Samantha and Pete Have Kids (Part 5)

A thought experiment on authority in marriage

Photo by Josue Michel on Unsplash

This is the fifth part of a thought experiment about authority in marriage. If you haven't read the first four parts, click on the links above. These posts build off each other.

In the previous post, I questioned if perhaps male headship was based on advantages that, historically, only men have had. (See Venn diagram below.)

I've also wondered if, perhaps, male headship has safeguarded the structure and order of the family unit until such a time when men and women might see one another as equal heirs of God's heavenly riches. This would mean that headship is similar to kings being a step towards a parliamentary system, or pastor-led churches being a step towards elder-lead churches, or a Torah-ruled system being a step towards spirit-led people. As leadership styles change, should we also not expect the leadership within a family to change as well?

This does not mean headship is null, useless, or even evil. In fact, I think that the one-person-as-head model is still useful today as couples begin new marriages with big age gaps, skill gaps, &/or spiritual maturity gaps. Perhaps the one-person-as-head model is how God teaches us that whoever has the "advantage" ought to look out for the needs of the rest of the family. 

This "advantage" might mean a financial prowess whereby one person will be the head of the finances for the rest of the family, or a scripture-knowledge advantage whereby one person will head up the other's Bible knowledge, or a decision-making advantage. I can attest to this last one in my own family. Philip is very good at making decisions based on his gut feelings about things. I, on the other hand, want to analyze and contemplate until I hardly know what to do. At those times, I sometimes just ask Philip to help me make a decision. On the other hand, because I excel at analyzing and thinking things through, Phil is willing to learn through my research and analysis.

The same seems true of spiritual authority. Whoever has the spiritual "advantage" ought to spiritually rule. I don't mean they ought to decide what church to attend or what pagan symbols to include in their Holiday celebrations. That's not ruling spiritually, although that might be part of it. Ruling spiritually means dying to self, surrendering all power to Christ, admitting we have nothing, and then being filled with the Holy Spirit's ruling powers—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, self-control...to serve others. That's what it means to have spiritual authority, doesn't it? It's what Christ did for us.

This kind of spiritual ruling isn't something that men naturally have and women don't or vice versa. This kind of spiritual authority may shift back and forth between a couple depending on what each person is experiencing and if they are allowing Christ to rule their lives. 

I don't, however, think anyone should regularly try to decide if they are more or less spiritual than their spouse. This doesn't seem like a wise pastime. What is it to me if God works differently in my husband than me? I must follow Jesus. Let's have less talk about who should rule and more ruling, please.

In this fifth post, let's explore two more things. One, how the framework of headship helps within a family unit, and two, how the family unit may be a microcosm of the greater church family.

First, let's start with babies. 

Photo by Mustafa Omar on Unsplash

God created a woman's body to have the potential to create life within herself. She has monthly cycles, she can get pregnant and nurse. She also, if she should reach a mature age, experiences menopause. These changes to her physical body result in varying degrees of instability and weakness.

Some women can be astronauts, counselors, and politicians even while feeling the full effects of their menstrual cycle; other women feel temporarily insane while PMSing. Some women feel alive, creative, and powerful when pregnant and breastfeeding; others curse Eve under their breath during pregnancy and nursing. Some women file for divorce when perimenopausal; others take hormones when perimenopausal and hardly feel any effects.

Regardless of the degree of instability or weakness felt by women, was the model of male headship in a nuclear family designated by God to best create order and stability during the times a woman's body is going through such changes? 

If, by male headship, we mean that men are the emotional anchor for the family, then yes. It does seem likely that God meant husbands to serve as a stabilizing force while the wife is creating life within herself. It seems that, in the context of a family, having a stable and physically capable man around is just what a woman needs while a baby is incubating and nursing. It also seems like just what a woman needs when she is PMSing or in a menopausal fog—mentally and emotionally immature men excepting. 

Since, historically, most married women have spent all their lives having a period, bearing children, breastfeeding, or going through menopause before dying fairly young, men as mental or emotional heads seem like the best way to protect women their entire lives. Again, this is assuming men are mentally and emotionally mature.

However, please remember that a man taking the reins when a woman is emotionally unstable or physically weak isn't equivalent to being the spiritual head. Spiritual headship goes to the one most filled with the Holy Spirit's ruling power. Even when women are experiencing hormonal instability, they can be serving and ruling spiritually as Christ did. They can learn how to detach from the chemical imbalances occurring inside them and to walk entirely by faith to direct their households during child-bearing, PMS, and perimenopause. It is possible. In fact, hypothetically speaking, women are in a better position to lead spiritually because they are better positioned to recognize their limitations and ask God for help. 

I do not, however, think that women surrender to Christ more readily than men. Pride arrogance, self-sufficiency, and stubbornness are just as prevalent in women as they are in men, albeit they may take a different form.

Just take a look at how much women rely on their husbands when they are physically or emotionally unstable. Do wives humbly admit they need help and surrender control to their husbands? I sure didn't when I first started having babies. In fact, our society discourages both men and women from relying on one another for help. It's much better to be independent than humbly submit to someone else's rule.

If a wife does not accept help from her husband, what makes us believe she would  accept help from God? Are not our attitudes towards others on earth reflections of what we believe of God?

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If a wife spends her early years in marriage being self-sufficient and learning to trust herself instead of God, she might feel angry and resentful when she finds her body less reliable in serving herself and her own needs during child-rearing or menopause.

This does not automatically mean the husband has become the spiritual head. A husband may look out for the best interests of his family without using the Lord's power. That is, he does it out of his own strength. We'd say he was operating on fake authority though. He is assuming headship but not spiritual headship. Do you see the difference? 

A wife will certainly know the difference. It's tangible. The spirit-filled husband operates on his own initiative and by his wife's request with equal delight. He serves and supports his wife while she is pregnant and nursing. He learns new ways to do things around the house. On the other hand, the spiritually empty husband acts like a mindless robot, listless in his responsibilities, and with little initiative or pleasure. The first husband is a spiritual leader; the other is not. 

How is one husband able to lead spiritually while the other does now? Does spiritual leadership have anything to do with emotional and physical weakness? No. One man is a spiritual leader because he surrenders to God while the other does not.

While many women experience emotional instability during various times in their lives, it seems unwise to create laws for all homes and churches based on these tendencies. This would assume that all women are unfit to be spiritual leaders because some women experience times of emotional, mental, and physical instability. 
We might say that women may not lead while pregnant, nursing, or menopausal. But again, this is assuming all women have the same degree of instability during these times. This is also assuming we're talking about physical headship, not spiritual headship. Spiritual headship is done out of our weakness, not our strength.

In addition to this, the world is changing. Many women never get married or pregnant. Hormone therapy has eliminated many of the effects of PMS and perimenopause. Most women live well into menopause, are allowed to drive, vote, hold public office, and study the Bible. This has never been the case in all the history of the world. We truly are in unprecedented times. Are there new truths for us to discover about how men and women are to rule together in these unique times? Is something new bubbling to the surface? Is God preparing churches and Christian marriages for a new way to rule together?

Again, this doesn't mean we toss out headship. I think a marriage benefits from one person leading in various capacities whenever the other is incapacitated or immature or inept. However, if we say that it always must be the man, we run into all sorts of problems. Let me unpack a few of these problems.

If women are convinced that men always must spiritually lead the family but their husbands don't or can't, then women find themselves filling that void with the strange notion that they're doing something wrong. This leads to all sorts of mental gymnastics to convince themselves &/or their communities that they're not operating on stolen authority.

A wife might make a show of giving her husband certain spiritual decisions to prove that the husband is the leader. A wife might feign weakness or uncertainty or some kind of ineptitude, asking for advice or help. This is not unlike what some mothers do with their children. They pretend they need help to make their children feel capable or useful or needed. I don't just mean that they invite their children to participate, but that they pretend that they can't do it themselves. Do I even need to mention that this is practicing deceit?

When a wife does this to her husband, she doesn't actually believe he is the spiritual leader. She doesn't believe he is a leader at all. She is only making a show of it to fool herself or others when in reality she prizes her own wisdom, authority, and prowess over his. She considers herself more valuable than him. She is not spiritually more mature, but rather a fake who is trying to hide the fact that she thinks rather highly of herself.

Or here's another scenario. What if neither the husband nor the wife takes the role of spiritual leader of the family? What if the family limps along spiritually leaderless? By this I mean, everyone looks out for number one. If both the husband and the wife believe that only men ought to be the spiritual leaders, then the wife might resent her husband for not fulfilling his role, and the husband might consider himself a failure. They've gotten themselves into a proper pickle by turning what God meant for good into a prison from which they can't escape.

The woman might take up the spiritual mantle. She might do spiritual warfare for her husband, serve him, encourage him, give herself freely for him, but if she's convinced that he ought to do it first, thus being the spiritual leader, they are at a stalemate.

I don't think male headship was meant to be this way. When the family finds that the husband is not relying upon the Lord to lead, I think the wife may be the spiritual leader instead. By this, I mean that the wife surrenders herself to the Lord and allows the Lord's power to rule through her to look out for the needs of the family.

We would say the same thing is true if a husband were to lose his job. It's okay for a wife to bring home the bacon if he can't. There's nothing wrong with that. It's teamwork for them to take turns when one becomes weary or inept or lacks a natural knack for something. 

If both the wife and husband become aware that they're spiritually empty, then the wife or husband or both may go to the Lord with their emptiness. God can look after their needs and give them the spiritual fervor they lack. He can guide them and protect them. He can show them love without end so that they can be filled with the fullness of the greatest measure, making them fit once again to rule. Hallelujah! Amen!

It may not happen that both turn to the Lord for strength. It may be that only one of them does. But whichever one allows the Lord to supply all their needs becomes the one with the actual God-given ruling authority. Not fake authority. Not stolen authority. Real-ruling powerfully-transforming authority.

It is through our surrender that he makes us more than conquerors.

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I have one more aspect to discuss and that is headship in churches. I broach this subject trepidatiously, not wishing to criticize my home church. 

While the freedom for men and women to rule together may exist, some may not be ready to walk unaided by old laws and regulations. Some may also have become so secure in the way things have been, that change is frightening. The Lord will continue to grow my patience regardless.

I've heard people say that the nuclear family is a microcosm of how church families ought to run. That is, how we run the church should be the same way we run our households. Thus, since fathers and mothers raise children in families, churches need both men and women to teach and grow spiritual babies. People go on to say that since men have traditionally been the head of the house, men ought to be the head of the church family in the form of pastors and elders. Does this argument still hold if the spiritual leadership in a family has become something that husbands and wives may share? Or ought men and women in the church to maintain traditional husband-wife roles?

If men and women in the church ought to maintain traditional husband-wife roles, I see some problems. Unlike the nuclear family, spiritual incubation and birth doesn't happen through a woman's body. These things happen through physical and spiritual baptism. 

A sinner confesses their sins, they die to themselves, they go beneath the water, and emerge a brand new saint! How amazing is that! God set up the nuclear family to model the birthing of spiritual saints through baptism in water and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It's like what Jesus said to Nicodemus. We are born again.

Photo by Josue Michel on Unsplash

However, if we claim that God meant for women to serve in the church in the same capacity that moms do in a family, then we would only have women perform the baptisms as those symbolize a new birth. And only women would teach spiritual babies since only women can nurse. Not only this, but we'd have mostly women pass out communion, which is like a family supper. Do you see how funny this would be?

We don't do this because in the church we don't see the role of "mother" as an exclusively woman thing. Men in the Bible baptized others and passed out communion, and Paul himself has no problem putting himself into the role of nursing mother when he refers to giving milk to his immature Corinthians.

1 Corinthians 3:2 "I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready..."

It seems strange that men may play traditional mom roles in church, but women may not play traditional dad roles in church such as pastors and elders. Some women are not even allowed to play traditional women roles, such as teaching elementary truths (nursing), passing out communion (serving up the meals), or baptizing (giving birth.) 

By the way, as a reminder, the traditional dad role is looking after the well-being of the family by emptying themselves of self and being filled with God's ruling authority. In the case of the church that's the role of pastor or elder.

It seems even more strange that churches wouldn't allow women to be elders or pastors because God has specifically filled women with his spirit throughout history to be in positions of looking after others. I've read many missionary stories of such cases and seen examples of such in real life as well.

Think of it another way. If a man's mother came to look after him when he was sick, he wouldn't say, "No, Mom! You can't do that. You're a woman! Only men may look after me when I need care." Neither would a husband say, "No, wife! You can't serve me when I'm spiritually ill. Only men may do that." That's silly. And yet, does it not also seem strange that in the church, men insist that only men may look after the well-being of the sin-sick congregation in the roles of pastor and elder?

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Are we not all a family? Like 1 Peter 5:1-2 says, "Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity."

Would any brother tell his sister, much less his older sister, that she cannot spiritually lead him? Or does he simply mean, that if his older sister were to presume spiritual authority over him, he would refuse to submit? Now, that sounds more like a family. Hehe. I hear it quite often in my own house. We hate being lorded over. It pricks our pride. How much worse to be ruled by someone we previously thought was less valuable or capable or spiritual than ourselves?

We have come full circle now. I began this thought experiment by imagining two siblings renting an apartment together and raising someone else's child, I think that's where I'd like to leave it.  

We are just renters here on earth, caretakers of the children God gave us. Our husbands and wives are like siblings; those older than us, like parents. And God has given us his spirit, wisdom, power, and imagination to use leadership in families and churches to participate in the growth of healthy Christians. Churches and biological families need rulers. Rulers who don't necessarily call themselves the authority and make the decisions, but people who are continuously emptying themselves of pride and being filled with Christ's transformative spirit to love, serve, and think in an ever-changing world.

One tidbit parents often tell me is that parenting always changes. The moment I think I've figured out how to handle my two-year-old boy, he turns three. By the time I've figured out how to interact with my eight-year-old girl, she turns nine. And even after I've learned how to deal with a boy and girl, along comes the third born to shatter all my preconceived notions about how kids ought to behave.

The same is true of ruling a church body. Is it not? If the way we do church doesn't change, mirroring the non-stop transformations happening in our hearts, how can we expect to grow as a church family? 

"Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen." (Ephesians 3:20-21 ESV)

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