A email subscriber asked about a line in Ps Matthew Littlefield’s most recent article.
Can you clarify “the father as head of the home”. What does that actually mean?
Great question!
I can only speak for myself, but it’s also potentially a loaded question in a post-feminism culture which actively seeks to masculinise women and immasculate men. Feminists can find great delight in taking offence where none was rational. I quickly referred the sincere enquirer to Ephesians 5 and two videos, one by Billy Graham and another with Paul Washer (from HeartCry Missionary Society) explaining Biblical marriage and masculinity.
And then I thought others may have the same question and I should share them all with you, so they are also below for you to watch now or soon, and I highly recommend them both to you. Here also are some further thoughts, sparing just a few minutes as I continue to prepare the seventh annual Australian Church And State Summit.
If some bloke is asking that question looking for licence to be a bully to his wife, he’s got headship and submission all wrong. If he’s looking for Scriptural authority to make bombastic demands of unquestioning obedience from his wife, he’s not going to find it in the Bible.
Likewise, many in the Lying Harlot Media will cherry pick the word “submit” in St Paul’s exhortation to Christian households and act as if Paul was chaining women to the kitchen and giving men a whip and whistle. Take such fools with a pinch of salt.
The verse saying, “Wives, submit to your husbands,” is immediately preceded by the words, “Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Given the same word is used in immediate proximity to each other, it would be intellectually inconsistent to interpret these words dramatically differently. But one cannot also diminish the following verses in which Paul very clearly compares the husband’s headship of his family to the headship of Christ in the Church.
Bombastic, iron-fisted rule by husbands is completely ruled out by the self-sacrificial model of Christ’s love for the His Bride the Church. It’s a tender, preserving, uplifting leadership which is incapable of harming her.
Prayerfully study this more for yourself. Read different translations of the passage, and listen to/watch a few different preachers on the topic, being careful to not hear what you want. The wisest thing to do is let God speak for Himself through His Word.
Ephesians 5:
21 And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
22 For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. 24 As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything.
25 For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her 26 to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. 27 He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. 28 In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. 29 No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. 30 And we are members of his body.
31 As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.” 32 This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. 33 So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Dave Pellowe is a Christian writer & commentator, founder of The Good Sauce, convener of the annual Australian Church And State Summit and host of Good Sauce’s weekly The Church And State Show, also syndicated on ADH TV. Since 2016 Dave has undertaken the mission of arming Christians to influence culture through events from Perth to Auckland, videos, podcasts and articles published in multiple journals across Australia and New Zealand. [more]
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