Controlling WivesSuper Submission and Ah, To Have Been Submissive |
by Douglas Wilson |
Super Submission
The apostle Paul said that we were to receive one another, but not into debates over disputable things. In his day the debatable things had to do with the ceremonial foods of Judaism, and so we think we have learned his wisdom simply because the church now debates different issues. As though it were appropriate for the twelve disciples to resume their quarrel over who was the greatest at a different section of the road.Once there was a group of foolish women who decided to police their own ranks, making sure that all the other women conformed to what they believed. Unfortunately, their exhortations did not concern faithfulness to the Scriptures, or to resisting temptations to selfishness, or to a greater and greater love for their husbands and children.
Rather, the admonitions and rebukes gravitated to what kind of Christian education the children should receive, whether at school or at home, whether to have a baby at home or in the hospital, whether to take this for medicine or that for medicine, whether God wanted them to drive the kids to the game in a Ford or a Chevy, whether a godly woman’s food mixer should be red or white, whether their head coverings should be the size of a tablecloth or smaller, and how best to crowd their husbands so that they might assume an appropriate level of leadership.
In the name of this deep submissiveness to this so-called "deeper and higher" discipleship, these women eventually became the most unsubmissive women in the church, and began to cause great difficulties with many of their sisters. They ran ahead of their own husbands, resisted the authority of the elders, and created their own unofficial statement of faith for all to subscribe.
The wise woman of Proverbs mixed her wine with great wisdom. At the end of our story it has to be said that these women mixed their wine so foolishly that eventually it resembled dirty water, and became quite undrinkable.
(used with permission from “Blog/Mablog,” http://www.dougwils.com/ Article posted on 5/31/04 http://www.dougwils.com/index.asp?Action=Anchor&CategoryID=1&BlogID=193)
AH, TO HAVE BEEN SUBMISSIVE
A wise man once defined a classic as a book that no one wants to read, but everyone wants to have read. In the same way, submission is something that everyone wants to have done, but no one wants to do. As the old blues song puts it, "Everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die."Once there was a woman who desperately wanted to "have been" submissive to her husband, but she never wanted to actually submit. Whenever he came to make a decision, she wanted to explain to him just "one more time" why his idea was no good. When he gave up in frustration, she was frustrated with him, because she wanted him to be a strong spiritual leader—as long as he led in the direction where she wanted to go.
Not surprisingly, she was eager to wear the badges of submission—she read and recommended the right books, she talked about submission to her friends (as though it were a good thing), she dressed in manner sure to irritate feminists, and she made her husband go along with all sorts of things that he had no real desire to do. Soon she became a leader among a number of the women, and they became submissive in the same way she was—which is to say, not very.
Her husband was the opposite of what she was pretending he was. He was an abdicating wimp, and he knew it, and it bothered him greatly. Unbeknownst to her, he had been silently repenting for some time, and had finally sought counsel from a wise friend. The friend had told him that he needed to make a real decision, he needed to make it soon, it should be over a relatively unimportant matter, and it needed to be something that he knew that she would absolutely not want to do.
And so, after praying about it for two weeks, along with practicing his breathing exercises, that is exactly what he did. And I am afraid that her lack of submission could be heard three houses down.
(used with permission from “Blog/Mablog,” http://www.dougwils.com/ Article posted on 6/06/04 http://www.dougwils.com/index.asp?Action=Anchor&CategoryID=1&BlogID=202)
