Do Wives Need to Submit to Husbands? pt 4:
“Now-hear what I’m saying and don’t hear what I’m not saying. The Gospel has serious claims on our lives on the ways we treat others, on our relationship to sex, to money, to power- and sometimes those claims are going to be offensive.But the point is, if anything about us is going to be offensive, it darn well better be the Gospel, and not our marriages, and so the church better give some serious thought as to how we treat our wives and even women in general.”
(Via bob.blog.)
Bob Hyatt’s been running a series of blog posts about wives submitting to husbands. You really should check it out, starting with the first one.
I’ll be officiating a wedding ceremony within the next couple of weeks (exact date not set yet… very small ceremony), and so I’ve been thinking about what I’m going to say. Normally, especially in a context where those in attendance will comprise mostly of nonchristians, I would avoid the submission wordage. It’s too hard to explain, at least I’ve thought before, the fullness of that passage to a group of people who see the church as an ancient, patriarchal, demeaning to women system.
With Bob articulating the issue so well, I’m seriously considering the wedding message to come directly from the submission passage. Really, what Paul writes is redeeming in its context. And, of course, we often forget that Paul admonishes both husband and wife to submit to one another.
I’m thinking the short sermonette for the wedding would focus on the uniting and care for the other person. In marriage, husband and wife are united in such a way that each person must consider the other, submitting not necessarily to each other’s every whim, but possibly submitting to their every need.
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