What Is A Woman Part 9
What Is A Woman Part 9
A woman’s role as wife
In my installment number 7 of this blog series, I said the following about Proverbs 31 where God describes the excellent woman:
In Proverbs 31 we see a woman who is queen of her home. We see a woman who affirms her husband’s leadership and his prominent place in society, and whose focus is on building up those in her home. God gave women a special responsibility to care for and manage their homes. It is an incredible honor, and it has great impact on those around her. The woman of Proverbs 31 will show us that a woman’s priorities should be in this order: God, husband, children, community. A woman is free to go outside her home to earn money or serve as long as she has taken care of her home and family well FIRST.
In the last blog post, I discussed the excellent woman’s first priority, which is fearing God. Now I will discuss a woman’s second priority, which is her husband. Obviously this applies to married women, although single women should understand these concepts in case God blesses them with a husband. They can also encourage married women to live out this God given role more excellently.
There are volumes written about this subject, so I will only be scratching the surface. I encourage you to study this subject on your own as well. Discussing a wife’s biblical role can be very controversial in our world. We have to remember that knowing what is true and good always starts with going to the Bible to find out what our Creator says to us. The Creator is the one who made us and who defines what is true, what is good and what will make us live life abundantly.
What does God’s word say about the wife’s role?
1. God designed marriage to be a special union of one man and one woman. When God created Adam and Eve, He blessed the first marriage when He presented her to Adam. He said this, “For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.” This relationship is to be closer than any other relationship in life. Humans are made in the image of God and because of that they are made for relationship. God gave us the gift of an extra close relationship in marriage that lasts for a lifetime. But only by following God’s instructions can we live unified in this relationship and experience the blessing God meant for it to be.
2. Wives and husbands have different God given roles in marriage. Remember that we are of equal worth before God, but designed to have different complementary roles. As quoted in the book Disciplines of A Godly Woman, Claire Smith says, “God is a God of order, and we were created for relationships that reflect His order and purpose.” The author of the book (Barbara Hughes) further elaborates, “Even within the Trinity there is an order to the relationship. Scripture reveals differences in the roles of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit… Made in God’s image, men and women are also equal but different. Equal before God as persons, we have been given distinctly different roles. In the marriage relationship, man is to lead, and woman is to follow his lead. In the beginning Eve rebelled against God, rejecting His will regarding the forbidden tree and then encouraged her husband to follow her lead. When Adam joined her, failing to lead his wife in godliness, they overturned the good order of creation. Ever since that day there has been war between the sexes.” (Page 147-148)
In my blog post #3 in this series(Blog Posts(anastasihome.com) ), I discussed in more detail how men and women have been created for different roles, and that this was part of God’s original good creation before the fall of man and woman into sin. Because this was God’s original design, we know that it is good and will lead to blessings in our life when we follow it.
3. God calls women to submit to their husbands, and husbands to love their wives sacrificially.
In Ephesians 5:22-33, Paul gives a lengthy explanation of how God wants husbands and wives to live. I will focus on what it says about wives. However, realize that the wife’s submission is taught alongside the need for husbands to lead their wives and love them sacrificially like Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her. Here is the full text of verses 22 to 25.
“Wives be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her….”
In a parallel passage, Colossians 3:18 says, “Wives be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.”
There are several principles we can draw from this passage and related passages. Here are two very important ones.
a. Following God’s design for marriage honors God and shows to the world a tangible example of the relationship that Christ has to the church. The wife submits to the husband as the church submits to Christ, and the husband loves the wife as Christ loves the church. It is a high calling!
b. The submission of the wife to the husband is voluntary and freely given, just as we freely give our allegiance and obedience to God. Contrary to what our society thinks, submission in the biblical sense is not something that a woman is forced into, but rather something a wife decides to do herself. Barbara Hughes in her book Disciplines of A Godly Woman says this, “These parallel phrases (in Colossians and Ephesians) serve as reminders to all wives that submission in marriage must be with the same loving wholeheartedness with which we submit to the Lord. When we submit to our spouses, we are once again agreeing with God that His beautiful ordered plan is worth obeying and the mystery worth preserving. By so doing we once again acknowledge that Jesus is Lord… Obedience to God’s will was Eve’s point of failure. She doubted God’s goodness and wisdom in denying her the tree of the knowledge of good and evil… Submission to our husbands begins and ends with trusting God-Eve’s point of failure.” (page 149-150) Jesus is our example of submission when He submitted to the Father while here on earth. The wife’s submission does not say anything about her worth, because she is of equal worth to her husband, but it says that God’s plan is good, and that she will trust Him even though she submits to an imperfect man. Her ultimate submission is to God, who works all things out for good and loves her beyond her comprehension. And because a wife’s ultimate submission is to God, a wife cannot submit to a husband when he asks her to do something sinful.
4. We are to be helpers to our husband. In Genesis 2:18 when God creates the woman, God declares, “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” You can see the role of helper lived out practically in the excellent woman in Proverbs 31 where she is seen doing good to her husband all the days of her life, and managing her household well. We are to assist our husbands to live out God’s will and purpose for their lives. For those who scoff at the role of helper and think it is somehow inferior, remember that the Holy Spirit, who is God and part of the Trinity, is our Helper. John 14:16 says, “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever.” In our selfish world, being a helper is a hated concept, but in God’s eyes it is a role full of honor and importance.
As I discussed in my blog post #4in this series ( Blog Posts(anastasihome.com), the essence of biblical womanhood and biblical manhood is an attitude of selfless service. Being an effective helper requires this attitude. As Philippians 2:3-8 so beautifully tells us, we are to follow the example of Jesus: “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus…” (verses 3-5)
How can we help our husbands? Here are just a few ways.
a. From Proverbs 31 we see that the excellent woman manages her home and her resources diligently and wisely so that the heart of her husband trusts in her. He can delegate much to his wife and know that she will handle it well. I cover a lot about home management in my blog series on organization.
b. InI Peter 3:1-6, we are encouraged to have a lovely attitude in our submission: “In the same way (as Christ suffered with patience, submission and without sin in chapter 2:18-25), you wives be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior. And let not your adornment be merely external-braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses; but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God. For in this way in former times the holy women also, who hoped in God, used to adorn themselves, being submissive to their own husbands. Thus Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, and you have become her children if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear.” We can only have this lovely attitude of a gentle and quiet spirit and be without fear if we trust God. We can only trust God if we make Him and His word our first priority.
c. We need to pray for our husbands daily. Many years ago, I saw this article and started praying these requests for my husband daily in addition to the requests that are specific to his situation: 30-Day Praying for Your Husband Challenge | Articles | Revive Our Hearts
d. A husband is also helped when a wife encourages him, listens to him, and asks him if there is anything she can do to help him.
5. We must love and respect our husbands. In Titus 2:3-4, Paul says, “Older women are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips, nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children.” Ephesians 5:33 says, “Nevertheless let each individual among you also love his own wife even as himself; and let the wife see to it that she respect her husband.” I think love and respect go together. We are also to specifically respect our husbands’ God given role as leader in our lives, even when we don’t agree with what they decide. How do we love our husbands? We can go to any passage on love in the Bible for help to understand this. Proverbs 31 shows the excellent woman practically loving her husband. I Corinthians 13:4-8a is another good passage to go to as a summary of what biblical love looks like. “Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.”
It is important for me to make sure you understand that Scripture clearly condemns abuse in marriage from the husband or the wife. Husbands are required to love their wives sacrificially as Christ loves the church and wives are required to love their husbands and submit to them as to Christ. There is no room for abuse in that! If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, God has provided protections for women to make use of. One is the process of church discipline if the husband is a believer. (Matthew 18 tells us how to deal with sin in the church.) I know that churches do this imperfectly and some churches do not do it at all, but an abused wife should make use of this protection if possible. If there is physical abuse, call the police and get them involved. There is no excuse for violence towards women. God loves women, and has given us protections in this imperfect world where we are the weaker sex. Men who embrace biblical manhood will strive to protect women.
God blesses us richly with joy, strength, hope and love as we obey Him wholeheartedly. I want to encourage those who are struggling with the role God has given them to begin right now to ask for God’s help, and humble themselves before God, acknowledging that His will is good. He will help us if we ask Him. There is not one wife who lives perfectly up to the high calling God gives us. But we need to strive every day with God’s help to get better, and be an encouragement to other wives as we all strive towards the same goal. We are all a work in process, and by God’s grace and our diligence, tomorrow we will be better than today.
For a very practical book to further read on the wife’s role, I recommend The Excellent Wife by Martha Peace.
In my next blog, I will discuss what the Bible says about a woman’s role as mother.
Verses to memorize in response: Proverbs 31:10-12.
Please let me know if you have any questions or feedback. You can email meat candice@anastasihome.com