A Word to Men Who Demean Their Wives

Interview with John Piper

Audio Transcript

This is an important and too-common theme in our inbox: men belittling women as inferior, perhaps in the name of complementarity even. I see this too often in the inbox and we haven’t covered it yet. I wish we didn’t have to address it, but we do.

“Dear Pastor John, my husband and I have been married for nearly thirty years. He’s grown convinced that there is something wrong with me. I’m a Christian and have been since I was 10 years old. He is also convinced that God sees me as subservient to him, and in every way. Tonight, I asked him if he believes women are subservient to men in creation, and he answered without a hesitation, ‘Yes.’ He has always treated me like he is superior to me in every way. The way he treats me is very hurtful, and I don’t think I can continue to go on with his angry, aggressive spirit. When he gets angry with me about anything, he locks me out of the bedroom and out of our house. I literally want to run away. I despise this life. Please help encourage wives who are treated as inferior!”

Perhaps it will be of some help — I hope so — if I explain from a biblical standpoint five sinful, damaging mistakes this man is making, and which he should be held accountable for. She doesn’t say if he claims to be a Christian or not. He certainly is not acting like one. But some man or men need to step into his life and call him to account for these five sins.

Self at the Center

Now, before I mention the five sinful and damaging mistakes he’s making, let me go behind them to something deeper, because there’s always something deeper than the principles from which we behave. He clearly has some principles from which he is behaving, and it is clear that behind them is something deeper; namely, he is in significant bondage to the root sin of selfishness and pride. He himself occupies such a central place in his own preferences that he cannot see or feel the beauty of getting outside himself and finding joy in living for the good and gladness of another person.

Now, there’s a fancy name for this today; it’s called narcissism. He is so fixated on himself, and his pleasures, and his privileges, and his rights, that counting another person more significant than himself is literally inconceivable. Philippians 2:3 says we are to “count others more significant than yourselves.” If you were to speak those words to him, they would be like a foreign language. They would not even connect. They would be like wind blowing in the curtains.

So, there’s the root. The biblical word is sin, not narcissism. That’s the new, fancy word. It may or may not be helpful. But the biblical words are solid and forever: sin and pride and self-exaltation. Until God breaks in and reveals to this man the deep ugliness of his soul, so that he weeps and weeps with conviction and contrition that are not intended to manipulate anything or anybody, these five sinful traits that I’m going to talk about probably won’t change. That’s the miracle that we have to pray toward. Every Christian has experienced this miracle. It’s called the new birth, and God can cause it in the worst of sinners. So, that’s the direction I pray for.

Here are my five sinful, damaging mistakes he’s making.

1. Women are not subservient to men.

He thinks there is, in creation — that is, the way the world is made — a built-in subservience for women. She says, “Tonight I asked him if he believes women are subservient to men in creation, and he answered without hesitation, ‘Yes.’”

Now, I am assuming from the word subservient and from the fruit of this man’s conviction that what he sees in creation is very different from what creation actually teaches. If we go to Genesis 2–3 and watch creation unfold sequentially after the foundational statement in Genesis 1:27, that men and women are created equally in God’s image, here is what we see. (And there are more. I’m just summing up a few.)

1. Man was created first and given the instructions for life in the garden, so that by God’s design, he has a kind of unique responsibility that will be unlike his wife’s responsibility.

2. God says in Genesis 2:18, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” So, woman is created — unlike the animals — from Adam’s side: “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23). Man and woman are deeply alike, and yet so wonderfully different. Woman is called “a helper fit for him” — that is, suitable, completing, complementing. That is, by the way, where the word complementarian originated: from that word fit or suitable or complementary in Genesis 2.

3. The tempter came, and the man failed to take the responsibility God had given him. You can see that in Genesis 3:6: “The woman . . . took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” These are crucial words in verse 6: “. . . who was with her, and he ate.” In other words, he was there falling right into line with the devil’s assault on God’s wise and good order by being silent when the enemy was attacking his wife.

4. Sin ravages the beautiful relationship that God has created, this complementary relationship. Sin ravages that relationship, and you see it because the man blames the woman and says, “Look, if you’re going to punish somebody, punish her because you gave her to me and she tempted me” (see Genesis 3:12). In other words, God is really the problem here. It’s a devastating description of the ravages of the fall in human relationships and divine relationships.

So, what creation teaches is that man was designed to be thrilled by his partner-helper. Paul calls her man’s “glory” in 1 Corinthians 11:7. The man gladly bears a unique responsibility to take a special initiative to protect her. Who was superior to whom and on what counts was irrelevant for the central issue of love and protection. They were in God’s image and perfectly suited to each other’s fruitfulness and joy. They were naked and not ashamed. They did not shame each other. The fact that they were profoundly the same and wonderfully different in God’s design caused no shame. So, this husband that we were just being asked about has deeply misread creation. That’s sinful mistake number one.

2. Differences do not downgrade value.

His second sinful mistake is to infer from creation a built-in superior-inferior relationship. She says, “He has always treated me like he is superior to me in every way.” He is saying that men are superior; women are inferior. And she says this is “in every way.” There are two kinds of mistakes here, and they’re both serious.

One is to fail to distinguish whether the words superior and inferior refer to greater or lesser value. He doesn’t even address that. Does he even have such a thing in mind?

And the other is to fail to distinguish capacities and competencies in which women are, in general, superior to men, and competencies and capacities in which men are, in general, superior to women. And those differences do not imply greater or lesser value in personhood — who you are in God’s image. So, this husband is sinfully inferring an undifferentiated superiority for men — for himself in particular — that does not exist.

3. The Bible calls husbands to honor their wives, not demean them.

The third sinful mistake he makes is by inferring from his superior-inferior paradigm for men and women that he may therefore rightly treat his wife in demeaning ways. So, he moves from misreading creation to misconceiving the meaning of superiority and inferiority to justifying demeaning behavior. This is evil at several levels. I’ll just mention one.

In 1 Peter 3:7, Peter says, “Husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way [literally: according to knowledge], showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life.”

And here’s the point this man is totally missing: even when one focuses on an area where women are weaker, the biblical, Christian response of a husband is not demeaning, but honoring. There’s the catch. This is a deep, profound, serious thing he’s blind to. In the way 1 Peter 3:7 is structured, you have the central term, “showing honor,” and on one side of it is “woman as the weaker vessel,” and on the other side is woman as “heirs with you of the grace of life.” Which means that this man is utterly oblivious to this: Whether you focus on any particular weakness or on the fact that both men and women are destined for glory, the call is the same: honor, honor, honor — not shame, shame, shame. The call is to honor, not demean, and he can’t see it.

4. Anger and aggression contradict God’s design.

His fourth sinful mistake is that he lives now with anger and aggressiveness. This is his prison cell. Given what he sees and feels, anger is inevitable. He’s living outside of God’s good design, and the inevitable dissonance causes continual aggravation.

James says something that applies to everyone, including this husband: “Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:19–20). Oh, my goodness — what an important text for marriage.

5. God will not tolerate bullies.

The result of living in the bondage of sin and delusion is acting like a jailer. Let me just make sure you heard the paradox there: the result of being in bondage to sin makes him act like a jailer, to hide the fact that he’s in jail. He has become a childish bully, locking her out of the bedroom and the house.

This is pathetic. It’s like a child throwing a tantrum, only he’s bigger now, so instead of running into his bedroom and slamming the door against his parents, he can run in and lock her out.

Seek Help

Now, she didn’t ask me for any counsel; she just wanted me to say something that might be helpful in general when women are dealing with a man like this. But let me go ahead and say what I think. I’m assuming there hasn’t been physical abuse. She didn’t say that. And the reason I’m telling you that is because what I’m about to say would be different if there were. In other words, if he is brutalizing her, then she is, I think, obliged — rightly and legally — to go to the police and to the ways that the arm of our government has set for helping women or men deal with that kind of brutality.

But short of that, she should be stepping forward — and I do hope she’s in a church where this is possible. I hope she can go to trusted elders, tell them her situation, and ask for them to intervene. I think it’s part of the elders’ job at a church to step into the lives of the sheep — men and women — and to be a part of their protective shield, and to give them guidance and wisdom for how to move forward.

Posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/a-word-to-men-who-demean-their-wives?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=bbff06bb-5972-43d0-be31-f8c126433a6f&utm_content=apj&utm_campaign=new+teaching&fbclid=IwAR2lXFvDkfWOTmN_ofxQeoWwStyqgvtyh-8deZ7JFC9ZERwxkvj-5jYwZKA

A Word to Men Who Abuse

Chris Moles

Chris Moles 

November 19, 2017

There is a section of the West Point cadet prayer that I recite in our classes occasionally and perhaps it will be a help to you today, “Make us to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and never be content with a half-truth when the whole can be won.” I know you want me to understand your point of view. I’m sure you’re desperate to have someone hear ‘your’ side of the story, but I want to challenge you to slow down for a few moments, to listen and choose the more difficult but rewarding road of responsibility. If you’ve been confronted for your behavior I know the temptation is to throw out the thousand and one excuses for what you’ve done, but that’s not going to help you and only adds to your partner’s suffering. I want to challenge you to take a break from defending your position and acknowledge a simple truth. Your behavior, attitude, words, and/or motives have hurt your spouse. True transformation requires accepting responsibility for you alone without the clutter of excuses, or justifications. Let’s begin by putting aside the tactics that tend to trap us in the way of easy wrongs. This may be hard to hear and you may find it difficult or painful to look in the mirror, but if you stick with it and take these words to heart there is hope. No, taking responsibility will not fully restore what’s been broken, it will not get you what you want and may in fact be painful, but it can be a step in restoring your soul, and possibly your relationship with God.

Final Thought:

After David’s sexual assault of Bathsheba and subsequent murder of Uriah it was the sharp words of a friend who was willing to say, “Thou art the man!” that pointed David down the difficult road of admitting his sin, the harsh reality of the consequences he’d created and finally a spirit of humility. It was in that spirit that he penned these words in response, “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.  Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge.” I pray you’ll choose the more difficult right today by accepting responsibility.

Peace, Chris

Posted at: http://www.chrismoles.org/news/2017/11/19/a-word-to-men-who-abuse

4 Reasons Survivors of Abuse Stay Silent

Posted by Gospel Coalition, by Anonymous

I didn’t do anything about it for years. Years while I was suffering from traumatic memories. Years when I knew it was wrong. Years when I knew that my silence was allowing sin to thrive. I was miserable in each circumstance. Full of despair as a child, I first imagined ways to kill myself. Decades later, trapped again, I had a folder on my computer with suicide notes ready to go.

I experienced sexual abuse and assault as a child and as an adult. Spanning decades and leaving me confused and broken, my experiences of abuse have shaped my life. It is only through the hand of God and years of guidance from a gifted, educated, godly counselor that I can speak about this topic. I didn’t speak about it for years.

My situation may be unique, but it is not dissimilar from others. There are hundreds of thousands of individuals who have been hurt by the horrific sin of sexual perversion, abuse, and violence. Months ago, a few years after I had been able to escape my abusive situation, I finally reported my abuse to those in the positions of leadership who needed to know.

It seemed miraculous that after years of assuming no one would believe me, they immediately believed me. They immediately took complete, full, biblical action. They immediately cared for me. They protected me.

Questions and Confusion

I have repeatedly asked myself questions: Why didn’t I speak earlier? Why didn’t I tell the first time something happened? Why didn’t I go to someone in a position of authority over the various individuals who misused, abused, and assaulted me?

Or, an even a more basic question: When I was abused within earshot of other people, why didn’t I scream? That question still taunts me in the dark nights of my soul.

I’m not alone as a survivor in asking these questions. Similarly, those who haven’t experienced the confusing maze of abuse certainly must wonder these same things as they hear the stories that have come to light. Someone once told me, “The confusion is the abuse,” meaning that through cultivating confusion about what happened, abusers cultivate and perpetuate abuse.

The confusion doesn’t end with the victim; it extends even to those who learn of the abuse. They wonder how it could be possible. It is extraordinarily rare for an abuser to seem like an abuser in ordinary life. Countless people, including those closest to the individual, will recall so many moments when the accused abuser was compassionate, completely appropriate, and even sensitive to other abuse cases.

Questions multiply in everyone’s minds when abuse comes to light. How could this person have done what is being alleged? And, if so, how could the survivor have not spoken up more quickly?

I didn’t tell about my abuse for many years. But, now, I want to push back the confusion and unmask the author of lies. I want other survivors to be set free by the truth that also freed me.

Common Reasons

As I’ve thought back over my own situation and talked with other survivors, here are some of the most common thoughts that someone who is being abused or assaulted has thought, not only hurting the survivor, but also prolonging silence about the abuse:

• They’ll think I wanted it to happen or No one will believe me. Abusers are manipulative. They cleverly identify the vulnerable, abuse them, and then redefine truth for them. Even when the survivor’s heart screams the truth, the abuser’s voice is loud in her ears. It convinces her that no one will ever believe she is anything other than an immoral, sinful, willing participant—if anyone even believes anything happened at all.

• It’s really my fault. Abusers often make themselves the victim in the aftermath of the abuse. They didn’t want to do it, but something in the survivor made them. They couldn’t help it. For the vulnerable—and particularly for those who have experienced any other form of abuse—this is particularly plausible. This is also extremely confusing when the survivor knows that he or she said “no,” or demonstrated some other unwillingness to participate, and yet becomes convinced that he or she actually caused it.

• But he’s not really that bad. Abusers are sometimes both villain and hero. It’s possible for someone who is sexually abusing someone else to demonstrate tremendous care for them in other facets of the relationship. This does not in any way discount or minimize the horror, sin, and legal issues associated with abuse and assault, but it does contribute to why a confused survivor may not report the abuse. The abuser’s mixed actions lead the survivor to question whether the situation really is as bad as it seems.

• I don’t want to hurt his family. Abusers aren’t generally living in isolation. They have a family. Often a spouse and children. Perhaps grandchildren. Since abuse most often occurs in the context of relationship, it’s not uncommon for the survivor to know—and even care about—the family of the abuser. And there is no possible way to report sexual abuse or assault without devastating the family of the abuser. This is what most strongly stopped me for so long and is also why this article is being written anonymously. I don’t want to bring any additional pain to those who were also victims in this situation—victims whose worlds have also been turned upside down. They deserve compassion, space, and grace.

Loving with Truth

Knowing this, how should Christian friends, family members, and leaders respond when a survivor reports abuse? The thing that has been most helpful for me is also very simple: “I’m sorry” and “I believe you.” Those sentences, said with conviction and care, corrected for me the strongest lies and set me on a path to the wholeness that Christ always intended.

If you have experienced abuse in the past, I encourage you to reach out to a counselor or trusted friend and share your experience. If you are currently experiencing abuse, I encourage you to not only share with a counselor or friend, but also to immediately go to the police.

If you are the friend of someone who has come forward as an abuse survivor, pray for them, let them know you are sorry and you believe them, then let them determine what they share and how they share it. And as you pray, pray also for the abuser and his or her family, that they too might experience the fullness of Christ in their circumstances. Sexual abuse is naturally destructive, but we serve a supernatural God who can redeem the bleakest of circumstances for all of those who have been harmed.

Posted at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/reasons-survivor-abuse-silent/

Confessions of a Reluctant Complementarian

Rebecca McLaughlin

Editors’ note: 

A version of this article first appeared on the author’s blog.

I was an undergraduate at Cambridge University when I first grappled with Ephesians 5:22. I’d come from an academically driven, equality-oriented, single-sex high school. And I was repulsed. “Wives, submit to your husbands, as to the Lord.” You’ve got to be kidding me.

I had three major problems with this verse.

The first was the premise that wives should submit. I knew women are just as competent as men—often more so. If there is wisdom in asymmetrical decision-making in marriage, I thought, surely it should depend on who was more competent in that area: sometimes the husband, sometimes the wife.

The second was the idea that wives should submit to their husbands “as to the Lord.” It’s one thing submitting to Jesus Christ, the self-sacrificing King of the universe. It’s quite another to submit to a fallible, sinful man—even as one thread in the fabric of a much greater submission to Christ.

The third—which perhaps grieved me most—was how harmful I believed this verse was to my gospel witness. I was offering my unbelieving friends a radical narrative of power inversion, in which the Creator God laid down his life, in which the poor out-class the rich, in which outcasts become family. The gospel is a consuming fire of love-across-difference with the power to burn up racial injustice and socioeconomic exploitation.

But here was this horrifying verse seeming to promote the subjugation of women. Jesus had elevated women to an equal status with men. Paul, it seemed to me, had pushed them back down. I worried this verse would ruin my witness.

Picture of Christ and the Church

In my frustration, I tried to explain Ephesians 5:22 away. In the Greek, the word translated “submit” appears in the previous verse, “Submit yourself to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Eph. 5:21), so I tried to argue that the rest of the passage must be applying submission as much to husbands as wives. But this didn’t stick: the following verses lay out distinct roles for husbands and wives.

Then I turned my attention to the command to husbands. “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25). How did Christ love the church? By dying on the cross; by giving himself, naked and bleeding, to suffer for her; by putting her needs above his own; by giving everything for her.

I asked myself how I would feel if this was the command to wives: Wives, love your husbands to the point of death, putting his needs above yours, and sacrificing yourself for him.

If the gospel is true, none of us comes to the table with rights. The only way in is flat on your face. If I want to hold on to my fundamental right to self-determination, I must reject the message of Jesus, because he calls me to submit completely to him: to deny myself and take up my cross and follow him (Luke 9:23).

Then, the penny really dropped. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church. This model isn’t ultimately about any individual wife and husband; it’s about Jesus and the church. God created sex and marriage to give us a glimpse of his intimacy with us.

Because our marriages point to a greater marriage, the roles are not interchangeable: Jesus gives himself for us; we submit to him.

Three Concerns

So, much to my surprise, the three problems I had when I first read Ephesians 5:22 were resolved. But I now have three concerns about how complementarian marriage is often taught.

1. Attempts to summarize

Complementarian marriage is often summarized as “Wives submit, husbands lead.” But this summary doesn’t reflect the biblical commands. Wives are indeed called to submit (Eph. 5:22; Col. 3:18; 1 Pet. 3:1). But the primary call for husbands is love (Eph. 5:25, 28, 33; Col. 3:19), and the additional commands call for empathy and honor (1 Pet. 3:7). The command to wives in Ephesians certainly implies that husbands should lead with the sacrificial love of Christ. But if we must boil the Scriptures down, “Wives submit, husbands love” is a more accurate reflection of their weight.

2. Attempts at psychological grounding

Hoping to uphold the goodness of God’s commands, Christians sometimes try to ground complementarian marriage in gendered psychology: women are natural followers, men are natural leaders; men need respect, women need love; and so on. I’ve heard the claim that women are naturally more submissive, but I’ve never heard anyone argue that men are naturally more loving.

I’ve also heard people argue that we are given the commands because they address what we’re naturally bad at: women are good at love, men are good at respect, so the calls are reversed. But to say that human history teaches us that men naturally respect women is to stick your head in the sand with a blindfold on and earplugs for good measure.

At best, these claims about gender are generalizations, analogous to the claim that men are taller than women—though far less verifiable. At worst, they cause needless offense to a generation that already misunderstands and misrepresents what the Bible says about gender. They also invite exceptions: if these commands are given because wives are naturally more submissive, and I find I’m a more natural leader than my husband, does that mean we can switch roles?

If we look closely, however, we’ll see that these claims are nowhere to be found in the text. Ephesians 5 grounds our marital roles not in gendered psychology, but in Christ-centered theology.

3. Attempts to justify “traditional” gender roles

Ephesians 5 sticks like a burr in our 21st-century, Western ears. But we must not misread it as justifying “traditional” gender roles. The text doesn’t say the husband is the one whose needs come first and whose comfort is paramount.

In fact, Ephesians 5 is a withering critique of traditional gender roles, in its original context and today. In the drama of marriage, the wife’s needs come first, and the husband’s drive to prioritize himself is cut down with the axe of the gospel.

One Challenge

But my greatest concern when I hear Ephesians 5 taught is my failure to live up to it. I’ve been married for a decade, and it’s a daily challenge to remember what I’m called to in this gospel drama, and to notice opportunities to submit to my husband as to the Lord—not because I’m naturally more or less submissive, or because he is naturally more or less loving, but because Jesus submitted to the cross for me.

My marriage isn’t ultimately about me and my husband, any more than Romeo and Juliet is about the actors playing the title roles. My marriage is about reflecting Jesus and his church.

Ephesians 5:22 used to repulse me. Now it convicts me and calls me toward Jesus: the true husband who satisfies our needs, the one man who deserves our ultimate submission.

Rebecca McLaughlin holds a PhD from Cambridge University and a theology degree from Oak Hill seminary in London. She is a regular writer for The Gospel Coalition and her first book, Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion, will be published by Crossway in 2019. You can follow her on Twitter or at www.rebeccamclaughlin.org.

Posted at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/confessions-reluctant-complementarian/

Two Different Ways to Think About Sex in Marriage

Article by Tim Challies

You have no right to a secret sex life. If you are married, you have no right to do anything outside the knowledge and consent of your spouse. That includes adultery, of course, but it also includes sinful fantasies and all manner of self-gratification. It’s simple. It’s obvious. It’s biblical. But it’s widely ignored. You have no right to a secret sex life because you do not own the rights to your body.

The first right of ownership is God’s. God created you and, as your creator, has rights over all of you. This is why God could declare how Adam and Eve were to put their bodies to use: “And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth’” (Genesis 1:28). He gave them arms and legs and hands and feet and told them to put them to use in exercising dominion over the world; he gave them sexual organs and told them to put them to use in procreation (later making it clear that pleasure is also a legitimate use of their bodies). You can do nothing to your body or with your body that is not consistent with the purpose for which God created it.

The second right of ownership is God’s. Yes, God owns it a second time, though this time we see the Son and Holy Spirit joining the Father in exerting their rights of ownership. God the Father owns it as your maker, God the Son owns it as your redeemer, and God the Holy Spirit owns it as the one who resides within it. In sin you essentially usurped God’s right of ownership, but Christ’s work on the cross bought it back. Here’s how Paul says it: “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). You can do nothing to your body or with your body that is not consistent with the purpose for which the Son redeemed it and for which the Holy Spirit indwells it. It is to be presented as a living sacrifice, committed to God’s purposes (Romans 12:1).

The third right of ownership is your spouse’s. If you are married, you have ceded all rights over your body to your spouse, at least in the area of sexuality. “For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does” (1 Corinthians 7:4). Therefore, “the husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband” (7:3). In marriage, you willingly give your body to your spouse, acknowledging that you do so on their terms, not your own. You tacitly say, “This body is now your body, to be used as you see fit when you see fit.” This requires a husband and wife to willingly and joyfully give their bodies to one another and willingly and joyfully withhold their bodies from anyone else—including themselves.

God’s body, God’s way. God created my body and I will only ever use it in ways consistent with his will.

“My body, my way. This is my body and I will use it in any way I please.” This is the creed of the pagan and the creed of the Christian who is refusing to be obedient to God. Yet we were created to declare, “God’s body, God’s way. God created my body and I will only ever use it in ways consistent with his will.” And, in awe of God’s gift of a spouse to say, “her body, her way” or “his body, his way.” “I give my body to my spouse and will only ever use it in ways consistent with his or her will.”

Husband, your body is hers. You gave it to her and have no rights over it, no right to do what she does not consent to. Wife, your body is his. You have no right to do what he does not know about. Husband and wife are to take all the sexual desire, energy, and activity they’ve got and freely, joyfully cede it to their spouse. It’s God’s way.

Posted at:  https://www.challies.com/articles/two-different-ways-to-think-about-sex-in-marriage/

Complementarians Should Be Toughest on Abuse

Article by Rebecca McLaughlin

“The great thing about Rebecca,” said my female, non-Christian friend on first meeting my boyfriend, “is that you can treat her like junk and she will always love you and always forgive you.”

If there is a type of woman who would hide domestic abuse, year after year, I conform. Had I married an abusive man, I would likely have done so. Thank God I did not. My then-boyfriend, now-husband channels his strength to protect me and our kids. But was I more at risk because I married a Christian man, and because after much wrestling I have come to complementarian beliefs about marriage?

“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church” (Ephesians 5:22–23). Tragically, these holy words have been misused to justify horrible abuse. But using complementarian theology to justify abuse is like defacing a “Do Not Enter” sign until it says, “Enter.” Consider five reasons why complementarians, of all people, should have the least tolerance for spousal abuse.

1. God calls husbands to sacrificial love.

Some summarize complementarian theology as “husbands lead, wives submit,” but this is not what the Bible says. God calls wives to submit(Ephesians 5:22; Colossians 3:18; 1 Peter 3:1). But the primary command to husbands is not lead. It is love (Ephesians 5:25, 28, 33; Colossians 3:19). To be sure, the explanation for why wives should submit to their husbands implies that husbands should lead (Ephesians 5:23). But lest we should misunderstand what leading means (as we are wont to do), Paul calls husbands to self-denying, Christlike, sacrificial love: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25).

How did Christ love the church? He loved to the point of rejection, beatings, nakedness, and death. Were this command given to wives, we might more easily imagine it justifying spousal abuse. But it is not. “Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies,” Paul continues. “For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church” (Ephesians 5:28–29). The command in Colossians comes with a prohibition: “Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them” (Colossians 3:19). It would take an exegetical gymnast to interpret Paul’s vision of marriage as an excuse for spousal abuse.

2. Strength is for honoring, not control.

From a biblical perspective, the relative physical strength of men is not a tool for power play, but a motivation for empathy and honor. “Husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered” (1 Peter 3:7). Fail to honor your wife, Peter warns, and your relationship with God will be hindered.

3. Spousal abuse is a gospel-denying sin.

When a woman bravely acknowledges abuse, complementarian theology should drive her pastor (and other men in the church as well) to confront her husband with his sin. Not only is he sinning in the general sense of harming a neighbor. The abusive husband is committing the gospel-denying sin of disgracing his cross-shaped role of sacrificial love. Marriage to his victim does not excuse the sin. It compounds it.

God calls Christian men in general, and pastors specifically, to protect the vulnerable. This means taking sacrificial action to see that an abused wife, and her children, are cared for and made safe; that civil law-breaking is not covered up but reported to civil authorities; and that an abusive husband shows radical repentance and commits to ongoing accountability.

In some situations, we will need to provide a wife and children with alternative housing and support while we handle the husband (who also may be excluded from fellowship in line with the biblical teaching on church discipline, 1 Corinthians 5:9–13). We must not be naïve: abusers frequently say sorry and then continue in their patterns. Sin patterns are hard to break, and we do not want to enable them.

4. Jesus teaches vulnerability and protection.

Due to its distortions and misuses, some believe complementarian theology must be abandoned to keep women safe. But imagine Paul and Peter had said nothing about wives. An unthoughtful pastor might use Jesus’s own words to justify sending a woman back into a dangerous situation. “Do not resist the one who is evil,” says our Lord. “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matthew 5:39). In Christ, we all enter the world with a posture of vulnerability. This is Christian Ethics 101. But on page after page of the Scriptures, God calls his people to protect the oppressed — particularly women and children.

This ethic emerges from God’s own character. As Psalm 146 proclaims, the Lord “executes justice for the oppressed,” “sets the prisoners free,” “lifts up those who are bowed down,” and “upholds the widow and the fatherless” (Psalm 146:7–9). God is “Father of the fatherless and protector of widows” (Psalm 68:5). He commands his people both to rescue the oppressed and to resist the oppressor (Jeremiah 22:3).

Jesus consistently modeled and reemphasized this. He came “to set at liberty those who are oppressed” (Luke 4:18) and his relationships with women lifted them up in extraordinary ways. Jesus shamed Simon the Pharisee with the moral example of the “sinful” woman, who outstripped him in every measure of love (Luke 7:36–50). Jesus affirmed Mary as she sat at his feet with the male disciples (Luke 10:38–42). He rescued the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1–11) and spoke against divorce to protect women from abandonment (Matthew 19:3–9). If our churches abandon women to abuse, we are stopping our ears to the Scriptures.

5. You’re twice as safe with a Christian man.

We all know of instances where Christians have failed — individually and corporately — to protect women from abusive men. But philosopher Christian Miller cites evidence that church attendance is correlated with much lower levels of domestic abuse.

Indeed, men who do not attend church have been found to be 49% more likely to be abusive at home than men who attend once a week or more (The Character Gap, 235). But that differential is not enough.

Christian husbands who are striving to love your wives as Christ loved the church, we appreciate you — and we need you. We need you to show your sons what it means to man up and love. We need you to be your brothers’ keeper. We need you not to assume that there are no abusive men in your church, your small group, or your family. We all are capable of egregious sin, and without support and accountability, that can manifest itself in ugly ways.

No woman wants to acknowledge spousal abuse. Many will suffer in silence, while their husbands maintain a godly pretense. We need you to work with your wives and sisters in Christ to ensure that no one in your sphere is issuing scars or hiding them. We need you to be like Christ to your wives, and to be like Christ in your church, speaking up with courage, standing up for women, and hating abuse in all its forms. Twice as safe is not enough — let’s make women a hundred times safer with Christian men.

Showcase the Gospel

Christianity in general, and complementarian theology in particular, is no more an excuse for spousal abuse than a doctor’s license is an excuse for murder. Complementarian marriage rests on the bedrock of Christ’s love for his church — a love that took him to the cross. It is a covenant commitment between a man and a woman designed to mirror — however imperfectly — Christ’s sacrificial love for his church and our joyful submission to him.

Christian men who abuse their wives are committing egregious, gospel-denying sin. Let’s stand together in Christ to oppose them, not because we don’t believe the Bible’s challenging words about marriage, but because we do. The biblical sign says, “Do Not Enter.” Let’s keep the door firmly shut.

Rebecca McLaughlin (@beginwithwords) holds a Ph.D. from Cambridge University and a theology degree from Oak Hill Seminary. Formerly Vice President of content at The Veritas Forum, Rebecca is now co-founder of Vocable Communications. She is the author of the forthcoming book, Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Worldview (Crossway, 2019). You can read more of her writing at her website.