You can find my email in my profile if you want more examples. They would fill a book. I don’t know if it is worth publishing. It is very demoralizing. I still send any items that are false to CBMW, since Grudem doesn’t answer my email. CBMW does answer once in a while, with protestations of willingness to check these things out. They never do. They don’t have any defense.

Male entitlement is a component of abuse.

There are two major consistent contributors to abuse, alcohol and male entitlement. One of the major causes for women staying in abusive situations is that they have been isolated systematically from friends and family by the husband and trapped by a promise of silence that they will not discuss marital problems with others. They are outright instructed by the husband not to get counseling.

Its true that once the abuse crosses the line and becomes physical the wife may be supported in leaving. But she has to get help first.

There is absolutely no support provided for wives who are prevented by a vow of obedience from working, engaging in any program or activity outside the home, like going for coffee or to the gym or to a movie with a girlfriend or whatever. Basic civil freedoms like voting for the candidate of her choice. There is absolutely no protection for the wife from mental cruelty.

But is is worse than that, Ben. On the CBMW blog, Grudem wrote that when kephale is used it means “ruler of”, and here is an example,

the king of Egypt is called “head” of the nation

But this is what he is quoting, presumably,

and, in a word, the whole family of the Ptolemies was exceedingly eminent and conspicuous above all other royal families, and among the Ptolemies, Philadelphus was the most illustrious; for all the rest put together scarcely did as many glorious and praiseworthy actions as this one king did by himself, being, as it were, the leader of the herd, and in a manner the head of all the kings. Philo Moses 2:30

In fact, Philadelphus is described as being the most illustrious, the leader of the herd, and not the ruler of the nation, at least, that is not what “head” means. “Head” clearly means that he is preeminent above other kings, who lived either before or after him. He was quite simply better known, or more famous, not “ruler of the nation.”

Examine this, Ben, this is Grudem’s best example proving that the word “head” means authority but authority is not intended at all. So my beef with this position is that it promotes the misleading use of citations from Greek. It is dishonouring to God because it is not turthful.

I feel abused when I read this kind of thing by Grudem, because, guess what, I studied classical and Hellenistic Greek for 6 years before I took my first course in NT exegesis. Grudem started exegeting before he studied Greek, and his theories are honoured and esteemed – for what reason, I don’t know. You tell me Ben, why do people believe Grudem. Look at that quote.

Complementarians do not support domestic violence:

http://www.cbmw.org/Conferences/Building-Strong-Families-in-Your-Church/Pastoral-Responses-to-Domestic-Violence

http://www.cbmw.org/Journal/Vol-12-No-1/Guest-Editorial-O-J-Simpson-Is-Not-a-Complementarian

http://www.cbmw.org/Resources/Articles/Statement-on-Abuse

Million of abused Christian women testify to the fact that Christian men also abuse, deprive their wives of freedom, of flourishing, of basic civil rights like voting for whom they want, having equal say in making decisions for the children, deprive their wives of voice, of friends, of time with family, of further education and work.

Sadly woman who are trained to submit often do not leave when they should. I am strongly with your mother on this one.

Basically I do not feel that men in ministry put enough emphasis on this and women need to participate more in bringing this to the attention of the church. There are basic problems with a male lead church. This is one.

Another is the amnesia regarding women preachers who helped evangelize America.

I really don’t know anything about the Baptist women of the 19th and 20th century. I wouldn’t classify myself as a Baptist, although I do agree with the vast majority of their doctrine. I’m certainly not an anti-Baptist.

From my understanding of the Word of God, I would agree (with the Baptist position) that women are not to hold positions as overseers of a church. That seems very clear to me.

However, I agree with you that there have been many faithful female saints that have gone before us, and that they were strong and driven women.

I am thankful for their witness, and they give me encouragement to press on and fight the good fight.

I still see submission as a willful act on the part of the one submitting, and I believe this is often true even in the military setting.

My mom always taught me that we were to submit to our husbands until they made a mistake, and then at that point that we were to bypass their leadership. In essence, we were to assume their roles, if they were doing a crummy job in them.

She twisted the precept laid down in Scripture by saying that in the case of the man doing something sinful (and I’m not talking about abuse here), that we had to know that he had forsaken his position of authority, thus we were free to balk it and make our decisions apart from him.

I don’t see that in my study of God’s Word. I see just the opposite. And, played out in a practical sense, I’ve seen time and again that when a woman will continue to place herself under her husband’s God given authority, (even if he’s about to sink the ship, so to say) that God can go straight to work in the husband’s heart…not having to first deal with getting the wife out of the way.

I realize that this flies in the face of contemporary feminism. And for many, will fly in the face of logic.

Regardless, it’s how I understand the Word of God, and God’s heart for marriage.

I’m not inferring that a woman doesn’t have a voice in her own home. I’m simply saying that my understanding of the Word is that there is to be a leader in the home, and that God ordained that leader to be the husband.

I know many women who faithfully submitted to their unsaved husbands (after first lovingly stating their personal opinions) even when his decisions were ridiculous. In so many of those cases, the husband was won over to the Lord as he watched how his saved wife treated him and honored him, thus honoring the LORD.

Again, I’d never advocate a woman staying in an abusive situation…that’s not the context of my comments.

It seems quite likely that you and I may be on opposite sides of the fence on this issue, but I do hope that we will be able to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Thank you for challenging me…it’s always good to know why you believe what you believe and to be able to articulate it to others.

Have a wonderful day!
Jesica

I do know Christian husbands who have taken this word submission in its military context, and tried to build a marriage on the command – obey model.

It seemed to me that is what you were teaching those other women. It is important to realize that abusive behaviour is a human behaviour which afflicts both non-Christians and Christians. It is especially difficult for a Christian woman married to a Christian man, to seek and receive appropriate counseling.

Jes,

Learning Greek is neither here nor there to God. But if a person dips into a lexicion and pulls out a meaning, like the military meaning of hupotasso, without being aware that hupotasso is also used when a leader yields to the demands of the people, then it becomes very dangerous.

In one sense, the husband has more strength, physical and often economic. Naturally, a woman also wants a strong moral leader as a husband. But this does not preclude the wife also being a strong moral leader.

Moral leadership was thought to be the domain of women in the early evangelical movement, as women were the conscience of society, drawing others to pity slaves and the poor.

If you read about the women of the 19th century, you will understand how they extended their role as mother into civic life as moral guardians, championing the cause of abolition of slavery, fighting prostitution and poverty.

These women became preachers and leaders – strong leaders. It is hard to say what has become of that movement today. Women preachers have been alienated from some parts of the evangelical church. Early Baptist women preachers, who might have provided the leadership for younger women, are not well known and recognized today.

I don’t know if you can offer any thoughts, Jes, on what happened to the strong Baptist women of the 19th and early 20th century. It puzzles me somehow.

I appreciate your obvious love and respect for your husband. Let me offer a quick counterpoint for the sake of this discussion.

You claim that your husband’s love and devotion to Christ is something that makes you want to model that same love and devotion to Christ. Yes, this is true. But it is not simply true of a husband leading his wife. I’m sure if we asked your husband he would tell us that your devotion to the Lord is inspiring to him and makes him want to serve God more faithfully. Does that now mean that he is submitting to you?

My wife is a dear beleiver, and in many ways she walks with Christ in ways that are much more dedicated and devoted than I. When I see how responsible she is and how she is committed to fairness and justice, I am inspired and am pointed to Christ. Does that make her the head of our home?

I guess what I’m saying here is that I’m glad you’re inspired by your husband, but that has absolutely no bearing on what this principle means within the context of Scripture. You may not have found women in your Bible study who are happy when they lead their husbands, but I would bet that these same women would feel horribly oppressed by the kind of patriarchal leadership that was alive and well in biblical times. The cultures are so different, it’s difficult to apply the principles to everyday life.

If we literally practiced the kind of submission that you are advocating, women in this culture would freak out (including you!). You advocate a military use of the term. Can you imagine if your husband took that to heart and began practicing it? How would you respond if your husband began to demand military submission from you? If you failed to follow his order, are you advocating that he would have the right to make you drop and give him 20 push-ups? How is that understanding helpful in this passage?

This is the problem with which we’re presented: If we take this passage literally, we have platoon leaders as husbands. Sure, they’re willing to die for their platoon, but in the meantime, they expect total conformity to their will. After all, that is the military model of submission.

If we take the passage as some sort of mutual submission, we water down the cultural context and make the word “submission” mean something that it clearly doesn’t.

I’m not sure how to reconcile this, but I don’t really like any of the options. I actually think Huckabee did a good job of answering this question, and his answer sounds correct to me. Is it a good interpretation of Ephesians 5:21? Not sure.