Hi all. Don't know if anybody's still coming to this page since your class is over, but if you ARE, then what's up? It's Steven Manuel here.
Dora's told me that several of you have had questions regarding your husbands. The questions tend to go something like this: "Now that I'm kind of 'getting' healing and deliverance and casting out demons like they're last week's meatloaf, I feel a little weird about the fact that my husband is comparatively ignorant on the subject. How do I submit to him when *I'M* the one in the know?"
That's a fair question. Dora and I have known several women who were in this position: they were zealous in the LORD and their husbands were either disinterested or just felt they could never "catch up" to their wives. Women have even avoided deliverance because they didn't want to "get ahead" of their husbands! (This is a DUMB MOVE. Get saved, healed, and delivered, ladies--and worry about the fallout later.)
Before I answer the question, I want to tell you about Anne Hawes, a woman I knew in my church growing up. Anne's husband was a violent unbeliever--an atheist who was a university professor. Anne was a believer (I'm not sure how they got married; I think Anne was born again after they'd wed) and struggled with how to deal with her husband until she came across I Peter 3, which says, "Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives..." Anne took this literally (one of the first people I'd come across who took the Bible's instructions at face value) and determined to submit to her unbelieving husband and just love him. So, for the yearS when he DIDN'T ALLOW HER TO GO TO CHURCH MEETINGS, she... didn't. She submitted herself to him and loved him. Then, when he'd allow her to go on Sundays but not the Wednesday night prayer meetings, she submitted herself and loved him. Allow me to pause and ask you how you think a husband would feel at that level of honor and respect. Anne didn't do what she did grudgingly, constantly holding over her husband's head, "Well, I wish I could HONOR GOD, but since my schlub husband won't LET me, I guess I'll just STAY HOME today..." Instead, Anne accepted her husband's words as if they came straight from God Himself, "Oh, well I'm not supposed to go to church meetings. So... I won't! I'll continue in my God-honoring friendships, and I'll continue my private relationship with Jesus--but I won't go to church meetings!" If you're not sure how Mr. Hawes felt about that, I'll fill you in: he felt like he was married to the very bride of Jesus. And he was. He felt that any joy or pleasure he denied his wonderful wife was borne out of meanness in his soul. So gracious was Anne that Mr. Hawes felt convicted of his own sin.
Guess what happened.
Yeah, he was born again. He died to his intellectual arrogance, and submitted himself to the rightful lordship of Jesus. Why? BECAUSE HE'D HAD THE EXAMPLE OF JOYFUL, LOVING SUBMISSION SLEEPING NEXT TO HIM ALL THOSE YEARS. Anne's pains at honoring her husband (this woman, and I'm not telling stories here, NEVER spoke ONE ILL WORD about her husband, in all those years of seeing her at church meetings with her children and without her husband.) had yielded the peaceable fruit of righteousness. Anne proved I Peter 3 to be truly God's words. [This story makes me want to take my shoes off. I wept again at its beauty as I rewrote it here.]
So ladies, here's what I have to say on this topic: spiritual authority in your home is not a contest. There's not a quiz, and whoever scores higher on Bible knowledge gets to lead. If you're nervous that maybe you're "overstepping your bounds" spiritually and are somehow going to accidentally overthrow your husband's spiritual authority in your house, let me put your minds at ease: ain't gonna happen. See, spiritual leadership isn't an arm-wrestling contest, where the strongest person wins. Spiritual leadership is mandated by God, and it belongs to your husband, regardless of what kind of husband he is, and regardless of what kind of wife you are. I Peter 3 is staggering because Peter actually goes out of his way to articulate the possibility that your husband may be an UNBELIEVER! And if he doesn't even believe, guess what you're to do. Yup, submit.
Submission is a sizable topic, but let me give you a quick idea of what this might look like. Your husband says "we're NOT giving money away to missionaries!" You think, "Oo, but I really think that to honor God we NEED to give our money away to these missionaries." So you say to your husband, "Well, you should know that I'm going to follow your lead (and NEVER speak against it!) whatever you decide, but I'm kind of sensing that we should give this money away." Your husband doesn't follow your lead. He says no. So you do what he says with a smile on your face, knowing the following: [I'm really about to bring it home so pay close attention here,,,]
Your responsibility is to submit to your husband. That's the domain over which you have authority. Your husband has authority over the whole house- that means, that's the area where he has RESPONSIBILITY. Responsibility means that, when God has a problem with the way your house is run, he doesn't come to you. He comes to your husband. The man will have to answer to God for the leadership of the home- not the woman. The exception to this is when you have usurped the role of spiritual leader in your house, and have taken responsibility for something over which you have no authority. In this case, you have perverted the LORD's order, and he'll not only deal with your husband, he'll come looking for YOU!
So wives, press in to know God as intimately as possible. Be delivered from all your diseases and strongholds. But never let the enemy trick you into thinking that spiritual maturity means you get spiritual authority. That belongs to your husband alone. You are his advisor, yes, and you should give him the benefits of what you spiritually discern- but the rule of the house is his, whether you think he's earned it or not. Spiritual authority is not earned, it's granted by God.
