Sascha Fitzpatrick said:
I'm particularly addressing this to younger, newly married women and men here, but I appreciate everyone's input.
How did you instigate the Biblical form of headship and submission in your marriage? How do you view headship and submission?
For you 'more independant' women, particularly those who had a long time of singleness before you wed, how did you go about instigating submission to your husband? How tricky was it? How did your husbands respond to headship?
Hi Sascha,
I wanted to give you a good reply to your original question, rather than just responding to the other posts of people here. I think I know what you are getting at now in this question, after a good night's sleep! Sometimes thing become clearer to me in the morning.
before I get in to my personal story in my marriage, let me tell you something that I realized that I believe is absolutely fundamental to a Christian marriage as described in the Bible. First and foremost, the husband must be submitted to Christ in a personal relationship with him. I truly believe that is necessary for this model of headship. I fully admit that I don't completely understand what headship means, but I do know that if the husband is to love his wife as Christ loves the church, then the husband has to actually know Christ and have his own will submitted to the Will of God. None of us are perfect. In fact, I'm not even talking about our having achieved some kind of perfection before marriage. I'm talking about a position of relationship and a knowing of Christ, and walking with Him as #1 in our life. I just believe that if a man isn't in that kind of submission to Christ, then he can't possibly be the head. For example, if the husband doesn't know Christ and is not seeking to do His will.
Basic discipleship = Mark 8:34 ""If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." Which means, firstly, self-denial, and secondly, taking up the Cross, that is, doing the Will of God and not your own self-will. Because when Jesus submitted himself to the Cross, he was doing the Will of the Father, and clearly it was not something he personally relished (remember his prayers in the Garden of Gesthemene).
A young woman at my church recently asked me and my husband to counsel her and her boyfriend on the topic of marriage. I was surprised she asked us for a couple of reasons. First of all, my husband and I aren't on the outside the most perfect appearing couple. Also, we are still trying to figure all this out. But my husband and I have realized that our marriage is one of the most perfect areas for the doing of discipleship. There is much temptation to selfishness when selflessness is called on both sides. And also, whenever it's a private place in your life, and only God (and your spouse) truly knows how you are doing, then it's an area for serious discipleship. It's easy to behave when "others" are watching, but how you act when you know God is the only "other" watching. Well...
Anyhow, I wanted to tell you that I realized something that very night after the young woman had asked for the counseling. I asked myself why God would ever require any form of "submission" or following of the husband, and I realized that the wisdom in it is that a woman had better be careful who she marries. If you are going to serve the Lord by serving your husband, it would be so much more easy and beautiful if the man was truly submitted to the Lord.
I don't want to sound sexist, but I believe that it is a real struggle for many men to really get to a place where they are submitted to the Lord. The culture and perhaps even child rearing has really built men up to see themselves as self-directed and independent. It takes real relationship with Jesus and a daily walk to get to a point of wanting to be self-less and yielded to God's Will. I would say that serious discussion as well as earnest prayer is what is needed. It's possible that you may want to encourage your boyfriend to cultivate some friendships with men at church who are serious about their faith.
I almost forgot to tell you about my marriage. My husband and I weren't even Christians before we got married. We lived together for a few months and married in less than a year total of knowing each other. We were really in love. About a year after we got married, I was born again, all of a sudden...without anyone witnessing to me. I was just reading a book at home alone. But that night when my husband came home, and I started raving about Jesus to him, he immediately took an interest and even told me that he'd briefly believed in Jesus when he was in the military, but fell away for a long time afterwards. Anyhow, long story short, we both became completely fascinated and drawn to Jesus, and we committed our lives to Him. We found a church about a year later. We are really serious about our committment to God. I'd say we have walked equally, as spiritual partners through all of this. It's been incredible. There is never a time when we don't want to share something about our faith together. We talk all the time, pray together, and study the bible together. It's been a total of 3 years that we have been following Jesus like this.
But during this time, we have still experienced conflicts in our marriage. It has been very disturbing and worrying. We have prayed a lot about it, and are seeking guidance from God and studying the Word of God. One thing that has helped us 100% is realizing that the wife is to submit to her husband AS TO THE LORD, and the husband is to love his wife AS CHRIST LOVES THE CHURCH. Notice the repetition of the premise of this husband/wife relationship is to truly know Jesus Christ. When we realized that fundamentally we each have to be submitted to Jesus Christ, and that selfishness is never justified in our marriage, it helped us dramatically. Often when we do have a conflict in our marriage, we see clearly that it is selfishness on one or both sides. It's not easy to turn from selfishness but it seems like when you recognize the selfishness and see the situation from God's point of view...it just makes everything clear and visible in the true light of God's way.
But how can you get to that place unless both of you are submitted to Christ and want to serve Him in your marriage?
To emphasize: It's true that both the woman and the man are submitted, not so much just to each other, but both are submitted to Jesus Christ. When you see this, and you see how this true submission to God's Will can be acted out in the marriage, then you see how organic and perfect this plan of God's is for marriage. It should be a natural working out of your discipleship to the Lord in your marrage. As to the Lord. As Christ loves the Church.
Another afterthought: I can see how some people would point out that a man doesn't have to be a believer in Jesus Christ in order to love his wife. I mean, that's obvious. There are so many good husbands who are athiests, agnostics, followers of other religions, etc. So it's self-evident that a nonbeliever can be a good husband. The question is, how is a Christian husband different? What is different about a marriage where both the husband and the wife are disciples of Christ?
Well said Starelda!
