Who's In Charge Here?

THERE IS A LOT of pain in many marriages — much of it rooted in the problem of authority.

    Kirk was a strong individual, highly creative and well known in business circles. His wife, Carolyn, was a gifted person, energetic, efficient, imaginative, and one to throw herself with all her might into anything she did. But she didn't have much opportunity to exercise her strengths. To say that Kirk was difficult to live with would be an understatement. He was bossy, demanding, not always ethical, and often insensitive to other people's feelings — especially to Carolyn's. He took it for granted that she would go along with him without question.

    Some years ago Carolyn told me she had to make a decision. She had tried to have an honest, open discussion with her husband, but he couldn't handle it. He interpreted her concern over his behavior as criticism and went into a rage. It was her complete approval and absolute acquiescence he demanded, nothing less. So Carolyn had to decide between ending the marriage by

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exercising her strengths — or yielding in every way to her husband. She chose to yield.

    Carolyn realized she had a limited number of choices. She could go through the war of separation and divorce — and war it would be — leaving emotional, financial, and spiritual devastation in its wake. Or she could submit to Kirk's pathologies, learning to deal with his tirades and self-centeredness, and hoping that some day Kirk might change.

    In choosing to submit to her partner she was giving up the ideal of an open, honest, and shared life. Instead, she would have to bite her tongue, swallow her pride, and put a lot of her creative abilities into cold storage. But that was the only way she saw of saving their marriage. Carolyn had bought a kind of "peace."

    Some forms of peace are not as creative as others. In Carolyn's case it meant the loss of some outstanding human potential; and yet all was not lost. Some of the time Kirk was a delight — alive, interesting, jovial, even thoughtful, and certainly never a bore! There were compensations, and Carolyn chose to live with them. It was her choice, and I won't fault her for that!
    Carolyn's decision was not without its costs. Part of the strain she bore was evident in painful migraines. As years went on, her three children — fine people— carried scars that caused serious trouble. That was a big price to pay for "peace."

    If Carolyn had chosen the first alternative, that of divorce, she would have refused to submit, and there

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would have been a rupture in the relationship. Perhaps the cause would have been tagged "immaturity," "an inability to deal with frustration," a "lack of communications skills and ways of dealing with anger," or maybe it would have been described as an escape from a demeaning, destructive partnership. Whatever the label, the experience would have been painful.

    The second alternative meant submitting to another's weakness and living with pain — but keeping the marriage together. In making her choice Carolyn followed what she felt was the biblical view of submitting to one's husband in all circumstances. Hadn't Paul said, "Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church.... As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands" (Ephesians 5:22-24 RSV)? Peter said the same thing: "Likewise you wives, be submissive to your husbands, so that some, though they do not obey the word, may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives..." (1 Peter 3:1 RSV).

    The Pharisees of Jesus' day would have agreed with Carolyn. They took God's curse on woman seriously: "To that woman he said, 'I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you'" (Genesis 3:16 RSV).

    In the Jewish culture of the New Testament a woman was definitely a second-rate citizen. Sons inherited

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land, but daughters received only maintenance. If a wife found anything, it belonged to her husband, as did the work of her hands. Even a woman's inheritance, should there be no male to receive it, could be used by her husband for his desires. A woman was not given a teaching position among the laity in the synagogue — if she had a question, she could ask her husband when they got home. The cultural conditioning was so deep it is not surprising that it found expression in the teaching of the New Testament writers themselves.

    But let us take a second look at the biblical material. It appears there are four phrases to humanity in Christ: (1) created innocence, (2) the Fall, (3) re-creation in Christ, and (4) glorification. I will not get into the last, except to say that any Christian who is aware of the promise of Christ and believes it, looks forward to that day of Christ's triumphal return. At this point, however, I want only to look at the first three phases.

    The first was the state of innocence in which man and woman were created with a kind of parity. God created mankind male and female. "And God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it'... " (Genesis 1:28 RSV, italics mine). Evidently the potential for dominion was given to both male and female. When God created woman, he created her as helper (in the Hebrew, azar) to man. But this word azar does not imply inferiority or second rate status. God himself is azar to man, "A very present help in time of need." If anything, the word indicates

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man's incompleteness without woman — his need for her, even as man is incomplete without a relationship with God. Likewise, woman needs man. So close is the need factor that when man was presented with woman, he cried out, "Bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh!" His very joy was an expression of his need for her. In this phase of humanity, male and female became one flesh. The two were one. They shared a unity of need and complementation.

    In the second phase of humanity, that of the Fall, all of life came under the curse of sin. The relationship of man and woman was affected in that man became the ruler of woman, and the wife from that time on was subject to the authority of her husband. The earth was subject to the futility of mankind's distorted dominion, and man himself was cursed to wrest his living from a thistle-filled and thorn-bearing earth. We must remember that all the Old Testament was written during this phase that Pharisaism was born and developed, with all its legal rules and burdens that Christ described as "heavy burdens placed on people's backs which [the Pharisees] would not lift a finger to lighten' (see Matthew 23:4). Christ was angered by the insensitivity and judgmentalism that pointed a finger at outward behavior without attempting to understand the inward need of the individual. It was that burdensome legalism that drew Paul's sharpest criticism — that the law could not give life or liberate souls oppressed by the curse.

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    Thank God, we are not stuck in the mire of this second phase. In Christ we have moved on to the third phase of humanity. Through his death and victorious Resurrection we have been set free from the curse. In him we are made new creatures! Here, in this third phase, the image of God's original design is replacing the old forms of legalism and subjugation. "The old has passed away and the new is in the process of becoming! (See 2 Corinthians 5:17). Old inferiorities are eliminated; woman has become again the "helper," the peer of man. "...there is neither male or female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise" (Galatians 3:28, 29 RSV). Former lords have become servants after the example of Christ striving to bring everyone to maturity in Christ (see Colossians 1:28). Husbands now are to give up their lives for their wives as Christ gave up his life for the church, that they might be presented before him "in splendor," the splendor of their full maturity. The subjugations once operating under the law are now removed. Man's subjugation to the law, woman's subjugation to man, mankind's subjugation to death, are now replaced by all of mankind's subjugation to Jesus Christ. Every man, woman, and youth has direct access to Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. And through the same Spirit, Jesus Christ had access to the mind and will of every man, woman, and youth. Therefore, if anyone puts any other relationship ahead of that of Jesus Christ, he or

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she is not worthy of Christ (see Matthew 10:34-39).

    Instead of lordships that hold others in inferiors positions, those who have experienced Christ's redemption are called to a life of service. Now, as Christians, we submit to one another out of reverence for Christ, out of reverence for his example of servanthood, out of reverence for his liberating death and Resurrection, out of reverence for the gifts that his Holy Spirit creates in each believer.

    The Christian wife submits herself to her husband — of course! My wife submits to me in a hundred different ways! But that is not all. I also submit to her. The Spirit calls us to a mutual submission. "Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ" (Ephesians 5:21 RSV) is the key verse here (my italics), and mutual submission is the overall theme of the verses that follow. A wife is to submit to her husband "as to the Lord" (Ephesians 5:22 RSV) — but that does not mean that her husband is her lord. She is to serve her husband in the line of serving Christ. (The Greek word meaning "as" indicates intention, the intention of a wife to serve her husband as he attempts to achieve his dominion over some part of God's creation — just as she serves Christ and the realization of his kingdom.)

    Compare Ephesians 5:22 with its parallel passage, Colossians 3:18 RSV: "Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting [proper] in the Lord." This means to us that wives are to please the Lord primarily — and they they are to submit to their husbands as the husbands

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labor for the Lord's kingdom. A Christian wife will submit whatever resources she has to undergird her husband in his efforts to complete Christ's ministry. She will go with him where he feels God is leading him to work, because he is probably the chief breadwinner. She submits to the valid demands made upon her because of the scheduling involved in his work; she makes the way straight for his endeavors. She is indeed his "helper," someone he needs for his completion, just as he needs the Lord and his resources.

    If, however, the husband demands something that is outside the will of Christ and requires the wife to give up those things that belong to Christ or to others, then his wife is under no obligation to obey her husband if in so doing she must disobey Christ, her Lord. Any husband who makes such demands on his wife simply demonstrates his foolishness and misplaced ego.

    Some Christian teachers insist that a woman should go along with anything her husband asks because he is her "lord." After listening to some of the things such husbands demand of their wives — whether in scheduling priorities or in sexual activities — I am convinced that a wife only reinforces her husband's arrogance and demeans herself by submitting to him. Nobody wins by such appeasement. The wife who goes along with a husband's desire when she feels it is contrary to Christ denies her Lord and permits her husband to stumble headlong into a pit of error.

    We understand that many wives during the Watergate

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debacle were in the dark as to their husband's activities. But one wife, discovering what her husband was involved in, blew the whistle by calling upon him to act in a moral way. He did! He withdrew from the questionable activities and was not caught in the whirlpool of misdeeds.

    I know that if I am bound on a course that Colleen feels will be less than God's best, I am going to hear about it. And I love her for that. If she were to submit to me in such a way as to lessen her clarity of commitment to Christ, I would be very unhappy, because I deeply believe that God's will is the best thing that can happen to us. Often my wife is the instrument of challenge through which I become aware of God's will for my life. I am grateful, even though it may, and sometimes does, sting my male pride. We have seen more marriages blessed because a woman "by her chaste and reverent behavior" was not only loyal to her husband in chastity, but reverent to Christ in obedience, than by a woman covering her Christian witness and denying her Lord.

    When the question comes up, "Who's in charge here?" the Christian wife should be able to say, clearly and boldly, "Jesus Christ."

    A few years ago, when I was considering a call to another church, Colleen exercised a strong influence on my decision. She confronted me, mildly but firmly, because she thought I was not open to the new situation. (I wasn't. I had five good reasons why I shouldn't

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go!) Finally she said, "Honey, I just don't think you're open-minded about the matter!"

    At first I smarted under the confrontation, but she jarred me loose from a "dead center" position. We agreed that I should go away for a few days and pray the thing though. On my return I was "in neutral gear," willing to go or willing to say. In this attitude we went to the new city, preaching in a nearby church, and met with the committee for a long afternoon of openness and candor that I doubt would have been possible if I either had desperately wanted the position or had been close-minded about it. We put all our cards on the table, as honestly as we could. When the call came, I accepted it. It was my decision. And yet we accepted it. It was my decision and I knew Colleen would go along with whatever I decided, once I gave open consideration to it. But we talked and prayed it over so thoroughly that our minds had a common response when the voice on the other end of the phone said, "It is the unanimous decision of the committee..." and so on, and so on. I felt good about letting my wife influence my life. Her sensitivity, her gift of discernment, were much-needed elements. If I had been hard-headed about it, I could have denied her challenge and missed God's direction. In that case, there would have been grave doubts about the quality of my leadership. Jesus Christ is her lord, not I, and when she submits to his lordship, I am blessed.

    Yes, husbands also submit to their wives, loving them

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"as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her ..." (Ephesians 5:25, 26 RSV). To me this passage means that Christ loves the church, that he wants her to be all that she can be, and that he gives himself to the church, to bring her to her full potential as God designed her, in the splendor of her maturity, cleansed of anything that would hold her back from the full realization of God's design. In doing this Christ is definitely in charge; there was no doubt about his lordship. But his style of lordship turns authority right side up for the first time in history. He becomes a servant-lord. I believe this to be the model for the Christian husband.

    David and Nancy Low are one of the exciting young couples we have met since coming to Washington. He is a financial lawyer, and she is a top-flight public relations administrator. Only recently have they come to Washington, and the reason for their coming is a good illustration of a servant-head of a home.

    After working in another state for a well-known and respected political leader, Nancy was offered a very high position in a federal government agency. This opportunity was made even more exciting by the fact that it had never before been offered to a woman. David felt the offer was a high honor and urged Nancy to accept it. He was confident he could find a job in his field in Washington. So, submitting to Nancy's career potential, they pulled up stakes and settled here.

    Some men would be threatened by this type of situation.

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If a man wanted to prove that he didn't need other people, if he were an emotional do-it-yourself, then he might resist the emergence of his wife's career, especially if it was an outstanding one. But David is a strong man, eager and able to become a servant to Nancy's development. That is healthy "headship" and management.

    Modern corporate management has taken a page right out of our book and handed it back to the Christian home. Douglas McGregor, in The Human Side of Enterprise, speaks of x-style and y-style managers. The x-style managers are the authoritarian decision makers who hand down their executive memos each morning and watch their "good" vice presidents doing exactly what they are told. These managers have greatly restricted their enterprises to the limits of their own creative abilities and mistakes. They leave little room for the growth and development of others unless that growth happens to coincide with the interests of the "big shot." So much potential goes to waste in corporations under this sort of management that it is no wonder morale is often low. People don't like to be kept down or left out of decision making that affects them.

    The y-style managers, on the other hand, guarantee a process in which others can develop under their leadership. They watch for others' strengths with which to meet the various corporate needs, provide the resources for their development, and give over responsibilities while keeping communication close. No wonder

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morale is high in corporation where persons are encouraged to grow to their full potential!

    Why not apply this concept to the home? Notice how Christ delegates authority when he mandates various functions to his disciples. All these functions have to do with liberation and development, not subjugation.

    I believe the husband is the head of the house. The question for me is not "Who's in charge here?" but rather, "What sort of leadership is being exercised?" There are x-style and y-styles husbands. Colleen and I are deeply concerned about the heavy emphasis on x-style husbands in many manuals on the Christian home. Instead of calling forth the abilities of others, these husband act like little generals ordering their troops around and demanding submission on all points. Or they gallantly try to be "the fearless leader" in all aspects of their homes, even in areas where they are not gifted. In living out the x-style they deny the servant role and fail to resource others to their development in the home. Everybody feels their awkwardness and embarrassment. Heavy burdens, indeed!

    It works best when the husband uses his authority to create an atmosphere in which the potentials of each member of the family are identified and stimulated and nurtured.

    I love flying! And I have had both styles of instructors. The x-style often used a lot of four-letter words to impress their students with their toughness, and usually they had a superior attitude. I remember one who got

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into the plane and said nothing. There I was, waiting for some indication of what the lesson of the day would be and — nothing but silence. Finally the instructor grumped, "Well, you want to fly or not? What are you waiting for?" Then, without giving me a moment to reply, he blurted out, "Ever heard of ground effect?"

    I hesitated for a moment and was just about to explain what I knew when he sarcastically retorted, "I didn't think so!"

    Once  aloft we were doing some stalls, and I had failed to give sufficient rudder to compensate for the torque of the engine, when he suddenly stomped on the right rudder pedal and almost shouted, "Don't you ever use any rudder?" Needless to say, it wasn't much of a lesson, and I noticed he wasn't around the next time I came out.

    The y-type instructor was encouraging. After explaining the situation before we got into the plane, he asked if there were any questions about the previous ground-school lesson. Then he affirmed whatever maneuvers he could, correcting what was necessary. He left me with a feeling that I wanted to be the best flyer I could. How I worked for that man! He created an attitude about flying that not only enabled me to manipulate an airplane but gave me a basis for determining when I should fly and when I shouldn't. There was a quiet authority in his teaching. He left no doubt about who was PIC (pilot in command), yet increasingly he encouraged me to make my own decisions and develop

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professional procedures. He was a servant to my emergence.

    When Christ created each member of a family with creative potential, he didn't expect that potential to be buried under a blanket of restrictions or hidden in a closet of frustrations. No institution is better suited than the home to bring about human development, and that is the responsibility of the head of the house.

    "Who's in charge here?" Jesus Christ. And in reverence to him, a husband — a servant-head to wife and children, sacrificing for their development — and a wife, exercising the authority that accompanies her gifts, ministering to her husband, her children, and her world, grow together with those in their household to be the exciting, liberated, and maturing persons the world is standing on tiptoe longing to see coming in their liberty!

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