Submission

Status
Not open for further replies.
Simply put, taking abuse is not an act of submission. It puts your life and health in danger.

Really, this logic and this misunderstanding of submission will lead to a wife thinking it is her duty to sit by and watch while the husband beats the kids. If she cannot intervene for herself and must just take it as an act of submission then she would be just as wrong to try and protect her children. If the husband, in this case, is determined to abuse then to submit to abuse (which simply and plainly cannot be done, you do not submit to abuse) is to allow the husband to beat whomever he desires. And to try to stop him would be equated with rebellion and lack of submission.

This case cannot be supported by Scripture because the Bible never equates being persecuted or abused with the role of a wife in submission to her husband. Submission has nothing to do with allowing the "head" to do whatever he wants. If he sins, it is not an act of submission to be on the receiving end of that sin.

Bottom line - this exposes a very serious misunderstanding of what it means to submit.

Phillip

[Edited on 9-29-05 by pastorway]
 
Originally posted by pastorway
Simply put, taking abuse is not an act of submission. It puts your life and health in danger.

Really, this logic and this misunderstanding of submission will lead to a wife thinking it is her duty to sit by and watch while the husband beats the kids. If she cannot intervene for herself and must just take it as an act of submission then she would be just as wrong to try and protect her children. If the husband, in this case, is determined to abuse then to submit to abuse (which simply and plainly cannot be done, you do not submit to abuse) is to allow the husband to beat whomever he desires. And to try to stop him would be equated with rebellion and lack of submission.

This case cannot be supported by Scripture because the Bible never equates being persecuted or abused with the role of a wife in submission to her husband. Submission has nothing to do with allowing the "head" to do whatever he wants. If he sins, it is not an act of submission to be on the receiving end of that sin.

Bottom line - this exposes a very serious misunderstanding of what it means to submit.

Phillip

[Edited on 9-29-05 by pastorway]

I fully agree. Taking abuse is not a submission or obedience issue.

My hearts desire and posture is to submit in heart and action to my dh. That means when he makes a decision I think might be unwise, after I give my input gently, if he still says his way, I am to submit.

It's a harder pill to swallow however, if a dh desires to shame and ridicule his wife by making her do something that would be both embarrassing and a poor/confusing testimony to Christ. There is a sense in which - is that an obedience/submission isssue? I fully agree that submission has nothing to do with allowing the head to do whatever he wants.

A verse I read today...

"Do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you also be like him. Answer a fool as his folly deserves, lest he be wise in his own eyes."
Proverbs 26:4-5

So if her husband is making foolish, unreasonable demands of her, it seems the precident here is that she should respond with biblical wisdom - not foolish like him, but cautiously and lovingly. She is not bound to "obey" the unreasonable demand (i.e. the dead horse dancing in the street example, lol). Am I reading this wrong???
 
Originally posted by 5solasmom
if a dh desires to shame and ridicule his wife by making her do something that would be both embarrassing and a poor/confusing testimony to Christ.

In continuing the extremes (yet, however, an excuse I've heard to be used in a very loose manner):

What if the husband truely is convicted on an issue, requests/insists the action to be taken by the wife, but she feels it's shaming her and going to bring ridicule to her, because she's embarrassed and believes it to be a poor testimony to do so...he believes otherwise?

(Yes, I'm thinking of a specific issue)
 
Good mornign ladies! :)

It boils down to this: :scholar:

1) Submission does not mean taking abuse, or letting your husband abuse your children

2) If the husband demoralizes the wife verbally and emotionally but not physcially, with constant comments like "you're stupid, or your a *bad word*" then the two possible courses of action is to stay (I have a dear friend that has stayed in marriage like that for 43 years. He is an unbeliever. She is a believer. A true Christian woulnd not do this) or 2) to seperate if needed, get church intervention, and get counciling.

3) The Scripture is clear for women to submit to your husbands, unless he is asking you to break governement and God's own laws.

4) There aren't really any in betweens. We must trust God's way is best in "normal" circumstances as well as extreme circumstances.

When we begin to try to catagorize exceptions, we end n up on really slippery slopes:
If we say we should only submit if it does not violate our concience: what if OUR concience is wrong, and his is right?
If we say we should only submit if his requests don't shame us? What if it is that we would only feel shame at his request because of a matter of our heart?


Does this about sum it all up? :deadhorse:
 
Originally posted by bond-servant
When we begin to try to catagorize exceptions, we end n up on really slippery slopes:
If we say we should only submit if it does not violate our concience: what if OUR concience is wrong, and his is right?
If we say we should only submit if his requests don't shame us? What if it is that we would only feel shame at his request because of a matter of our heart?


Does this about sum it all up? :deadhorse:

:ditto:
 
pastorway,

I fully understand taking abuse is not an act of submission, though there are people who teach that it is, I know I've heard it first hand, and I also know it comes with a Child's understanding of Biblical teachings, or more aptly put a lack of spiritual growth in those who teach that.

Which is why I say a women doesn't leave her brain or her Christianity at the door when she marries. A women can choose not to submit to her husband in certain areas, she really does have a choice.

Like with what happened in my previous marriage, where my husband didn't want me going to church. I have learned I actually did have the choice to submit in that area or not and in either circumstance I would not have been sinning.

Had I chosen to go anyway, I would have been following God in "not forsaking the gathering together with saints" and with chosing to submit I still would have been following God in "submitting to my husband in everything" (even in areas of disagreement). But at the time I did not understand that, and it didn't help that the Pastor of the church we had attended at the time also said It would be a sin for me to go against my husband by going to church. And I questioned HIM at the time as well, "Shouldn't what God says about 'not forsaking the gathering together with the saints' come before a husbands request to NOT go to church?"

He insisted *I* was in err, and apparently didn't understand what the Bible said about Submission, that a wife should "submit to her husband in EVERY THING, and you can't pick and choose because EVERYTHING means just that every thing." In other words, he was saying that what a husband asks his wife to do, comes BEFORE what God asks for her to do as a CHRISTIAN and as His Child, in essence making the husband's desire more important than even God's desire.

That is what I have a huge problem with, when people say that a wife must submit to her husband in everything, even when her choice not to submit is not going against God, but more placing God where He should be, even before her husband.

Just because a couple gets married doesn't mean a husbands request or demands come before God's word for her a Christian. I am a Christian before I am a wife, and my relationship with Christ, should be my priority even within my role as a wife, lest I break the very first commandment of God, "thou shalt have no other gods before me."

A husband is supposed to 'represent' Christ not 'be' Christ in his wife's life, and I think a lot of people get confused in that area.
 
Bobbi, everyone,
Thanks for your participation; this thread has essentially covered all the treatments and hence, we will close it so that we don't begin talking about the moon and stars as well.

Night night.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top