Chico Alliance Church
“The Role & Responsibility of the Wife”
Introduction
The condition of our relationships with others reveals a great deal concerning the level of spiritual maturity and relationship with God.
Scripture invites us to check the people gage quite often.
All sin has its roots in violated relationship.
Sin against God.
Sin against others.
The fulfillment of the law is to love God and love others
Most sin relates to a failure to love God and others. Rebellion
Ingratitude
Jealousy
Malice
Bitterness
Selfishness
Unforgiveness
Lying
Stealing
Hurtful words
Backbiting
Gossip
Divisions
Strife
Adultery
Failure to love.
The repercussions of sin against God appeared in relationships from the very start.
Adam and Eve with God.
Adam and Eve with each other.
Cain with Abel.
Cain with God.
Most of the time when a list of sins to avoid appear in the Bible it all relates to how we violate relationships.
The Elders & Deacons qualifications listed in Scripture are filled with relational issues.
You can read your Bible and pray everyday.
You can be in church several times a week.
You can hold office and manage the myriad of ministries.
You can teach how to live more effectively in this world.
You can be the most generous person and give all your things away.
But if you don’t love people as modeled by Christ and the instructed in Scriptures, it all counts for nothing.
If you can’t get along with people and your relationships are continually disintegrating,
Something is desperately wrong.
The reason for conflict in families and all relationships can be traced to un-addressed selfishness; a focus on my needs and wants rather than on God and others.
The letters of Paul are filled with commendation for the church’s faith in Christ and love for one another.
A good portion of the admonitions relate to getting along with one another.
Paul focuses here in our current section of Colossians on the most central of relationships.
• Wives to husbands.
• Husbands to wives.
• Children to parents.
• Parents to children.
• Servants to masters.
• Masters to servants.
If you want to know if you are growing spiritually...
If you want to know if you are walking by the direction and energy of the Spirit...
Then honestly examine your key relationships!
With courage, allow the Holy Spirit to hold what you call love in your life up to the measuring standard of Christ’s love.
It is not what we think we should be doing and how we think our families should be structured but how God be designed the family to function that is important.
The family is the central relationship hub. As goes the family so goes the society.
Paul provides clues as to the role and responsibility of each of the family members.
Last week we examined the role of the husband and the privilege and responsibility to lead love live and laud their wives.
A wonderful privilege to be God’s instrument in the most powerful weapon in our world – the family.
Role and Response of the Husband
Role -- Loving Leadership of the Family
Response to the wife
1. Love Sacrificially
As Christ loves the church
As one loves their own selves and Christ loves the body.
2. Live wisely
3. Laud continually
Role and Responsibility of the Wife
Slide
Role of the Wife -- Willing Support of the Leader
Genesis 1 The Original Plan
Genesis 2:18-25 Then the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him." And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. And the man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh at that place. And the LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. And the man said,
"This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man."
For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
God created the woman to complete His image in man.
God declared that it was not good that man should be separate.
Even in a perfect environment and in spite of a untainted relationship with God it was not good that man should be left by himself.
God never intended that man should function in isolation without companionship.
Man was created in God’s image.
God is a relational God.
God has eternally existed in perfect community.
When we operate outside of meaningful relationships, we are living outside of design.
Until the fabulous fashioning of Eve, Adam found no one “corresponding to him.”
There was no one with whom he could relate on an equal level.
There was no one to share life with him.
He was separate and isolated in the garden and God declared, “it is NOT good.”
God set out then to create a helper, one “corresponding to him.”
“helper”
I will lift up my eyes to the mountains; Where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, Who made heaven and earth. Psalm 121:1-2
Our help is in the name of the LORD, Who made heaven and earth. Psalm 124:8
How blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, Whose hope is in the LORD his God Psalm 146:5.
"There is none like the God of Jeshurun, Who rides the heavens to your help, And through the skies in His majesty. Deut. 33:26
But I am afflicted and needy; Hasten to me, O God! Thou art my help and my deliverer; O LORD, do not delay. Psalm 70:5
This role of helper is not a role which implies inferior weakness.
It is a expressive role which implies capable strength, creative skills and committed love.
Just as God delights in a role as helper to us the wife finds her completion in the powerful role as one called along side of man in their mutual role of reflecting the Godhead and glorious image of God.
This willing support came from “one corresponding to him”
Someone he could relate to on an equal level, a companion.
The role of the wife is never demonstrated in Scripture as an inferior, weak, slave girl, doormat kind of role.
The role of the woman is an honorable, powerful, influential role.
Let your fountain be blessed, And rejoice in the wife of your youth. Proverbs 5:18
An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, But she who shames him is as rottenness in his bones. Prov 12:4
He who finds a wife finds a good thing, And obtains favor from the LORD.
House and wealth are an inheritance from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the LORD. Proverbs 19:14
An excellent wife, who can find? For her worth is far above jewels. Proverbs 31:10
The New Testament affirms this pattern for the family.
1 Cor. 11:2-3 Now I praise you because you remember me in everything, and hold firmly to the traditions, just as I delivered them to you. But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.
1 Cor. 11:8-9 For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man; for indeed man was not created for the woman's sake, but woman for the man's sake.
The union between husband and wife illustrates the relationship of Christ and the church which must include the concept of differing roles.
Loving leadership and willing support.
The family (and the church) is designed to operate smoothly and draw out the best and require the best from each partner in the relationship.
God wisely built mutuality into the family.
1 Cor. 11:11-12 However, in the Lord, neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as the woman originates from the man, so also the man has his birth through the woman; and all things originate from God.
One partner cannot function effectively without the other.
God designed for us to experience a one flesh existence.
But in order for us to fully experienced what God designed there must be a team mentality.
If you hurt one part of your body, the rest suffers.
If one part of the body refuses to function as designed, every other part of the body suffers.
ILLUS
What happens if the lungs decide they will no longer submit to the head’s prompting to oxygenate the blood?
What happens if the head no longer sends prompting to the lungs?
In either case the body dies. Him
God designed a built-in mutuality even though direction comes from the head.
All too often the husband and wife spend so much time arguing about roles and who is going to do what, the whole point of kingdom impact is forgotten or overlooked.
The body becomes ineffective because it fails to work together as an interdependent team.
The role of the man in the family is loving leadership.
The role of the woman in the family is willing support.
Man's sin brought devastation to God's original design.
The desire and attempt to operate independently of the Creator completely effected the divine order of the family.
Genesis 3
Serpent -- Ultimate judgment upon the serpent would come from the “seed” of the woman.
Woman –
To the woman He said,
"I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you shall bring forth children;
Yet your desire shall be for your husband, And he shall rule over you." Genesis 3:16
Increased labor in the child bearing process.
An increased desire to control the husband
Tyrannical rule by the husband
The Hebrew word for “desire” is found two others places in Scripture.
One in Song of Solomon 7 where a “desire to have” in a romantic sense is implied
The other occurrence may be found is in the next chapter of Genesis which describes sin’s desire to control Cain.
but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell. Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? "If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it." Genesis 4:5-7
I believe the use of this word in the verse here, being found in the context of sin, is best understood in the sense of a desire to control.
In response to the woman’s lost desire to support, and a newly acquired desire to control, the man abandons his desire to lovingly lead for a tyrannical rule over the woman in a feeble effort to maintain dominance.
As a result of sin against God, they would both experience hardship and emptiness their attempt to fulfill their God given roles under the curse.
Rather than experience divine satisfaction in their roles they would continually fight the divinely decreed design and live out the rest of their days in trouble.
To the Man -- Increased labor in cultivating the earth.
Paul expressed that those who desire to marry will have trouble.
But if you should marry, you have not sinned; and if a virgin should marry, she has not sinned. Yet such will have trouble in this life, and I am trying to spare you. 1 Cor. 7:28
What God intended to bring pleasure and fulfillment now yields some of the greatest pain and frustration and relational disillusionment ever imagined.
Without divine intervention marriage will continue to miss the mark.
Marriage will not picture the wonder of satisfying companionship that God originally intended.
History has borne out the gravity of this curse on all levels of society especially marriage and family.
Even at the time of Paul’s writing, the state of the family was surprisingly similar to what we are experiencing today.
• Divorces were rampant.
• Jerome tells of one roman woman who married her 23rd husband and she was his 21st wife.
• Rome also had rampant women’s lib movement.
• Women didn’t want to have children because they thought it hurt the looks of their bodies.
• Women wanted to do everything that men did so there were women wrestlers, women fencers, and according to Juvenal, women joined in men’s hunts, (quote) “with spear in hand and breasts exposed, who took to pig-sticking. What modesty can you expect from a woman who wears a helmet, abjures her own sex, and delights in feats of strength.”
To this declining culture God, through the Apostles, re-emphasizes the timeless, culture transcendent original plan.
The role of Women is willing support.
Mutual support from a committed companion.
Like in the church, trouble arises when we confuse roles and
Just as the role of leader comes with suggested responses to those he leads, the role of the willing support comes with suggested responses to those she supports.
Response of the wife to the husband
1. Submit to their husbands
What a distasteful word that has become.
It is the dreaded and often misused “S” word.
Yet to God, it is the heart of human relationships.
It is the opposite of selfishness.
The word for “submit” is made up of two Greek words.
1. “Arrange, place, order, rank”
2. “under”
The resulting concept is to place under, rank under, arrange under.
Its use in the new Testament varies.
• Jesus, very God and man, subjected himself to his earthly parents.
• Demons were subject to Jesus and to the disciples in Jesus name.
• We subject ourselves to the law of God
• We are to be in subject to governing authorities.
• All things will be placed under the authority of Jesus.
• Slaves were to be subject to their masters.
• Wives to husbands
• We are to be subject to one another in the fear of Christ (Eph 5:21)
General Concept of Submission
Submission was used in the sense of a voluntary placement of one’s rights and needs below the rights and needs of another.
Submission takes the role of a servant to another.
This concept lies at the heart of what it means to be a child of God.
Everywhere we are told to consider others more important than ourselves.
Jesus, although he deserved honor and glory and worship and service, did not come to be served but gave his life for others.
Submission has nothing to do with personal worth, intellect, or even ability.
Submission is an attitude of humility and deference toward another.
It is in this sense that we are all to be subject to one another in reverence for Christ.
Submission is a refusal to demand personal rights or clamor for position but takes a delight in becoming God’s instrument in the life of another.
James asks, “What is the source of quarrels among you?”
He argues that it is the self-centered demand for fulfillment of ones’ personal rights and the desire to obtain that lies at the source of the quarrels among us.
From this perspective the Bible teaches mutual submission.
Husbands to wives.
Wives to husbands.
Parents to children.
Children to parents.
Masters to slaves.
Slaves to masters.
In the passage concerning relationships in 1 Peter, Peter spends a significant section describing the example of Christ as servant.
There he uses the example of Christ as a model for all relationships.
“In the same way wives submit yourselves to your husbands...”
“Likewise husbands live with your wives with understanding and honor.”
This is an attitude of servanthood that voluntarily puts the needs of others first.
It is always presented in the middle voice -- Submit yourselves.
Idea of an Established Order in Relationships
There is another aspect of submission which indicates the proper response to authority and positions of responsibility.
The encouragement of submission again does not relate worth or ability but to response to people in positions of God given responsibility.
The word indicates a particular response to authority.
The Bible calls for a voluntary ordering of one’s self under established authority.
All are called to properly respond to established government.
Husbands are called to properly respond to wives.
Children are called to properly respond to parents.
Slaves are called to properly respond to masters.
Wives are called to properly respond to husbands.
The specific response of wives here is to submit yourselves to your own husbands.
Lets explore the Scripture associated with roles and responsibility of wives.
Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. Ephes. 5:22-24
Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Col. 3:18
In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior. And let not your adornment be merely external-- braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses; but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God. 1 Peter 3:1-4
Slide
a. Scope of submission
• “in everything”
• “as is fitting in the Lord”
• “even if he is disobedient to the word”
Response to the head does not include immoral or destructive directions.
The role of wives is to be a supporter not an enabler.
The wife is not called to take on the husbands role.
She is called to support him in his role as loving leader.
b. Manner of Submission
• As to the Lord
• As the church is subject to Christ
• With chaste(pure) and respectful (reverent) behavior
• With the internal adornment of a gentle and quiet spirit
Please do not use this passage to teach that women should not wear jewelry or go to the hair dresser.
If you use this passage to teach that, you must also insist that women do not wear dresses either, because “wearing of dresses” is in this same passage along with jewelry and hair.
The basic point of the passage points out that the foundation of real beauty internally not externally.
Peter outlines not only what is beautiful to others but what God considers beautiful.
“Precious” (of great price) in God’s sight.
As God looks over the world and comments on what is valuable in His sight, the godly response of a woman to her husband ranks at the top of what he considers valuable.
The key to this valuable gentle and quiet spirit is “hope in God.”
The reason or foundation for this gentle in quiet spirit was that these women hoped in God not in their husbands.
“Gentle spirit”
Jesus himself had such a spirit. It was because He entrusted His soul to a faithful creator.
“Blessed are the gentle for they shall inherit the earth.” (Not by scraping to gain it)
“Take my yoke upon you, and learn of Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart...”
“Behold your king is coming to you gentle, and mounted on a donkey.”
If there is fear and anxiety it generally leads to an attempt to control the circumstances or the husband.
“Quiet spirit”
Quiet refers to a state of tranquillity, stillness.
The opposite of a quiet spirit is a hostile, anxious, restless, or fidgety spirit or attitude.
Proverbs 12:4 An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, But she who shames him is as rottenness in his bones.
Proverbs 14:1 The wise woman builds her house, But the foolish tears it down with her own hands.
Proverbs 19:13 A foolish son is destruction to his father, And the contentions of a wife are a constant dripping.
Proverbs 21:9 It is better to live in a corner of a roof, Than in a house shared with a contentious woman.
Proverbs 21:19 It is better to live in a desert land, Than with a contentious and vexing woman.
Proverbs 27:15 A constant dripping on a day of steady rain And a contentious woman are alike;
A gentle and quiet spirit does not mean the woman says nothing or is always silent no matter what.
Peter addresses here the manner and intensity of the communication not the fact of or content of communication.
It is one whose basic concern for others dictates their manner of communication.
It is one who is not driven by fear or a personal agenda but hopes in the Lord and has greater concern for his agenda.
It is the attitude of one who has nothing to fear thus no reason to demand control.
Proverbs 31:30 Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, But a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised
It is a spirit who has desires which she brings continually before the Lord but refuses to make any demands for change.
c. Models of Submission
1). Jesus’ service for the church” 1 Peter 2-3
2). Holy women who hoped in God”
3). Sarah’s response to Abraham”
Brief survey of Sarah’s Response to Abraham
• Left her home to a place not even Abraham knew where. Only that God directed Him
• Left again during a famine to Egypt
• Silent about Abraham’s 1/2 truth to Pharaoh (God protected her in spite of Abe)
• Another move
• Living with relatives.
• Let someone else choose the best of the land (Lot)
• Involved in the promise of God to Abraham -- power of influence (Hagar)
• Human (fear, denial, unbelief)
• Lover of children
• Stood her ground regarding Isaac as the promised child (God said to listen to her)
• Woman of faith. Heb 11 says she received the ability to conceive because of her faith
d. Results of submission
1). Win husbands
Many have been taught wrongly or have misunderstood this verse.
Peter presents a principle concerning how relationships generally work not a guaranteed promise of results.
The “disobedient to the word” should be understood in a broad sense.
Disobedient can be for a Christian or a non-Christian.
The “winning” then can refer to winning them to Christ or to a place of obedience to the word in whatever they are doing.
“Win” = to gain, to profit
“Go to your brother and reprove him in private, if he listens to you, you have won your brother.” Matt 18:15
“But the Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having won over the multitudes, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead.” Acts 14:19
“Having won over the king’s chamberlain, they were asking for peace” acts 12:20
By observing the usage of this word in these passages, the winning does not necessarily refer only to winning to Christ but winning with regard to improvement in the marriage relationship itself.
A faithful wife who response to the husband with this kind of attitude and behavior has a much greater chance that her husband will see the error of his ways and they intern develop a working relationship of peace and unity.
To continue to speak out of hostility and fear and control will only intensify the relationship struggle and reinforce the effects of the curse.
2). Identify with the holy women of old (children of Sarah)
3). Honor to the Word of God
to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be dishonored. Titus 2:5
The woman’s role is willing support.
The woman’s response is submission to the head.
Notice! each passage adds that submission is to “their own husbands.”
2. Love husbands and children Titus 2:3-5
Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips, nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be dishonored. Titus 2:3-5
The passage in Paul’s letter to Titus provides more insight into how God intended a woman to respond to her husband and in life.
Reverent behavior
Not gossips
Not enslaved to wine or other numbing devices.
Teaching others what is good.
Slide
Look at the curriculum for the school of holy women.
• How to love your husband
• How to love your children
• How to live sensibly
• How to keep pure
• How to be effective worker at home
• How to be kind to others.
• How to live in submission to husbands.
All women have a mission.
You can operate according to your role even if you aren’t presently married.
What is most significant in this passage is the necessity for older women to teach younger women how to love.
The word for love used here is not the common word for love found in the new Testament.
This is not the kind of love based in the will.
What Paul asks women to teach other women is how to have a warm fondness or companionship or sense of friendship with their husbands and with the children.
This kind of love is modeled by other women and can be taught and must be taught.
3. Respect
The word here is the same word used for fear (phobos).
The idea is a respect or reverence.
To approach something with a sense of respect and honor and care.
Illus: Electricity
Ladies, men are wired to respond to respect.
A man's greatest need is for significance and respect.
What happens when two men first meet?
Usually, the first question is, What you do?”
When women meet they are generally more concerned about relationship.
Why is its that demand enjoy getting involved in everyone else’s fix up jobs?
We are sensitive, often insecure creatures who respond positively to affirmation, not mothering.
We were made to create and to bring order into a chaotic world as God works.
Of course the fall has severely hampered that desire and blocks that desire.
When then walk in the flesh passivity rules.
Affirmation and respect go long way when it comes to motivating guys to take seriously there God given role as loving leader.
When men sense challenge rather than support, there is a tendency to withdraw from responsibility or become tyrannical.
CONCLUSION
We need men who will take responsibility for godly leadership in the family.
We need men who will model and teach men to be real men with courage to lead.
We need to come along side one another as brothers and encourage one another.
We need men who will respond to their wives with love, understanding, praise.
We need women who will catch a vision for what it means to be a willing support.
We need women who will model and teach one another to be holy women.
We need women who will come along side each other and encourage one another.
We need women who will respond to their husbands with submission, friendship, respect.
When the family is strong, the church will be strong.
When the church is strong, the community will be strong.
When the community is strong the county will be strong.
When our counties are strong our state will be strong.
When our states are strong our nation will be strong.
When our country is strong, we will impact the world for Christ.
Women are you willing to ask your husbands how they feel about your response to them?
Do they feel supported in their mission?
Do they feel loved?
Do they feel respected?
