifically to husbands and wives.

18 And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, 19 speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing (i.e. during services) and making melody in your heart to the Lord, 20 giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another in the fear of God.

 

[Grailhunter]

You are implying that Christ Jesus didn't have a Jewish background.

LOL Are you being funny?

The problem with positions like yours, Grailhunter, is that you assume the Holy Spirit was not speaking and teaching through the church. If He was not teaching through the apostles, why are we to assume He is teaching through you now?

He was speaking through the Apostles....New Testament. But it just was not the time to address some topics.
And the Holy Spirit did / does speak through the church, that is why we have wedding ceremonies now.
And why we are not still practicing polygamy and concubinage.
The Protestant churches got rid of a lot of the Catholic silliness.

Slavery took a war to stop....here in America at least. That was a social thing as was women's rights.

LOL Am I teaching? Not a preacher. Johnny Appleseed of truth.....all this I have pointed out can be looked up. Just that simple.

 

[Mink57]

That's correct. Generally speaking, Paul's letters were written to churches concerning how they should conduct themselves collectively, including during services, and the same was true of Ephesians. V.18-21 was addressed to the church as a whole, whereas (by contrast) v.22 begins a section addressed specifically to husbands and wives.

18 And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, 19 speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing (i.e. during services) and making melody in your heart to the Lord, 20 giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another in the fear of God.

I'm not 100% sure about that. This is why I've been spending a good portion of the day doing research on it. Fascinating stuff. Apparently, 5:21 has been a hotly debated issue for quite some time.

My research on it is far from complete. But so far, I see that part of the problem is how the original text was written. In Greek...all caps...no punctuation...no word divisions...no sentence divisions...no paragraph divisions. JUSTLIKEONEBIGLONGRUNONSENTENCE

I also see that the original word in Greek was "hypotasso"...formed from two words: "Hypo" (under) and "tasso" (arrangement). And when Jerome translated the Greek text into Latin, he used the word "subiecti"...which seems to mean, "having been placed or brought under."

That's as far as I've gotten. Onward to do some more research on bible grammar...

...which means, you may never see me again.

 

[Grailhunter]

You are implying that Christ Jesus didn't have a Jewish background.

The problem with positions like yours, Grailhunter, is that you assume the Holy Spirit was not speaking and teaching through the church. If He was not teaching through the apostles, why are we to assume He is teaching through you now?

How does God get things done? How does God change things or make corrections and are they corrections or just a change?

Christ made corrections or changes to the Mosaic Law. Where parts of Law viable in the Old Testament but not viable in the New Testament. Eventually the Mosaic Law was not valid for Christians. That was a change....and there was a lot reasons for that change. Was part of it a change of character and emphases between the Old Testament and New Testament.

Things have changed after the close of the biblical era......and some of that change was done by people....
But that was how it was done in the Old Testament. God would assign champions to get what He wanted done.
In the New Testament when Yeshua wanted to spread the Gospel He chose people.
This type of thing continues on after the close of the Bible.

Now we can talk about the history of the church for good and bad....but most of it involves people.

 

[stunnedbygrace]

Christ made corrections or changes to the Mosaic Law.

He did…? I see where He expounded on it correctly, but He also said not a single part of it was done away with. I might not be able to see the spirit of all of it (and God did give some laws that weren’t good for them but necessary because of hardness of heart) but it IS spirit and has more meaning in spirit than we understand. We have a default setting back to the letter but that doesn’t mean the law is not spiritual and good. I have seen the spirit of some of it. Not much, but some.

 

[Mink57]

There ya go getting into the languages...all good stuff.
The Hebrew is the one that is all caps. The Greek had different grammatical rules about capitalization and lower case. And the Greek used influenced definitions. Meaning that the meaning of a word can be influenced by other words in the sentence and or the topic.
The Torah was written as one continuous word.....not much of the rest of the Old Testament. And spaces were not always used between words....line and dots were also used.

I'm looking at this source right now that says, "Koine Greek was the language used by writers of the Old Testament Greek Septuagint and the Greek New Testament. The original Greek New Testament was written in all capital letters, without spaces, punctuation, accents or diacritical marks.

A major contribution of Greek culture was the addition of vowels to the development of our alphabet."
THE GREEK ALPHABET (biblescripture.net)

I get what you mean by the "meaning of a word can be influenced by other words in the sentence and or the topic." I also understand that a word back then can have 'evolved' to have a different meaning over the years. For example, the word "submit" TODAY (as a verb) can mean more along the lines of "obedience"; whereas, when it was first coined, it may have meant more like, being 'covered' under someone's 'authority.'

The more I delve into this stuff, the more interesting it becomes!

 

[Wynona]

Ok, this thread may sound archaic to some, but I'm not addressing the unsaved but the saved in this thread.

How serious an issue is it with God if a Christian wife doesn't submit to her husband? Does it bring judgment? Keep in mind that I am NOT talking about a wife needing to submit to her husband's every whim, or become a mere slave in the marriage without any mind of her own. I am simply talking about how when it comes to tough decisions, where headship is in question and someone has to have the final say, that the husband needs to be the one who makes the final determination, especially where making spiritual decisions are concerned.

I offer the following case in point as evidence for it. The impetus for this thread was something a friend recently sent me about a dream her husband had concerning her mother.

It went like this:

He was at my parents' house. He saw his brother in laws but didn't see my siblings. He saw women from a church we used to attend that my parents are still attending. They said, "It's sad to hear about the passing of your mother-in-law." And he agreed, it was sad. They said, "It's too bad she died of prostate cancer."

As she shared with me, prostrate cancer is a man's disease, possible also in women but very rare. I told her the dream likely meant her mother was in danger of coming under judgment from God (an illness of some kind) for "taking too much of a man's role in life," and that it was in some sense connected to the sin she might come under judgement for; that the imagery suggested "her personality is unyielding" in "insisting on having things her way rather than His," which in the eyes of God becomes a serious matter, especially when you are taking the spiritual welfare of others into your own hands unjustly.

She sent back that her mother did indeed take on the man's role in her marriage from early on, and not only began handling the finances but deciding on church matters, and that he simply let her.

My belief is that when we get badly out of line with His will and enter into direct disobedience to His word, judgment can come to correct things. Again, concerning the matter of submission in the home, I am not some wife-beating dictator who thinks women aren't as "intelligent" as men are, so that's not where my position is coming from here. She also mentioned how her mother handles the finances, and I said that sometimes the wife is just better with numbers and keeping records so there's no harm in that, but that it's when she assumes headship over the marriage that the problems will come. My wife handles most of our bills in our marriage and keeps all the files, but she is not the spiritual head of the household.

Thoughts are welcomed, but keep it courteous and respectful. I have great respect for women and as a rule tend to prefer their company over men. I don't think there is any definition in scripture about "superiority" outside the marriage relationship. I simply think that inside the marriage a man and woman are to reflect the relationship between Christ and His bride, and there the Lord is the One in charge.

God bless, and thank you for reading
Hidden In Him

Hi, Hidden in Him.

I believe God will hold wives accountable for how they treat their husbands. I believe Scriptures says that the marriage roles are to be lived out so that "the gospel is not maligned."

When wives assume the husband's role, act disrespectfully, tear down their husbands in public or in private, refuse to submit themselves, the way of Christ is essentially made out to be weak and inconsequential.

There are consequences to all sin, but being rebellious as a wife can leave an unbalanced legacy. It can plant the wrong ideas in the children's heads about how things should go and even the character of men in general and how trustworthy they are.

I was taught that I have to fend for myself because I couldn't rely on a man to take care of me, thus I tried to shoehorn a me-centered independent mindset into the early years of my marriage while trying to submit. It didn't go well and I had to change that mindset.

The truth is, a good man can and should be trusted with great responsibility. It's how they become great leaders in marriage, family, and the world. If you marry a good man, you shouldn't think that you have to fend for yourself.

 

[Grailhunter]

I'm looking at this source right now that says, "Koine Greek was the language used by writers of the Old Testament Greek Septuagint and the Greek New Testament. The original Greek New Testament was written in all capital letters, without spaces, punctuation, accents or diacritical marks.

I stand corrected.

 

[Grailhunter]

The more I delve into this stuff, the more interesting it becomes!

It is good stuff

 

[Enoch111]

The original Greek New Testament was written in all capital letters, without spaces, punctuation, accents or diacritical marks.

The majority of Greek manuscripts (the minuscules) are NOT written in capitals. Only the "Uncials".

 

[Hidden In Him]

Hi, Hidden in Him.

I believe God will hold wives accountable for how they treat their husbands. I believe Scriptures says that the marriage roles are to be lived out so that "the gospel is not maligned."

When wives assume the husband's role, act disrespectfully, tear down their husbands in public or in private, refuse to submit themselves, the way of Christ is essentially made out to be weak and inconsequential.

There are consequences to all sin, but being rebellious as a wife can leave an unbalanced legacy. It can plant the wrong ideas in the children's heads about how things should go and even the character of men in general and how trustworthy they are.

I was taught that I have to fend for myself because I couldn't rely on a man to take care of me, thus I tried to shoehorn a me-centered independent mindset into the early years of my marriage while trying to submit. It didn't go well and I had to change that mindset.

The truth is, a good man can and should be trusted with great responsibility. It's how they become great leaders in marriage, family, and the world. If you marry a good man, you shouldn't think that you have to fend for yourself.

This is a truly wonderful post, sister, and epitomizes the Christian Spirit regarding those in authority. Christians were commanded to even honor the secular authorities in power, and pray for them. How much more so those God had given charge over them, whether in church or in the home.

It is not easy nor natural for men to honor those in authority over them. It is a work of the Spirit in someone's life, as you say. This is obvious from passages like 1 Timothy 6, where Paul urged, "Let as many bondservants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and His doctrine may not be blasphemed." The ability to do good even to those who were lording over you was a manifestation of the Holy Spirit in a person's life, and why he said in another place:

Servants, be submitted to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh. 19 For this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully. 20 For what credit is it if when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you endure it patiently, this is commendable before God. 21 For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps: 22 “Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth”; 23 who when He was reviled did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously.

This is going deeper than many of us want to go IMO, and runs completely contrary to what the flesh would do. It is a work of God. You are to be commended for the work the Holy Spirit has done in your life. I pray I can follow the same example.

God bless, and thank you for that beautiful post.

 

[Hidden In Him]

I'm looking at this source right now that says, "Koine Greek was the language used by writers of the Old Testament Greek Septuagint and the Greek New Testament. The original Greek New Testament was written in all capital letters, without spaces, punctuation, accents or diacritical marks.

A major contribution of Greek culture was the addition of vowels to the development of our alphabet."
THE GREEK ALPHABET (biblescripture.net)

Good for you for looking into original languages.

I'm not about to get into it with Enoch as he gets all upset when you are discussing this particular subject matter, but your statement was actually correct. The earliest NT texts were in majuscule. Alexandrinus, which is favored by most modern scholarship and which I also favor though I came to it through my own study, is predominantly found in majuscule (Papyri and Uncials). Only a relative few are found in minuscule. It is only in later texts where the minuscules dominate, but the earliest were mostly written in capital letters.

 

[Hidden In Him]

I'm looking at this source right now that says, "Koine Greek was the language used by writers of the Old Testament Greek Septuagint and the Greek New Testament. The original Greek New Testament was written in all capital letters, without spaces, punctuation, accents or diacritical marks.

A major contribution of Greek culture was the addition of vowels to the development of our alphabet."
THE GREEK ALPHABET (biblescripture.net)

Papyri: 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 39, 40, 43, 44, 49, 51, 53, 55, 56, 57, 61, 62, 64, 65, 70, 71, 74, 77, 78, 79, 80 (?), 81, 82, 85 (?), 86, 87, 90, 91, 92, 95, 100, 104, 106, 107, 108, 110, 111, 115, 122.

Uncials: Codex Coislinianus, Porphyrianus (except Acts, Rev), Dublinensis, Sangallensis (only in Mark), Zacynthius, Athous Lavrensis (in Mark and Cath. epistles), Vaticanus 2061, 059, 068, 070, 071, 073, 076, 077, 081, 083, 085, 087, 088, 089, 091, 093 (except Acts), 094, 096, 098, 0101, 0102, 0108, 0111, 0114, 0129, 0142, 0155, 0156, 0162, 0167, 0172, 0173, 0175, 0181, 0183, 0184, 0185, 0189, 0201, 0204, 0205, 0207, 0223, 0225, 0232, 0234, 0240, 0243, 0244, 0245, 0247, 0254, 0270, 0271, 0274.

Alexandrian text-type - Wikipedia.