Tamster

 “²² Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. ²³For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. ²⁴Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

 ²⁵Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her…”

~Ephesians 5:22-33

In “Ask Anything Friday”, Hibisca brought up the oft-quoted platitude that the man should be the spiritual leader of the church; the above scripture is often used as backing for this tenet. I have always heard that the man should be the head of a household, but the concept of the man being the spiritual leader was stressed for the first time only in the past few years. In my opinion, these ideas are not interchangeable. I did not want to just rebel against the above scripture just because, so here are my thoughts regarding the subject, based on my extensive experience with Christian couples. Exhibit A: my parents.

My dad became a Christian in December of 1984, two months before my mom finally said yes to dating him (and eight months before they actually got married). Throughout my life I never felt like my dad had to make up for lost time in order to come out ahead in the spiritual arms race, just because he was a Christian for a shorter amount of time. Instead, there was such a conversational approach to how my parents did spiritual life together, whether it was through raising us, making tough decisions, or doing ministry.

My dad was a minister in the church, but this did not change how my parents treated their personal spirituality. I remember my mom sharing in the more recent years how she was struggling to submit to my dad in a particular situation, but she would, because she trusted him as her husband/head of household. My mom did not come off as subservient nor bitter, just honest about the difficulty in trusting another person with your life. I know that my dad looked to my mom for spiritual guidance, not just support. Basically my dad was the head of the household, but there was a partnership in their spiritual walk that could not be reduced to a particular placement/ranking on the spiritual track.

When it comes to building a relationship in Christ, I think there has to be a mutual earnestness in knowing God more. As vague as that definition sounds, I am pretty sure we know it when we see it. There is a huge difference between liking God and being in love with him, and I think every woman should be willing to hold any potential/current mate under this critical view. This is not license for one to grab the first guy that sits in the pew next to you. I have been down the road of stuffing any cute churchgoer into the hubby-material mold, and let me tell you, not everyone fits. Save yourself the trouble. This is a completely different thing from discounting or esteeming someone's opinion because of their perceived role in the relationship; I think this approach is disrespectful to the people involved.

I heard a pastor say that Paul mentions that husbands must love their wives and wives must submit to their husbands because these are counter-intuitive to the particular sex's nature. Not that men are always callous and women are always b-words, but in our sin we can allow our pride to dictate the way we see the other person. Thus, the man may focus more on being successful than on his family, and the woman may focus more on not being dominated. More or less, I agree with this.

Basically I think that both parties must be submitted to Christ every day, that they should be able to be accountable to each other in this sense. Period.

What do you ladies think? Is there a difference between spiritual leader and head of household? Does the man really need to be the more spiritually mature? What does this look like? What does the idea of a “mutual earnestness of knowing God more” really mean? How do you feel about Ephesians 5:22-33? What types of husband-wife dynamics do you married/dating ladies have, or for anyone, what type of dynamics have you observed in couples you know?