On about the third day after we first met, Seth and I were on our way to a little Italian restaurant in Memphis when he asked me, out of the blue: “So, Julie, if we got married, and God called me to live in a mud hut, would that be okay with you?”

For a few frenzied seconds, my poor teenage-girl brain was very confused.  Seth had been very clear that he didn’t feel called to a foreign mission field, and so part of me was trying to figure out why God would call him to live in a mud hut in North America, and another part was thinking mud hut?  Does he feel called to live in a mud hut?  Why a mud hut?  What would we do for a bathroom?  I think I missed something here.  But then I realized what he was really asking: are you the type of person who wants to live a good moral life, live in a house, have a family, try to live a righteous life, and be actively involved in a local church–or are you the kind of person who is happy to drop everything and lose everything for no reason beyond the fact that it’s the way God is leading us?  And also: are you the type of person who would willfully give up the usefulness of a kitchen, a bathroom, and a floor, simply because your husband asks you?

So I answered.  And I realized that his question was no less insightful into his character than my answer was to mine.

In the past six months or so, I’ve realized that a very large number of the people I knew in high school and college are starting to get married.  Still lots of singles in the group, but a growing number of people who are “together,” engaged, or married.  And–having been married for going on four years–I’m really terrified for the souls of many of these old friends of mine.  Some of their prospective spouses’ salvation is in serious question, others are marrying into heretical denominations, and countless more seem to be spending their lives in pursuit of the American dream, Christian-style, which says let’s get married, have two kids, volunteer in VBS, go to the local MOPS, and tithe; we won’t cheat on our taxes and we’ll give to charity.

I hear phrases like “I’m so excited–I know God just made us for each other, we have so many interests in common and we just understand each other so much!”  Because, you know, God’s main concern is that you can find a board game you both like to play.  Or “he’s such a great guy; he has a really great job and our careers work together so perfectly, and he’s so sweet and sensitive–he makes great cappuccinos!”  Personality equals greatness.  And, my favorite of all: “we even want the same number of kids!”  Since the whole kid thing is governed by wishes and not by, I don’t know, the multitude of Bible verses on the subject.  Just once, I want one of my friends to pull me aside and tell me that they’re deliriously in love with their boyfriend/fiancé/husband because he makes it clear everyday that his top adoration is Christ, and constantly points her toward the truth of the Gospel, enough that it makes her uncomfortable, embarrassed, and aware of her own insufficiency.

One thing I’ve learned in the past four years is that it’s very easy for a husband and a wife to become alike spiritually.  We can drag each other down, we can build each other up, and the effect is effortless.  We have a huge impact on each other, even when we don’t want to.  It’s hard for one of us to be in close fellowship with God when the other is spiritually depressed, and conversely easy for us to be lifted out of spiritual dimness when the other is passionate and fiery.  Solomon is a prime example of this; 1 Kings 11:4 says that ” when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God” (ESV).  Even with all his wisdom–and verbal communication with the Most High–Solomon still succumbed to his wives’ spiritual state.

Even more than our relationship with each other impacting our relationship with God, though, our relationship with God impacts our relationship with each other.  Nothing brings us together like the feeling of catching Seth’s hand in mine in silent support during an intense theological discussion that’s going on, and nothing is quite as satisfying as curling up to each other to sleep after a spiritually harrowing night.  Sometimes there’s no words, just togetherness: nothing can give one-ness on the same scale as pursing the Gospel together.  There’s no comparison.  Scripture doesn’t give us very many examples of couples where both are clearly strong believers, but it’s worth noticing that the couples who seem to have the most secure marriages–Abraham and Sarah, Boaz and Ruth, Joseph and Mary, Zechariah and Elizabeth–are the same couples where we can read both parties praising and praying to God.  And I’d wager that Priscilla and Aquila were among the happiest people in the whole New Testament; they certainly seem to have been inseparable!

Nothing can make a marriage a success the way that a shared commitment to Christ will.  Our love for each other–our capacity to love each other–increases as we draw nearer to God.  Nonbelievers can never experience the most ultimate pleasure of marriage, and weaker believers cannot experience it as fully.  There’s no earthly delight more agreeable than a godly spouse–and, I suspect, no earthly torment more horrible than a wayward or apathetic one.  And on the other side of the coin, apart from the Gospel itself, I don’t think there’s anything that can change us, for better or for worse, than the person we live with day in and day out.

2 Corinthians 6:14-15 are the famous verses used to point out how wrong it is to marry a nonbeliever, but I think it’s useful to note the reasons Paul gives: “what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?” [ESV]  No matter how many common interests two people may have, if one is righteous and one is lawless, they have nothing in common.  No partnership, no fellowship, no accord; no shared portion.

And so, common interests, pleasant personalities, good jobs, even going to the same church or writing identical doctrinal statements: these things are not what we should be looking for.  You can marry a seminary graduate with all the right words and excellent references, and still find out that he falls apart when his world falls down around him.  Or you can marry somebody who obsesses over the proper method of courtship and reads every book Douglas Wilson, James Dobson, and Gary Smalley ever published, and learn what happens when he’s more concerned with his relationship with you than your relationship to God.  It takes a lot more character to confront someone with their sin than to be a sensitive shoulder to cry on.  It takes far greater maturity to look you in the eye and say, “if God takes you away from me then I will praise Him; He is all I need,” than to say, “darling, you’re my world and I couldn’t survive without you.”

That’s where the mud hut questions come in: Would you really abandon everything?  Can you really smile when humanly everything is sorrow?  Do you put your relationship with God above all, and regard your relationship with your wife/husband as only a tangent to that all-encompassing passion for Christ?  Is your house going to stand strong when the rain starts to fall and all the sand washes away?

I pray that the marrying people of my generation would have greater vision, and that we all would be bold in confronting the horror of unequally yoked.

One thing that I have become very strongly convicted about over the past few months is the reality of the universal church.

If I tried to write an entry about what the Bible has to say about specific little congregations, it would be very short indeed.  Yet that’s where it seems like our attention is focused.  Oh, sure, we go on youth retreats with some other area churches (particularly those that are far enough removed geographically to not represent competition), and maybe we do Good Friday services or “church swaps” with one or two like-minded churches–but do we regard those other churches as equally important to our own?

For the vast majority of our married life, Seth and I have not been members of a local church.  The first church we attended in Louisville required agreement with their doctrinal statement, which we could not confer; the second church had required membership classes at a time we could not attend (and we didn’t go there too long before we came to Delaware, anyway).  We joined Bethel once we got here, which was easy and a no-brainer; since we left, we’ve been membershipless once more.

By some theologies, this should be bothersome.  Don’t we have a responsibility to formally put ourselves under the authority of a local elder board?  Shouldn’t we commit our time and resources officially to a single church?  Indeed, there was a time when I was disconcerted myself by our unaffiliated state–but I grow less so with every passing year.

John Piper’s church had a very thought-provoking controversy a little while back: should infant-baptized believers be allowed to join their credo-baptist church?  Piper’s position was yes; the elder board’s position was no.    Piper’s explanation was one that struck me deeply, and with a wider range of implication than his current situation: the “door” for joining the local church should be precisely the same size as the “door” to heaven.  In other words, woe to the church that excludes genuine believers from their fellowship.  I can’t see how you can argue with that logic.  Where in Scripture does it grant a church the authority to exclude anyone who genuinely professes Christ?  Yes, we’re to excommunicate people for unrepentant sin, but how did we take that guideline and extrapolate that we should set ourselves (or our elder boards) up as judges to decide who is and who is not worthy, “Christian” enough, of sufficient doctrinal purity, or adequately “committed” to the church at 123 Church Lane? 

Scripture talks about removing people from fellowship; it never once talks about refusing people from fellowship.  The very idea is contrary to everything the church represents: Christ went out and visited tax collectors and prostitutes; He invited them into His midst.  He didn’t make sure to weed out all the undesirables before He spoke, and He clearly rebuked those who made sinners feel excluded or demeaned.  Yet we alternately preclude people from participating in evangelism, singing in our choirs, or–heaven forbid!–organizing an event until they’ve passed a rigorous set of “tests” to enter the inner circle of specialness called “membership.”  I’ve been membershipless-but-regularly-attending at five different churches now, including some excellent churches, and I can tell you firsthand: even as a believer in that setting, I still feel excluded.  Sometimes it’s very faint; sometimes it’s downright annoying: I find it despicable, frankly, that the leadership at a church can know me and believe that I’m a Christian, but still make us jump through the hoops of formal membership before, say, letting me help out in VBS.

So, to return to the idea of the universal Church: I’m increasingly non-concerned about any given local church.  I love fellowshipping in one, and I love being a part of a consistent group of people, but, in the end, it’s just an abstract construct that we tend to mistake for being something real and finite.  It’s common for us to point out with regard to our U.S. citizenship that “our citizenship is not of this world,” but we should take that concept to the local church and say, “my membership is not of this church.”  If our church burns to the ground, if our congregation scatters, if our pastor runs off with another woman, if the worst thing we can imagine comes to pass–our membership is not of this church.  God hasn’t changed, the real Church hasn’t faltered, the divinely-appointed shepherds still lead the flock, the Gospel is the same, and we have every occasion to rejoice because God is always faithful and Christ always refines and purifies His bride.

This works in reverse, as well.  Christ didn’t say to come alongside and rebuke erring believers [who belong to the same church you do]; Paul didn’t write for us to break fellowship with unrepentant wolves [who formerly belonged to the same church we do].  There are no parenthetical qualifications.  Those cast out by one church should not be readily received in another, and when we sin, any believer has the responsibility and honor of helping us see more clearly.  Yes, the local church clearly should play a role in both of these processes, but if we’re limiting it to the local body, we’re hurting the true Body.  If we send an adulterer or a heretic out of our midst and contently sit by in silence when the church down the street welcomes them in ignorance with open arms–do we really think that’s building up the Church?  If a pastor at a neighboring church is leading his church astray into some serious doctrinal error, do we sit by and say that it’s none of our business instead of pleading with the shepherd and his flock to return to the truth?

I’m very concerned that we don’t have more concern for “our” local body than we do for sister churches.  The idea of putting our local body above the needs of the universal body–or another local body–is wholly unscriptural.  Indeed, verses like 2 Corinthians 8:1-3, 1 Corinthians 16:1-3, and 2 Corinthians 11:8-9, among other passages, clearly show local churches giving to other local churches, even when they have virtually nothing to give.  3 John 1:5-8 makes it equally clear that individuals in one church do well to support those who are ministering elsewhere. And the pervasive pattern of prayer we see throughout the New Testament shows that inter-church support was not limited to merely finances.  If we have enough pew Bibles, and the poorer Bible-believing church down the street doesn’t have any, are we willing to share our own, even though it may mean that we too have ten people huddled around a single Bible?  Do we help our brothers and sisters only out of our abundance, or out of everything we have?  Are regular attendees encouraged to tithe their 10% to our reasonably well-off church before giving to overseas missions or poorer churches that need the funds more desperately?

I’ve often been in churches and gotten the impression that it’s our responsibility to give first and foremost to the local body.  And I understand and agree that basic necessities such as a building and a pastor must be provided.  But I don’t understand and don’t agree that we should devote our resources to an inefficient bureaucratic institution with an inflated VBS budget that would cover a whole year of building and pastoral care for a church in Africa.  And yes, outreach in the States is undoubtedly more expensive than outreach in third-world countries.  But how can we hear a missionary come and tell us of a church that has no pastor, a congregation that meets in sub-zero weather with no heat, or a rural “seminary” that can’t afford Bibles for its students–how can we hear of these things happening within the universal Church and not immediately stop and say, hmm, our VBS budget, our choir budget, or our new-every-year Sunday School materials budget would take the Gospel a lot farther if we shared it with that church.  Are our new flannelgraph figures really that vital?  I wonder what would happen if we stopped basing our budgets off of what we need to meet our yearly “program” expenses, and instead tried to figure out how we could best use our resources to advance the cause of Christ everywhere.  Could we still justify $30,000 for a high school missions trip to pour concrete in the Bahamas, or would we send thirty local Bible-believing pastors in thirty different towns across the island a complete library with commentaries and other resources, instead?

The secular world is catching onto this idea.  Websites like thehungersite.com, kiva.org, and freerice.com exist because certain people realized that the wealth in the Western world is so great that we can make gigantic impacts in third-world countries without changing our own lifestyles at all–we can feed the hungry simply by viewing advertisements!  Christians are called to a much higher standard: we’re called to sacrifice, to put our brothers and sisters above ourselves, whether they’re in the pew next to us or huddled in a dark meeting room on the other side of the world.

Our present lack of membership is an anomaly in some ways.  We’re not rebels.  I’m sure we’ll join another church someday, perhaps sooner rather than later.  But in the meantime, membershiplessness has been thought-provoking, and useful.  Loyalties to a local body can be so easily distracting from our joyful duties and fellowship with the rest of the world church.  It’s been good, in a sense, to be forced to see with broader vision for a time. No matter where our church journey eventually takes us, I hope we never lose the consuming passion for the Church where our membership truly lies, and never settle for being members of just one “church.”

Being that I am neither Presbyterian, believing that our child is automatically covenant and promised for salvation, nor Arminian, believing that our child will be saved if only we manage to be convincing enough–being neither of those things, I believe this little baby is in spiritual darkness.

I’ve been dwelling on this a great deal.  This little one that I’m so eager to meet, the tiny frame that’s being knit together inside of me, is a tangled mess of sin and rebellion.  Even as he or she is learning to think, to hear, to feel, his or her little thoughts are selfish and unredeemed.  That little mind holds no appreciation for its own insignificance, no desire to serve the One who is forming every bone and synapse.  Our child is fallen.

Parents don’t often seem to treat their children like lost people.  It’s frightening to think of; I can feel even now the peculiar blend of terror that comes from flinging all your love and devotion into a little being that may never grow to desire God, from building such an incredibly close relationship with a person who may one day break your heart with their waywardness, or whose funeral you might attend and know that they’ve gone into eternal torment instead of eternal joy.

I don’t think it’s idle worry to be so starkly dramatic.  We don’t know God’s plans, and how could we presume?  We hope and we plead on our knees, but if it brings God more glory that this little child should reject Him, then our hearts may break but still flow with praise.

I don’t want to lose sight of this.  I’m sure it will be easy to do: even as Seth and I plan and giggle about all the ways we’re going to love this child to death, it’s so easy to distance ourselves from the reality of his or her spiritual condition.  And we haven’t even met yet!  Once we’re captured by smiles and coos and all the miniature wonder of new life, I can’t imagine how much more difficult it will be.  But how vital it is that every action we take as parents, every decision, be underpinned by solemn determination to show this child the beauty of Jesus Christ and His Gospel!  We’re embarking on a tiny mission field, bringing it in through our front door.

It goes well beyond “scary.”  And yet it’s also amazing, because even we as saved parents can only throw ourselves on the mercy of God–and so throwing our child on His mercy is not very much different.  And it’s awesome, because how many things bring as much joy to believers as sharing the Gospel?  And here we will, Lord willing, have the opportunity to do exactly that, day in and day out.  So it’s exciting, too, because God is gracious in all things.

Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
[Ephesians 5:24, ESV]

I can just imagine the hordes of feminists getting out their pens and crossing this verse out of their Bibles. Not only does Paul say that wives are to submit to their husbands, but he explains exactly what he means: in everything. Can’t really build any loopholes out of that! The Greek is equally plain and incontrovertible; everything means everything!

So, we have a command from God to submit to our husbands in everything. Let me the first to say that I fail miserably at this! Everyday, probably: very time I’m lazy and spend time on my own pursuits and the housekeeping goes a bit awry, every time I get unjustly miffed at Seth for some little thing or another, every time he asks me to do something–or I know it would please him if I did something–and I don’t do it, I am failing to submit in everything. In short, this is a hard command to follow! It infiltrates every moment of our homeworking, every breath of our marriages, our finances, our families… that’s what everything means.

While the command is clear, I find myself asking two questions tonight:

1. Are there exceptions to “everything”?
2. What motivates me to such a massive calling?

These aren’t exegetical questions so much as heart questions, so my answers are not theological so much as personal, although I hope they’re scripturally sound!

Are there exceptions to “everything”?
I think this is sort of a trick question, really, although I suspect it’s the most often asked. The only exception that’s is biblical is, of course, when one’s husband is asking one to sin. Clearly, Christ is our Lord far and above the position of our husbands, and submitting to Him is both first and limitless. And since Christ is Lord of our husbands as well (whether Christian or not), I think it’s fair to say that biblical wifely submission in such a case is to obey God rather than man.

But once we get out of the area of direct sin, things are far less clear. What if our husbands want to teach something we think is theologically wrong to our children? Again, there are times when this would be clear–if our husbands forbid us to tell them about Christ, for instance–but what if it was a more minor point of theology, or even something that barely even touches on theology, like politics? Especially for those of us who tend to be more opinionated, it can be a deep struggle to have a disagreement even in such a small subject.

The most helpful thing to me in these situations is to remember that unsubmission should always be a very sorrowful concept. If we are choosing to act contrary to our husbands, and if we believe that we are doing so out of righteousness, then our hearts should ache unbearably! Our husbands are choosing sin, we’re being ideologically completely separated from them, we aren’t happy with them, they aren’t happy with us, and we’re losing the opportunity to move forward in Christ together. In other words, there is no room for gloating, unholy glee, rashness, or self-centered anger. If our hearts aren’t breaking with every act of disobedience, then we’re not being unsubmissive for the right reasons.

To bring this home a bit–I remember one time when I told Seth something along the lines of I think what you’re doing is wrong, in the sense of sin-wrong, and I’m not going to have any part of it. Which sounds really good doctrinally, except that I was saying it because I was frustrated and you’d have been searching my heart for a long time before you found a holy motive. So was I right? Absolutely not!

Secondly, I think that it’s important to remember that nothing should be important to us apart from God. All of our wants and desires–whether mundane, like a fondness for chocolate sundaes, or serious, like a burning desire for motherhood–all these things we are called to subordinate to God’s will. All these things we are called to abandon to God. Not to stop liking them, necessarily, but to order them in our minds so that if, in God’s sovereignty, they are denied us, we find it joy to forsake them for His sake.

In other words, while submitting to our husbands involves varying degrees of self-denial, it’s nothing more than we should already be prepared to do (joyously!) as Christians. The wants we’re talking about abandoning are nothing in comparison to the sweetness of obeying God. And submitting to our husbands is obeying God. This strikes very near to my own heart, honestly, because I often don’t consider things that far. If Seth asks me to do something, I tend to consider it as him asking me to do something, me giving up something I like for him , when really I need to view it as obedience to God.

What motivates me to such a massive calling?
Submission isn’t natural–check out Genesis 3:16–and submission in everything can sound downright unpalatable. So why do we do it? This is one of those areas of theology that must sound absolutely batty to nonbelievers; we give up “everything,” and what do we get in return? What motivates us? Moreover, when we feel unmotivated, how can we learn to enjoy submitting to our husbands?

There’s the obvious answer: heavenly reward. God will reward us for obeying Him. But I think it goes beyond that, and so it’s the here-and-now I want to focus on tonight. As I was studying to write this entry, I came across the following passage in John Gill’s commentary on the verse:

Her head, being wholly dependent upon him, and entirely resigned to him, and receiving all from him; from whom alone is all her expectation of provision, protection, comfort, and happiness; wherefore she has respect to all his commands, and esteems all his precepts concerning all things to be right; and yields a cheerful, voluntary, sincere, and hearty obedience to them; arising from a principle of love to him, and joined with honour, fear, and reverence of him.

To be less archaic, Gill is saying that since a wife is dependent upon her husband for “provision, protection, comfort, and happiness,” she must therefore do what he says, agree with his opinions and obey them, because she loves/honors/fears/reveres him.

As I read, I thought, hmm, Mr. Gill, that sounds rather akin to the philosophy that we should do good works in an attempt to “pay God back” saving us. Like a cosmic thank-you note from us to God. And since John Piper rather throroughly debunked that idea (excellent book, by the way), I’m not sure that I agree with Gill here. Or maybe I’m reading him more chauvinistically than he intended. But while there is a sense in which wives do subordinate themselves to their husbands out of thankfulness for their provision, I think that motivation alone falls far short.

The parallel Paul makes in this passage between Christ/Church and husband/wife is unspeakably valuable. As believers, why do we do good works? Because they please God. And why does that please us? Because our delight is the Lord; pleasing Him is the sweetest thing we know. And yet that very truth is one that we have to learn a bit as we grow in Christ. Sometimes our thick skulls forget that there is no higher pleasure. Sometimes we do the wrong thing in pursuit of something infinitely less grand. And sometimes we do the right thing trusting that it will bring us the most delight, even though we don’t yet know it experientially.

Very similarly, in the sphere of marriage, pleasing our husbands is the sweetest thing we know. Just as we were created human to worship and glorify God, we were created woman to be a helper to man (Genesis 2:18)! As wives, the height of our gender, our identity as female, is to submit to our husbands. The church is the Bride of Christ to submit to and glorify Him; wives are examples of that relationship. Therefore, if submission doesn’t bring us happiness, our worldview needs changed! As Christians, we sin because we forget that our joy is in pleasing the Lord; as wives, we balk at submission because we forget that our joy is in pleasing our husbands.

But how do we get that truth into our minds? What can we do if we don’t feel joy in submission? I’m sure there are many answers to this question, but I would like to propose two.

The first is this: earnest prayer that God would change our hearts. It sounds cliché, but truly, every step on the road to eternity teaches me more and more that God is sovereign, and that He delights in answering our prayers. When things seem hopeless–when we need a massive personality overhaul, for instance!–God is faithful .

The second is, very simply, to seek out and savor the joy when we do submit. Here’s an example: when everything’s going crazy and I really don’t feel like I have time to get dinner on the table, but I do it anyway, I’ve got to treasure Seth’s smile and appreciation; treasure his happiness more than I disliked the “inconveniences” of achieving it. Then the next day when the same thing happens again, I can anticipate that joy as I work towards it. The joy sweetens the work, until it becomes such a state of mind that the work begins to sweeten the joy.

How awesome the gift of submission becomes once we treasure and learn from it as God intended!

I have been reading C.J. Mahaney’s book The Cross Centered Life: Keeping the Gospel the Main Thing over the past few days, and one thing he says has really stuck with me: the Bible is God’s story, not ours, and that should be a guiding factor in the principles we gather from the Word.

His example is David and Goliath. There’s a spectrum of approaches you can take to the passage (I’m broadening this beyond Mahaney, by the way):

Secularistic:
The story of David and Goliath shows us that it isn’t always the strongest that win. A little boy with stones can fell a giant with a sword. Therefore, we should never give up or despair, and if we’re the “big guy” we should be careful not to be over-proud because all it might take is a slingshot to bring us down.

Middle:
The story of David and Goliath shows us that anything is possible when God is on our side. We shouldn’t be afraid of facing off against giants, because if God is with us, we’ll win the battle! Similarly, we see that Goliath was trusting in human power alone and so failed.

Gospel-centered:
The story of David and Goliath shows us that we are utterly hopeless without God. David was totally set up to lose; he couldn’t possibly have beaten a mighty foe like Goliath on his own. But God in His sovereignty is able to use a wretch like David to bring down the mighty. We can also see a parallel to the cross in this story. Like David, we’re in a battle against sin and our flesh that we can’t possibly hope to win. We’re lost causes. But just as God brought David to victory, He brings us to victory in Christ!

Subtle differences, but very profound. From a certain viewpoint, all of these interpretations are valid. You can draw from the text the first implication against overconfidence. You can draw the second implication that with God all things are possible–Philippians 4:13 and Romans 8:31 back up this interpretation very thoroughly. And, of course, you can draw the final implication, that the story shows God’s sovereignty and our weakness.

On the one hand, it seems like the latter interpretation is “forced” on the text. The passage doesn’t talk about Christ, or the redemptive power of the cross. It doesn’t even talk about God’s sovereignty. David doesn’t sit down and compose a psalm of praise when Goliath hits the ground. But. What do we know about God? We know that in Him there is “no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). God’s was doing the same thing and working from the same principles in David’s time as He was when Jesus went to the cross. God’s been “preaching” the Gospel to His people from the moment Adam and Eve stepped out of Eden. And the Gospel as it’s written throughout Scripture is that man is utterly lost without God, but that God is a God of love and salvation so praise Him! And that message is very clear in the story of David and Goliath. David tells Goliath (1 Samuel 17:45-47, ESV):

You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hand.

So why did this exchange between a shepherd boy and a giant even happen? That “all the earth” (!) would see God, and that everyone who witnessed the exchange would learn that the Lord saves, not with human implements and might but by His sovereign power. He had dominion over the battle.

And here we come to a clearer reason why this is God’s story, not David’s. I have heard, so many times, that God “prepared” David for the fight with Goliath through using the fight with the lion and the bear. Like David’s a shepherd boy, sure, but he’s some kind of superhero shepherd. Yet that’s not what the passage is saying at all. David told Saul about those fights as part of his “qualifications,” yes, but he wasn’t saying, look, I fought off a lion and a bear, so I think I can handle a giant. No. David was saying, look, My God delivered me from a lion and a bear, and My God is going to deliver me from your giant. The story of David and Goliath has been about the sovereignty of God all along.

In conclusion, then, I’ve been deeply challenged by Mahaney’s book that when I read Scripture, I should be looking for the Gospel. I should be looking for the good news. Every passage should make me exalt God and abase self; to make me more aware of my helplessness without Him and more aware of His infinite power to save. If we’re reading stories like David and Goliath and coming away with only an interpretation like the middle one above–if we’re only seeing what God can do for us without simultaneously seeing how utterly helpless we are by ourselves–then we’re missing the Gospel, we’re missing the heart; we’re missing the whole point. We’re missing the opportunity to savor the beauty of the cross.

It occurred to me today what an amazingly beautiful verse is Luke 16:31. The context is that this rich man has died and gone to hell, and he’s begging Abraham to resurrect a poor man named Lazarus (who was in heaven) so that the rich man’s family might see the resurrection and believe and avoid hell. Abraham responds, “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.”

That is such amazing evidence of God’s sovereignty over our souls! How many lost people have we had say to us, “if only I could see with my own eyes,” or “I’ll believe if I see a real miracle,” or “I’d believe if science couldn’t explain everything”? And the right response to that–the response we should have in our heads if not in our mouths–is you still wouldn’t believe. All of the “evidence” any of us needs is painted all around us: creation, our consciences, and, most importantly, the Word of God. These are all miraculous things, and as believers we can pause in awe as we witness the supernaturalness. In creation, we see marvelous complexity and irrefutable evidence of design. In our conscience, we see that there is plainly a law written on our hearts that is without explanation apart from God. And in the Word, we see the power of God (1 Corinthians 1:18) itself. But all of these things are non-obvious to the lost person. They see evolution, they see societal impressions; they see an old book.

It is God and God alone who opens our eyes. We could parade the most miraculous of all miracles in front of our depraved minds, and in our sin we would still fail to see a Miracle-Maker. It isn’t “proof” that changes our mind, it’s grace. Grace unmeasured.

My soul delights in the Lord! Apart from Him I am as blind and dead as one can possibly imagine; apart from Him, truth could have no impact on me.

I have a very hard time passing up cheap potted flowers. Show me a plant in a pot with a $1 price tag, and I’ll show you an impulsive buyer! And so, when ShopRite had these little miniature daffodils on sale for $1.99, I bought one! It has taken up residence on our living room coffee table, in front of one window and a bit off to the side of another.

When I came down this morning, every single one of the little blooms has managed to turn itself around so that it’s pointing toward the windows. Toward the sunlight. Even the little floppy one that I thought was dead.

Isn’t that amazing? A plant, a thing with no brain or eyes or consciousness, knows what it needs (sunlight) and is wholly dedicated to getting it. I’m amazed at the science of it, in wonder at God’s amazing creation, and also astounded at how relentlessly the daffodils pursue their single task.

I was thinking, as I passed them by, that we should be more daffodil-like. What an amazing example they are! They “look” at the sun, every last one. That’s what they need to survive, and so they do it! Our eyes, too, should be trained on our “sun”–God–without exception and without wavering! God is the one Who fulfills all our needs, and nothing else should distract us.

To limit the metaphor, though, I do wish that they were fed by something else! Because in turning towards the window, they’ve turned away from the room, and all you see is the backs of them, which aren’t nearly as pretty as the blooms!

For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.
[Ephesians 5:23]

So why is it that God has called one-half of all the people in the world to go against their rebellious natures and put themselves under the authority of the other half of the world? Does God think women can’t make good decisions on their own? Are women just not emotionally stable enough to lead? Are we stupider than men? Or, conversely, does the idea of women being in control just bother men so much that God knew they couldn’t handle it?

I’ve heard these sorts of arguments, and I think that many times when we’re struggling with submission–when we know we should and just find the desire lacking–these questions come to our minds. Submission doesn’t always seem fair. It’s easy to be resentful and think that joyfully submitting must be like asking a slave to be patriotic. And the world doesn’t help. They think we’re nuts. I went to a secular university, and let me tell you, my non-feminism didn’t always go over too well! I’m very sure that it cost me a few grades and made me a few enemies amongst the professors, especially in the English department. This is the world in which we live. “Women can do anything men can do–and do it better,” they insist.

Then there’s the standard legalistic reaction to the world’s errant philosophy, which takes a dollop of true misogyny and mixes it with broad generalizations, missing the beauty of femininity in an attempt to avoid feminism. Women were made in the image of God (Genesis 5:1-2 ): rational, emotional, soul-imbibed human beings. God didn’t decree that we would be the submitters because we’re dumb, irresponsible, and over-emotional! There are so many women in the Bible and throughout history that completely disprove that notion.

So why submission? Because God had a bigger, beautiful purpose to accomplish.

Paul equates the husband to Christ, and the wife to the Church. That’s the “for,” the ultimate reason why we are to submit. In creating marriage, God made sure that His divine love for us would be obvious everywhere we turn, lost or saved. We see marriages around us, and we see how God loves us faithfully! We see marriages, and we see what our relationship with Him is supposed to be! As wives, we have a solemn and joyful duty to illustrate in our daily lives the way that the Church adores and serves and is faithful to her divine Husband. As husbands, they have an equally solemn and joyful duty to illustrate in their daily lives the way Christ unrelentingly and selflessly loves and protects the church–a taller order than submission, if you ask me!

We are called to submit to our husbands specifically as a witness of the submission of the Church to Christ. Wives all around the world at this very moment are displaying in the universal language of action the way that the Bride of Christ submits to her Bridegroom! By His grace, God has written all over the world a great display of redemption and obedience, and this is our part to play. It’s exciting, not inhibiting. It’s part of our created purpose, not a millstone around our necks! God has planned this from the foundation of the world.

There is nothing less dehumanizing than godly submission. Submission is a very real part of what our humanity is at its very essence! God could have created us all to be alike, and left the world to flounder with no idea of how He works amongst humanity, but instead, out of grace alone, He made an illustration and put it in the middle of marriage–the world’s oldest and most abiding human bond–and then, adding grace to grace, He gave us the privilege and duty of carrying it out!

Every time we joyfully submit to our husbands, it becomes a little clearer in our hearts how the Church is designed to submit to Christ. And every time a non-believer sees us being submissive, they see beautiful truths in action that they haven’t seen firsthand. Our submission should be a continual lesson for us as well as a witness to the world!

The beauty in this transcends the merely theological: it affects our day-to-day living and gives us hope and encouragement. At times when submission “stings”–when I totally disagree with Seth–I can take comfort in the fact that even if the particular instance of submitting seems useless from my point of view, it is still serving the primary goal of teaching the Gospel to my heart, to Seth’s heart, and to the world.

Wifely submission is a beautiful illustration of an even more beautiful example of God’s grace. May we live it with thankfulness, not resentment!

Now, the question of a dictionary-like definition of submission. We could just look it up in an actual dictionary, but that would just tell us what G. & C. Merriam and Noah Webster think it means, not what God says it means!

The word here is hupotasso (plus some funny characters I can’t get to show up). Hupo is a preposition meaning “under” or “beneath,” and tasso means “to arrange in an orderly manner, that is to assign or dispose (to a certain position or lot)” (via Strong’s). Or to paraphrase and be verbose, the word literally means to deliberately and carefully arrange beneath.

The word is the same one used to describe Jesus’s relationship to his parents in Luke 2:51 And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart. (ESV) And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart. (ESV) (imagine being a completely perfect being submitting to imperfect parents!); in Luke 10:20 Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” (ESV) Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” (ESV) Jesus uses the word to describe how the demons are subject to the seventy sent-out; in Romans 8:20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope (ESV) For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope (ESV) Paul uses the word to describe how creation is subject to depravity; in Romans 13:1 [13:1]Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. (ESV) [13:1]Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. (ESV), he uses the word to describe how we are to submit to our government; in 1 Corinthians 14:34 the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. (ESV) the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. (ESV) the word is used in telling women to keep silent in the church; in 1 Corinthians 15:27-28 For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all. (ESV) For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all. (ESV) we learn that God subjected all creation under Christ’s feet and that Christ shall be subjected to God; Titus 2:9 Slaves are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, (ESV) Slaves are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, (ESV) exhorts servants to be subjected to their masters; in James 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. (ESV) Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. (ESV) we are to submit ourselves to God; in 1 Peter 5:5 Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (ESV) Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (ESV) we are to be subject to our elders. All the same Greek word.

It’s worth noting that the word used to describe the relationship of children to parents is hupakouo, which means “to hear under… to listen attentively… to heed or conform.” The word is used in many of the same contexts as hupotasso (including in relation to the spirits obeying Christ, servants obeying their masters, the Christian’s relationship to God, and Sarah’s relationship to Abraham), but is never used to describe the “submit to one another” relationship of Christians, nor (except for Sarah) to describe the relationship of a wife to a husband.

Conclusively, then, we are to “submit” to our husbands in the same sense that:

• we submit to the government
• we submit to our masters
• we submit to our elders
• we submit to God
• we behave in church
• Christ submitted to his parents
• Christ is submitted to God
• demons submitted to those Christ sent
• creation submitted to depravity
• creation is submitted under Christ’s feet

The word for submit is transitive; it requires an object. Submit yourselves. Place yourselves in subjection to your husband. Here’s some other English synonyms from the Greek-English dictionary for hupotasso: arrange under, subordinate, submit to one’s control, yield to one’s admonition, obey, be under obedience; subdue unto. The sense I get is that wifely submission is, at its essence, appointing oneself below, which reminds me of nothing so much as Philippians 2:3 Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. (ESV) Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. (ESV).

To summarize: we are called to subject ourselves to the government, our masters, elders, our husbands, and God. All the same word, and all emphasized multiple times throughout scripture.

So what does submission actually mean, practically speaking? It’s active: submission is continually bringing ourselves under the authority of our husbands. It’s orderly: submission is joyfully recognizing that we are “outranked,” in a sense. It’s illustrated: we have countless examples of “submission” described in the Bible; wives aren’t the only ones called to submit. It’s selfless: the very nature of submission requires us to put someone else first, and regard their counsel and wishes as higher than our own.

It’s easy at this point to wonder if wives are some kind of second-class citizens: why did God decree that our husbands would be over us? Are we just not as good? More on that… in the next entry.

This post is part of a series. You can read the introduction first or view all the posts together.

Sidenote: It has been suggested in a comment that I might define “submission” before I continue. So I’m going to do that in the next two posts. First, in this post, I want to define the depth of submission (how much do we submit?) and in the next post, I’ll be more grammatical about it and look at the meaning of the word in Greek, other uses of it, etc. The next post is already half-written and will, Lord willing, be posted sometime tomorrow. Now for today’s post…

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
[Ephesians 5:22]

As to the Lord. Wow. Intense.

If there is one thing in the whole topic of submission that I find both most insightful and most terrifying, it’s those four little words. I know to what extent I’m to submit to the Lord: totally and completely and unquestioningly.

This is the same sort of command qualification as “love your neighbor as yourself.” It’s just so far out there–so extreme–that it’s really hard to wrap my head around it. It’s one of those instances where it becomes plain that it’s impossible to live Christianity as a simple rulebook… it’s too far-reaching… it’s who we are. They way we submit to God invades every aspect of our life, from sleeping and breathing all the way to decision-making. In the same way, Paul is telling us, we are to submit to our husbands.

When I think about submitting to God, I think about total, unquestioning, unwavering obedience. While I’m not perfect at achieving that level of submission, I do know very clearly what I should do. I don’t imagine myself talking back to God, or arguing with Him. I mean, if God were standing in my living room telling me that we are not going to buy a new coffee table, I think I’d probably give a frightened squeak and nod obliquely; end of discussion.

Of course, part of the reason for that is because God is scary, and also because He’s always right. Husbands, on the other hand, are neither! And the real question is, how does one submit to an imperfect husband in the same spirit as one submits to a perfect God?

I mentioned yesterday that I tend to endeavor to do whatever I think is right. I don’t mean morally (although that too!) but pragmatically. I do a lot of careful research before I make decisions, and I’m the sort of person who applies for scholarships and compares insurance companies. And sometimes, I know that I’m “right,” objectively speaking, but Seth doesn’t agree. And sometimes doing what he wants to do has negative consequences that I want to avoid for the good of both of us. (The windshield issue in my long-ago post is a perfect example, at least from my point of view!)

God doesn’t make bad decisions. Husbands do. And, unless it’s a moral issue, we’ve got to go along with those bad decisions. That’s our calling. That’s where the rubber meets the road! It isn’t just blind trust. It isn’t being brainless and not thinking for ourselves. Sometimes it’s doing something that goes against every fiber of your being! Sometimes it’s doing things that we know are stupid! And doing them cheerfully!

I remember when I was in junior high or high school youth group, and we’d go on retreats. And there’d be all sorts of really silly rules. No hairdryers. No going from point A to point B without an adult. The buddy system. As an adult, I understand the reason we put such things on teenagers, but as a teenager I thought, hmm, I wandered all around the camp by myself before the rest of the kids got here, but now that they’re here, I have to follow this stupid rule, like I’ve suddenly lost my sense of direction. It didn’t make sense. But I followed the rules anyway, because they were the rules, and being obedient to them was the right thing to do.

I think submission to our husbands is kind of like that. Sometimes the “rules” are stupid. Truly, objectively stupid. Our husbands are wrong sometimes. And sometimes the we don’t understand the reason for “rules,” because sometimes our husbands see things that we don’t see. (Hopefully that happens more often!) But either way, sometimes we don’t get what our husbands are trying to do, and we don’t agree with them. And what we have to do at that point is recognize that just like our camp counselors, our parents, our government–whomever–we are under their authority, and we follow that authority because to do otherwise is to sin and to displease God.

When God commands us to do something, we have to follow it and trust Him even if we don’t see the reason in it. Similarly, we must submit to our husbands’ leadership and decision-making even if when we don’t see the reason in it! And by submitting to our husbands “as to the Lord,” we also submit to God. To return to the child metaphor, we obeyed our babysitters because our parents left them in charge, and in a sense, to obey the babysitter was to obey our parents. In the same way, the authority our husbands hold over us, the source of our submission, is ultimately from God.

This post is part of a series. You can read the introduction first or view all the posts together.