WHAT IS A WIFE?

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Today we are continuing our series: “Marriage and Our Maker.” And today’s message is going to deal with that fairer sex among us. Last week, we discussed men, manliness, masculinity, and husbands loving their wives as Christ loves the church. Today we address women, wives, and femininity.

And I want to start today by addressing something historical. I want to trace the movement of what’s called feminism in our country. This will help us to see where we are today with this issue.

There have been three different waves of feminism in our country. The first wave of feminism came shortly after the Civil War. That feminism revolved around women’s suffrage and equal treatment of men and women. I think most of that movement was right, and it brought about a moral good in this country. Susan B. Anthony was a Quaker. I doubt very much that she would call herself a “feminist.” But she did good work. And many, if not most, of the other activists for women’s suffrage were Christians. And the work that they were doing was on the heels of the abolition of slavery. In other words, the 19th Amendment was, in many ways, an outworking of the 13th Amendment.

But then came the second wave of feminism, in the mid to late 20th Century. And quite frankly, much of that movement was immoral and brought about great confusion. It was characterized by people like Gloria Steinem who said, “We have now become the men we always wanted to marry.” Other second wave feminists like Betty Friedan compared the life of a modern housewife to a person trapped in a concentration camp. She wrote in her book The Feminine Mystique that, “women who ‘adjust’ as housewives, who grow up wanting to be ‘just a housewife,’ are in as much danger as the millions who walked to their own death in the concentration camps... they are suffering a slow death of mind and spirit.”

Second wave feminism was (and still is) demonstrably pro-abortion, anti-family, and anti-Scriptural in its convictions. And that’s quite different from what we see with early feminists. Al Mohler says it this way, “Many of the most active and influential early feminists such as Susan B. Anthony were… avidly against abortion. Many of these early so-called first wave feminists understood that abortion is the revenge of the male against the female because of her reproductive capacity. In this light… abortion is often understood to be violence inflicted upon women by men who do not want to take responsibility for their offspring.” But that’s not the case with second wave feminism. Second wave feminists have intentionally excluded pro-life advocates from their ranks.

Today we are seeing a third wave feminism that is even more pro-abortion, anti-family, and anti-Scriptural in its convictions. And at the same time, it is ideologically incompatible with second wave feminism. Third wave feminism embraces transgender ideology and embraces the idea that a person like Bruce Jenner can become “Woman of the Year.” Third wave feminists are okay with “men who identify as women” competing in women’s sports. Even someone as progressive as Martina Navratilova (the famous lesbian tennis player) has been ostracized and criticized by some publicly, because she had the audacity to say that only biological women should compete in women’s sports. What’s a girl to do in a world like this? What’s a Christian to do in a world like this?

Now into this confusion, we need to let the Bible speak. The Bible is not silent on this topic. The Bible is not dismissive of women. The Bible is not down on marriage or down on a woman becoming a wife. The Bible is decidedly pro-life, pro-marriage, and pro-redemption for both men and women. And so, when we ask a question, like I’m asking today, “What is a wife?” we need to get biblical to answer that question. And just like I answered that question with a definition last week for “what is a husband?” I want to do that today with the question, “what is a wife?”

Last week, I said a husband is a man (a biological male) who enters into a marriage covenant with a woman, and he commits to lovingly lead, nurture, and care for her and their offspring.

So what is a wife? Here’s my answer to that question—a wife is a woman (a biological female) who enters into a marriage covenant with a man (a biological male), and she commits to submit to the leadership of her husband as they lead, nurture, and care for their offspring.

You might say, “That’s so basic, Pastor Tony!” “Do we really have to spell it out like that…” Yes! Yes, we do. And a woman who reads that statement for the first time might say, “Submit! I don’t like that word. What does that even mean?”

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Well, let’s talk about that. Take your Bibles with me and turn to Ephesians 5. We are going to look at a few passages today. Today’s message, like last week’s, is not an exposition per se. We are going to synthesize a number of different passages into a biblical theology of wives.

And one of the key texts in our understanding is Ephesians 5. Ephesians 5:22 says,

22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Now there are a lot of misconceptions about “submission.” And we’ll talk about that. But even a cursory reading of Ephesians 5:22–24 tips you off to the fact that a woman, when she chooses to marry, agrees to follow the leadership of her husband. And that’s a big deal. That’s a huge sacrifice. And, even with the statement about husbands loving their wives like Christ, I think women give up more when they marry.

That’s why it’s important, if you are a single woman, to marry the right type of man. And that’s why it’s important that you make sure that you marry a man who you can follow for sixty years! Some women, for whatever reason, like to date and marry “bad boys.” I don’t really understand that phenomenon. Maybe they thought it was fun when they were dating? Maybe they think they can change them? But that whole “bad boy” routine gets really old once you’re married, especially when you start having kids.

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Now back to Ephesians 5 and this topic of submission. Let me ask and answer five questions about “submission.” Here’s the first question.

1. What does submission mean?

Last week I gave the men in this room three passages where Paul and Peter gave instructions to husbands. Those same passages address women as well. And whereas the men were given three similar commands. The wives are given only “one word” to describe the way they should relate to their husbands. And it’s this word “submit.”

Ephesians 5:22 - Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.

Colossians 3:18 - Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.

1 Peter 3:1 - Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands.

Even another parallel passage addresses this:

Titus 2:3-5 – Older women… train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

All four of those passages use the Greek word ὑποτάσσω. That word has the idea of voluntarily putting yourself under the authority of another. The Greek ὑπο means “under.” And the Greek τάσσω means “to place.” So you are ostensibly placing yourself under the authority of your husband.

So how does that play out in real life? Well let me give you a scenario. Let’s say that your husband is about to make a decision you don’t agree with. You should tell him, “I don’t agree with you.” But then you’ve got to say to yourself, “ὑποτάσσω. I choose to obey God. And I’m going to voluntarily put myself under the leadership of my husband.”

Here’s another scenario. When your husband is about to lead you into a place that makes you uneasy. He wants to sell the house. He wants to take a new job. He wants to send the kids to camp. Whatever it is! You tell him what you think. You tell him why you think what you think. And then say to yourself (and to him), “ὑποτάσσω… I’m going to voluntarily put myself under the leadership of my husband.”

Now let me just let you in on something, ladies. As men, we want your opinions. That’s why we married you. Submission doesn’t mean leaving your brain or your will at the wedding altar. And if you, as a man, are insecure about your wife disagreeing with you and stating her opinions, get over yourself. Submission doesn’t mean silence. 

I always want to know what my wife is thinking. I need her counsel. When my wife and I first got married, she was too submissive. She wouldn’t tell me what she thought, and I knew that there was wisdom inside of her that she was keeping from me. And so I had to extract it. Now she never withholds her strongly held opinions from me.

But let me say two things about that: 1) I know that at the end of the day she will follow my leadership, even if we disagree. That means a lot to me. And 2) there have been times probably a dozen or so… maybe one a year… where I’ve said, “Sanja, I know you don’t agree with me, but this is what I think we should do. And I need you to trust me.” And she has. Now she might say something like this, “I’ll follow your lead, because you’re the one who answers to the Almighty.”

Paul says, “wives, [ὑποτάσσω]…” Paul tells wives to voluntarily place themselves under the leadership of their husbands. They are to submit to him as the church does to Christ. Here’s a great definition of submission from the book Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: “Submission refers to a wife’s divine calling to honor and affirm her husband’s leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts. It is not an absolute surrender of her will. Rather, we speak of her disposition to yield to her husband’s guidance and her inclination to follow his leadership.”

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Here’s a second question we need to address.

2. To whom does a wife submit?

Now I’m going to answer this second question really quickly. The answer should be fairly self-evident in verse 22, but sometimes we read it too quickly and miss this.

Ephesians 5:22 - Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.

All men are not in authority over all women. Men only have that responsibility with their own wives and not with other women. Women are not required to submit to men in general. And a single woman is not required to submit to a man until that man puts a ring on that finger and they exchange vows.

I heard a story once told by a pastor’s wife. She was listening to her sixteen-year-old daughter interact with some of her friends. And she was discussing with this one friend, a young man, about where they were going to hang out. And she said, “You’re the man, you’re supposed to make the decision and I’m supposed to submit.” And her mom pulled her aside and said, “Sweetheart, you aren’t married to that kid. You don’t have to submit to him.”

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Here’s a third question.

3. What’s the best illustration of submission?

In 1 Corinthians 11:3, Paul says this.

But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.

This is one of the most important verses on marriage, because it lets us know that submission doesn’t imply inferiority. If God the Son’s submission to God the Father was a demonstration of inferiority, the whole doctrine of the Trinity would fall apart.

And that’s why I say, in marriage, each person plays the Christ-role. The husband loves like Christ loves the church. And the wife submits like Christ does to God the Father. If both spouses imitate Christ in that way, then we have the makings of a healthy marriage.

And Paul reiterates that Christ/church analogy in Ephesians 5.

Ephesians 5:22-24 – Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Now this is an illustration. This is a simile. The wife submits to her husband as the church submits to Christ. Men struggle to approximate Christ’s leadership in the home. They will never do that perfectly. And women struggle to approximate perfect submission to their husbands. We know the church doesn’t do that perfectly with Christ. 

The key word in this verse is the word “head.” Everyone see that in verse 23? The Greek is the word κεφαλή. And for 2,000 years, the church has agreed that the word κεφαλή means “head” or “authority” or “leader.”

But in recent years, some have tried to alter the meaning of that word to “source.” And to that, all I want to say is this. The word κεφαλή does not mean “source.” And you can’t avoid the obvious implications of this passage without doing violence to Scripture… and also doing violence to the relationship between Jesus and the church.

Now some, in what’s called the egalitarian camp of evangelical theology, have said that Ephesians 5:21 suggests mutual submission and mutual headship.

Ephesians 5:21 – … submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Some suggest that men and women are both required to submit to one another. So man is not the “head” of the marriage. Men and women submit equally one to another. The problem with that is this—if you’ve got a two-headed marriage, you’ve got a two-headed monster. When a man and a woman are both trying to lead, nobody’s leading. And typically when a woman starts infringing on her husband’s leadership, that man will go passive. He’ll relent. And now you have an unbiblical marriage.

What Paul is saying there in verse 21, is that we need to submit in the categories of submission that God has established. So he mentions marriage in 5:22–33. He mentions families in 6:1–4. He mentions slaves and masters in 6:5–9. He mentions the government elsewhere as another place where we need to submit (cf. Rom 13:1–7). In other words, we all have to submit to something. And with the divinely established authorities in God’s world: 1) the family, 2) the government, 3) the elders of the church, we are called to submit. 

By the way, men, don’t make this harder than it has to be for your wife. If you love her as Christ loves the church, it’s going to be a lot easier for her to do the biblical thing and submit to your leadership. If she knows she can trust you, if she knows that you love her, if she knows that you are submitted to Christ, it’s going to be a lot easier for her to obey this Scriptural command.

Will a wife submit to a husband who is lazy? Will a wife submit to a husband who is rude or demeaning or domineering? Maybe? But why make it harder on them than it has to be? Incentivize her with your Christ-like example.

The story is told about a husband who just learned about submission. He came home one day and told his wife, “I just learned about submission so now it’s time for you to submit to my authority. So first of all I want you to cook me an amazing dinner. And then after that I want you to make me an amazing dessert. And then after you do the dishes you can draw me a bath and rub my shoulders and maybe my feet a little bit while I soak. And then when I’m done with my bath, guess who’s going to comb my hair when I get out?” And his wife responded, “Umm… the Funeral Director?”

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Here’s a fourth question.

4. What is the extent of submission?

How far exactly does this go? What all does this submission entail? Well, look at verse 24 again:

Ephesians 5:24 – Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

“Pastor Tony, do you have any idea how difficult that is? Do you know what you are suggesting?” I’m not suggesting it. I’m just reading this Scripture. You can’t make this a selective thing. You can’t say, “I’ll submit only if I agree.” You can’t say, “I’ll submit most of the time.” God has called you to submit in everything. And it’s the best way to serve God as a wife. And if that means temporary discomfort in this world and suffering, then you can be sure that God will reward your obedience in the life to come.

Now two disclaimers here. 1) I believe that implicit within this statement is the caveat that if your husband asks you to sin, in that case, you don’t have to submit. Like I said earlier, submission doesn’t mean silence. It doesn’t mean leaving your brain or your will at the wedding altar. Also it doesn’t mean putting the will of your husband before the will of Christ. If your husband asks you to sin, you respectfully decline and say, “I must obey God rather than men.” Submission doesn’t give your husband carte blanche to get away with evil. 

And secondly, I need to say this publicly. 2) In situations where a husband would injure a woman physically, that’s against the law and that’s a sin. If a husband abuses you physically, call the police. If your husband is a Christian and a member of this church, then call the police, and then call one of your elders.

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And here’s a fifth question.

5. Why is submission so difficult?

One of the things that you will hear often in some theological circles is that submission was a result of the curse. And some, in the egalitarian camp especially, say that submission didn’t exist before the fall. But that’s not true. God gave explicit commands to Adam, and then he brought Eve into his life as a helpmate. She was made in the image of God, just like Adam. There was equality. But she was to be his helpmate. She was to submit to his authority and help him obey God’s edicts in Genesis 2. That’s part of the reason why God holds Adam responsible for sin in Romans 5.

But the fall did have an effect on marriage and on the marital relationship. Turn with me quickly to Genesis 3. Submission and authority weren’t established in the fall. But they were distorted. Eve usurped her husband’s authority and took hold of the fruit that God had forbidden them. Adam acquiesced in his role as spiritual authority. Both are at fault. And after the fall we see God’s judgment in Genesis 3:16. He says to the woman, this is her judgment:

Genesis 3:16 – I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children

A woman once tried to convince Sanja and me that with a proper diet and a good breathing technique, a woman could circumvent the pains of childbirth. Yeah, good luck with that! 

Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.

Now that Hebrew word for “desire” shows up three times in the Hebrew Scriptures; it’s the word תְּשׁוּקָה. One occurrence is in the Song of Solomon, where it describes a passionate desire for a husband to make love to his wife. “I am my beloved’s and his desire [תְּשׁוּקָה] is for me” (Song 7:11). Is that what that means in Genesis 3:16? Did God bring judgment on Eve by giving her a passionate desire to make love to her husband? I heard Tommy Nelson say once that if this is judgment, then “may God smite my wife!”

But that’s not what it means. You’ve got to consider the context of Genesis 3. The other place where this word תְּשׁוּקָה is used is in Genesis 4:7, where God tells Cain, “Sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.” In other words, sin wants to rule over you. It wants to dominate you. And what happened after the fall is that a woman now desires to buck the leadership of her husband.

And as part of the judgment too, verse 16 says that “he shall rule over you.” So one of the aftereffects of the fall is that men and women are now vying for leadership in the home. There’s a “two-headed monster scenario” now possible in every marriage. Where there was peace once, now there’s conflict. And like I mentioned last time, when men err in marriage, they err in two directions: passivism and machoism. There’s emasculated man and machismo man. And machismo man wrongly tries to lord his authority over his wife.

Now similarly women err in two ways too. On one hand there is brazen insubordination. “You’re not the boss of me and I refuse to be led.” And on the other hand there is a groveling, helpless, manipulative obsequiousness. “Oh no, I dropped my handkerchief. I can’t pick it up. Can you pick it up for me?” That kind of Victorian helplessness is not what strong, intelligent, and biblical femininity looks like. In fact when you look at the Proverbs 31 woman, the last word that you would ever use for that woman is helpless. She’s described as חַיִל, which is the Hebrew word for “strong” (see Prov 12:4; 31:10; Ruth 3:11). The book of Proverbs says, “Every wise woman builds her house, and the foolish tears it down with her own hands” (14:1). Women have the power to destroy their families (including their husbands) or build them up!

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Now before I’m done, I want to give you, ladies, five things that your husbands need from you in the area of submission. Because some of you might be saying right now “How, Pastor Tony? How do I practically display this ὑποτάσσω command?” I don’t claim to be exhaustive here with this list. But these are some things that your husband will appreciate.

Five ways that a wife can demonstrate loving submission to her husband:

1) Respect

In a world where men get chewed up and chewed out. In a world where men get eaten up and spit out, downsized and demoted, demeaned and disparaged at work, they need a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T from their wives when they come home.

The Ephesians 5 passage that we looked at earlier ends on this note:

Ephesians 5:33 –However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Ladies, if you’ve got something to say to your husband… if you need to confront him about something or if a conflict is imminent. Then take him away privately and quietly chat with him. Don’t disrespect him publicly. And whatever you do don’t disrespect him in front of his children.

And by the way, the way you speak about your husbands in public is extremely important. Like I said last week, it’s difficult to respect privately who you run down publicly. 

And husbands, like I told your wives last week, you got to give your wives something to work with. If they go out and try to speak positively about you publicly, but don’t have anything to work with, that’s not their fault.

2) Appreciation

Some of you might remember that I used this last week for a way that a man can love his wife. Well, yes, we both need this. As different as men and women are, there are some things that are the same. Now the way that a man is appreciated will be displayed differently from a woman. Like I said earlier, we work by the sweat of our brow and it’s hard out there. And we die early. At least historically, men have died earlier than their wives. And all careers become painful at times. Brain surgeons get tired of brains. Teachers get tired of students. Pastors get tired of Greek and Hebrew.

And here’s what you can do, ladies. You can verbalize your appreciation. “Thank you, sweetheart, for working so hard to provide for us. Thanks for being a good dad (or grandad). Thanks for providing insurance for the kids. Thanks for working overtime. Thanks for fixing the car.” Be thankful, ladies, and appreciate what he does.

3) Mothering

Now let me clarify that. This is one of the problems of using one-word statements. A man doesn’t need his wife to mother him. On more than one occasion it has been said at my house, “Sweetheart, please don’t mother me. I’ve already got a mother, and I don’t think I can handle another one.” 

But what a man does need, for those of us who have children, is a wife who dedicates herself to manage the home and nurture and raise up our children. I said it last week, how stupid it is for men to think “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” This is one of the reasons why they can’t. They are uniquely equipped to nurture, to disciple even our kids. It’s not that fathers don’t have a role with their kids. They do. They have a huge role. But for most fathers, they spend about half the amount of time with their kids that their mothers do. And fathers need to be able to go work and labor and provide for their families and know that their kids are well-provided for them.

Part of this, I think, is having a well-managed home. 1 Timothy 5:14 calls women to “manage their households.” That’s a high calling. She manages that home. Titus 2:3-5 says that “older women are to teach the younger women to submit to their husbands but also how to love their children, and how to work at home that the word of God might not be defiled.”

Fathers want to know that their homes are at least hygienic for their kids. Fathers want to know that their kids won’t go for two hours with a dirty diaper. Fathers want to know that their kids have clean clothes and healthy meals, and they are learning and growing and developing as they should be. And the onus of responsibility for a lot of those things falls on mothers. And mothers need to be up for that task.

Proverbs 31:27 – She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness.

Proverbs 31:21 –  She is not afraid of snow for her household, for all her household are clothed in scarlet [or double-thickness].

Proverbs 31:19 –  She puts her hands to the distaff, and her hands hold the spindle.

By the way, whenever you watch pro football, when the cameras are on the sidelines? What do those kids say to the cameras? Do they ever say, “Hi dad! Thanks for all those millions of passes you threw me when I was growing up? Thanks for teaching me the game of football.” No! What do they say? “Hi mom!” What’s up with that? When those kids are in utero they are attached to mother. Ex utero they are attached to mother.  That’s why the Bible says, “Women shall be saved [as far as their purpose of nobility] through the bearing of children” (1 Tim 2:15).

4) Be a crown

Solomon says this in Proverbs 12:4:

An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who brings shame is like rottenness in his bones.

The Bible says about “the Proverbs 31 woman” that, “She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life” (31:12). And “the heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain” (31:11).

Let me tell you ladies, if a man had to choose between a long life with an angry wife and a short life with an excellent wife, He’ll choose a short life every time.

Now let me just say something here about physical attractiveness. 1 Peter 3 says, “Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious” (3:3-4). Nevertheless a woman should maintain a reasonable level of attractiveness. That doesn’t mean that you will stay as beautiful as the day you got married. These bodies change over time. I hate to tell you newly-weds this, but it’s true. It’s all downhill after the wedding day.

But as you age, ladies, do your best to take care of yourself. You need to maintain for your spouse a reasonable facsimile of what they married. Take care of yourself.   

5) Sexual Fulfillment

Some of you probably figured this was coming eventually. But notice I didn’t just say “sex.” A man needs more than just a release of tension. All animals copulate! Only humans “make love.” And there is nothing more painful for a man than to know that his wife, his bride, doesn’t want him or feels like she has to service him like a mechanic in a garage. A man wants to feel wanted. “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine” (Song 6:3).

Now are there times when a wife is sexually being a faithful, dutiful, servant of God? Yes, absolutely. And that’s okay! Some of the time, that’s okay, but not all the time.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7:

1 Corinthians 7:5 - Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

1 Corinthians 7:2-4 - But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. 3 The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 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.

I know we address men and the issue of sexual sin a lot. We deal with pornography and other sexual addictions. And that’s good. We’ll keep doing that. But wives you can have a huge impact on your husbands by sacrificially meeting their needs. If a husband is getting everything he needs at home, he’s less likely to look for satisfaction elsewhere. So help your husbands with this. This is an important thing for men.

God has given us this great provision called marriage to meet the sexual needs of each spouse. So use it. And enjoy sex as God created it. And take care of each other, so that Satan doesn’t get a foothold in our marriages.

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And let me repeat what I said last week to the men. Ladies, you’re going to fail at these things. You’re going to make mistakes. We’re not going after “good marriages”; we’re going after gospel marriages. So when you fail, and if you’ve failed already on some of these fronts, just admit it to you husband and move forward in the grace that God gives.

And you husbands, be gracious to your wives. It’s tough being a woman in this day. It’s tough enough to submit to you, but now they have to do with the whole rest of the world scoffing at them for doing it. Give them grace. And may God help us to uphold the biblical expectations of husbands and wives.

Taught by Tony Caffey

Senior Pastor of Verse By Verse Fellowship

Marriage & Our Maker