While scanning my Google reader, I saw a post by him about Marriage & Men. I've been in dialogue a lot recently with a friend (who's male) about masculinity and men. We've been trying to figure out what masculinity is as well as what's with the lack of men in the church and why these men are the way they are. We haven't come to many conclusions - at least yet. Anyway, I thought the sermon was worth looking at.
But then I saw this one, Marriage & Women, and thought I should start there, since I am a woman. Holler. While I disagreed with a few points of his, he had some stuff worth sharing. I do recommend listening to them both (men, be careful of the one for men ... he's rough!). The passage he was studying was 1 Peter 3:1-6 for the ladies. Here are my notes:
He opened up by giving three definitions & visual representations using circles, of how the world (or was it the church?) defines marriage: 1. non-Christian feminism 2. Christian egalitarianism 3. Christian complementarianism. Major disagreements: his definitions of #1 & #2. I think they were incorrect.
And then he tried to exposit the passage.
#1 - Submit to your husband
Man has 3 options
- prayerfully wait for his wife to agree to it
- appeal to higher authority - pastor/couple/counselor and perhaps defer decision to them
- he can me the decision and she has to follow
#3 - Cultivate True Beauty - gentle and quiet spirit
#4 - Seek Exemplary Women
#5 - Fight Fear
Now, this is the point that I majorly disagreed on. Why? Because he misquotes Scripture, big time. I thought I just heard him wrong, but went back and listened to it again. Definitely a misquote. He claims that woman's nature is particularly rebellious (it seemed more so than man's?) b/c of our sin of comission by eating the fruit. And in Genesis 3, our "curse" (actually -- only the ground and the serpent were cursed??) is to not trust man and to rule over him b/c that verse says, "Your desire will be for your husband and you will rule over him." What? I thought I was hearing things, so I looked it up in my Bible. Here's what it says,
16 "To the woman he said,
"I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing;
with pain you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you."
Am I missing something? He went on to say that our desire, b/c of the curse on women, is to rule and dominate over them. He then went farther to say that the word "rule" that's used in this passage is what is used when talking about Cain in Gen. 4:7 --- sinfully rule is what he's referring to. A woman will want to rule over her husband because that's in her nature b/c of the results of the fall.
Yeah.
He went on to describe what submission doesn't mean ...
- a husband is in ultimate authority (he's below pastors/gov't/church/God)
- a wife doesn't have indepedent thoughts
- a wife does not seek to influence her husband (in fact, if women aren't influencing their husbands, then something is wrong. he said his wife was the closest thing to a pastor he had)
- a wife must obey her husband's command to sin
- a wife is less intelligent and competent than her husband
Submission is ...
- equal with complementary roles
- wives submit like Jesus did in the garden
- husbands are to humbly lead like Jesus does the Church
- a single woman should only marry a man she can follow (HOLLER!!!!!!)
- christian marriage reflects and illustrates the Trinity and the Gospel
Overall I think he had a lot of good stuff to say, minus those few points I mentioned. It was definitely worth listening to. He had his wife come out at the end and answer questions from the audience (their church is just so relevant). They were your traditional questions, "Can an outgoing/boisterous woman have a quiet and gentle spirit?" - which is a good question, just one that gets asked a lot. I know I've asked it. A college friend used this verse in a very appropriate and hurtful way to me which led me on my journey of that question.
So, with all THAT said, where are all the men at, the ones I can follow?!? Join me for my next post about Marriage & Men, according to Mark Driscoll.
Driscoll is a complementarian?!??
I really like his breakdown on the options that women have in "submitting to the husband".
Although I might disagree with his definition of leadership and therefore his terms of submittal. Do you know how ridiculous I would look if as a staff worker I defined my work as prayerfully waiting for the students to agree to it, appealing to my AD or deferring decisions to them, or if I just made a lot of decisions on my own and waited for the students to follow? Maybe the allegory doesn't follow and maybe I'm not granting sufficient authority where it is due. And its true I suppose I might do some of those things if a student had a really unhealthy sense of any kind of leadership/authority (particularly in relation with the Church) or whack spiritual sense...
It just seems like its giving men a little more credit than I think they have in taking authority. Maybe the problem disappears when as Mark says, the woman is married to someone they can follow.
The woman's nature being particularly rebellious seems pretty whack too. Great job straightening out the scripture references.
I think a woman can have a quiet and gentle spirit and be a hell of a visionary and outspoken leader. I have trouble understanding why this is particularly attributed to the female gender but don't mind attributing it to mystery.
I've been trying to work out my feelings about complementarianism, and I think I actually really really like it.... I just want to know if women can lead outside marriage...or even what it looks like inside it. Feelings aside though, I still have a bit of theological wrestling to go through before I can rest satisfied. :)
- a single woman should only marry a man she can follow (HOLLER!!!!!!)
AMEN.
for me, my heart desire (whatever that CFC temperament thing is) is "respect-me". i desire respect, and i also am highly loyal to those i respect.