Marriage Tune-Up Part 2

10. COL 3:19. The husband is not to be bitter against his wife and take out his frustrations on her. a. She may be a good sounding board, but not a dart board. b. Reserve disgruntlement for her rebellion, not for her flaws and womanly nature. c. bitter: Characterized by intense animosity or virulence of feeling or action: virulent. d. virulent: fig. Violently bitter, spiteful, or malignant; full of acrimony or enmity. e. Muhammad may think wife-beating appropriate but not Jesus Christ. (1) The Qur’an in Sura 4:34 says, “Men are the managers of the affairs of women... Those you fear may be rebellious---admonish; banish Marriage Tune-Up 12-11-22 Page 3  them to their couches and beat them.” (2) Some English translations of the Qur’an and Muslim apologists moderate the impact of such a statement, reducing it to a proverbial “slap on the wrist.” (3) But the original Arabic actually says “scourge them,” and the same Arabic word is used to describe the beating of camels and criminals. (4) Bible Christianity is not the enemy of women. It is the elevation and salvation of women. B. The role of the wife. 1. A good wife is a great blessing. PRO 18:22; 19:14. 2. She is to submit to her husband and obey him. EPH 5:22 c/w TIT 2:3-5. a. submit: refl. and intr. To place oneself under the control of a person in authority or power; to become subject, surrender oneself, or yield to a person or his rule, etc. b. This should not be the controversial issue that sin has made it to be. Nature itself teaches this (and exceptions do not nullify rules, they prove rules). The current fad of transgenderism in sports is curiously giving the feminist movement pause for thought as Superwoman loses to Averageman. c. The headship of the man in marriage has long been under attack by Cultural Marxism which fully intended “a long, slow march through the institutions” of Western Christianity. The biblical family model had to be broken down to establish the Marxist political system and the way to do that was to liberate the woman from her “enslavement” and marry her to the State. d. TIT 2:3-5 shows the importance of godly older women setting the tone and teaching the younger women what they need to know and do to please God and prevent the blasphemy of the word of God. Young women will not learn this from the entertainment industry, fashion industry or advertising industry! Many churches have bought into the inversion and turned the faith from a sturdy thistle into a pansy. 3. She needs to remember that she was made, first of all, not for herself, her children or her career, but for her man. GEN 2:18; 1CO 11:9. 4. 1PE 3:1-6 sets forth critical guidelines for the wife. a. Her subjection to her husband is not conditioned upon his obedience of faith. He is still the head of the family. b. This does not mean submission to ungodly demands since her first allegiance is to God, not him. MAT 22:36-39. c. This does not mean that she must forsake all instincts of self-preservation. 1SAM 25:18-24. d. Neither does subjection to her husband mean that she must be mentally stagnant. She is to be fearfully submissive without amazement (the condition of being mentally paralyzed, mental stupefaction, frenzy). 5. She ought to reverence her husband. EPH 5:33 c/w 1PE 3:6. a. reverence: Deep or due respect felt or shown towards a person or relationship; deference. b. This is not just to be lip-service or eye-service, but from the heart. GEN 18:12. 6. TIT 2:4-5. a. The wife is to be a keeper at home. b. keeper: One who has charge, care, or oversight of any person or thing; a Marriage Tune-Up 12-11-22 Page 4  guardian, warden, custodian. (c/w 1TI 5:14; PRO 31:27) (1) Her role as guardian and warden will be particularly in play when children enter the picture. The home’s spotlessness may have to take a backseat to warden duties. (2) A word to the wise: Let your home be clean enough to be healthy and dirty enough to be happy. (3) Christ’s expectation of His bride is reasonable service. ROM 12:1. c. A wife exercises authority over the home under her husband. Hence, the rule of the husband does not imply that she has no power. A wise husband will delegate authority and a wise wife will faithfully exercise it. d. Godly “keepers at home” contrast the unchaste harlot and the untied widow who lacks discretion. PRO 7:11; 1TI 5:13. e. She is to love her husband and children. f. She must be sober, which is: “moderate, temperate, avoiding excess in respect of the use of food and drink; not given to the indulgence of food and appetite.” g. She must be discreet, which is: “showing discernment or judgement in the guidance of one's own speech and action; judicious, prudent, circumspect, cautious; often, especially, that can be silent when speech would be inconvenient.” c/w PRO 11:22. h. She is to be chaste, which is: “pure from unlawful sexual intercourse, continent, virtuous (of persons, their lives, conduct, etc.).” i. This peripherally censures aggressive, alluring actions or clothing. ISA 3:16; 1TI 2:9. 7. The virtuous woman is a crown to her man. PRO 12:4. 8. The virtuous woman is well described in PRO 31:10-31. a. This is clearly not a description of a stifled, ignorant robot. b. This passage acknowledges the right of a wife and mother to be involved in business dealings beyond the realm of domestic duties (as long as the guidance of the house is not surrendered). c. Though industrious, she obviously honours her husband's headship. d. The reason for this virtuous woman's lively balance of meekness and aggressiveness is because she fears God. v. 30. e. The PRO 31 woman is a high standard but so is Boaz. RUTH 2:1. 9. The following texts emphasize the kind of woman a man does not need. PRO 21:9, 19; 27:15-16; 30:23. a. brawl: To quarrel noisily and indecently; to wrangle; to squabble. b. odious: Deserving of hatred, hateful; causing or exciting hatred or repugnance, disagreeable, offensive, repulsive, exciting odium. 10. A contrast: a. This author speaks of Merlin Stone, who wrote a very influential book, “When God Was a Woman” which “justifies” modern Feminism: “Stone concludes that the mature Goddess cultures saw ceremonial sex as an especially potent way to celebrate and share in the life-giving powers of the Goddess. In addition, promiscuous sexual activity was encouraged for the specific reason of confusing the lines of paternity, and thus reinforcing matrilineal inheritance of property and power---fathers could not bequeath power and property to their sons if they did not know who their sons were. Patrilineal monogamy, she says, is just another aspect of the later Marriage Tune-Up 12-11-22 Page 5  oppression of women, and hence sexual liberation today is an essential component of the liberation of women." (Philip G. Davis, Goddess Unmasked, p. 45) b. “The strength of purpose which the young wives of America display, in bending themselves at once and without repining to the austere duties of their new condition [marriage] is no less manifest in all the great trials of their lives. In no country in the world are private fortunes more precarious than in the United States. It is not uncommon for the same man, in the course of his life, to rise and sink again through all the grades which lead from opulence to poverty. American women support these vicissitudes with calm and unquenchable energy: it would seem that their desires contract as easily as they expand with their fortunes. ¶ I have often met, even on the verge of the wilderness, with young women who, after being brought up amidst all the comforts of the large towns of New England, had passed, almost without any intermediate stage, from the wealthy abode of their parents to a comfortless hovel in a forest. Fever, solitude, and a tedious life had not broken the springs of their courage...I do not doubt that these young American women had amassed, in the education of their early years, that inward strength which they displayed under these circumstances. ¶ ...Hence it is, that the women of America, who often exhibit a masculine strength of understanding and a manly energy, generally preserve great delicacy of personal appearance, and always retain the manners of women, although they sometimes show that they have the hearts and minds of men.” (Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy In America, pp. 237, 244) Marriage Tune-Up 12-11-22 Page 6