Greetings,
Some friends and I are discussing family as God would like it to be. Can you as a godly man, (if a woman is reading this, please share these questions with your husband - thanks) please answer these few questions for us as we strive to make our homes what God would like them to be? Thank You!
Robin
1. In your opinion, what does it mean to be the spiritual leader of the family?
2. What does it mean to be submissive as a wife? What does it mean to submissive as a husband?
3. List some of your ideas of what the husband/father should do to be effective as the spiritual leader of the family?
4. What do you think the wife should do to help her husband effectively serve as the spiritual leader of the family?
11 comments:
I responded on my blog to your comment on my blog :)
I will ask my husband if he wants to answer these questions.
I went to college in VA.
And thanks for likeing my blog!
I like your's too!
1. In your opinion, what does it mean to be the spiritual leader of the family?
I lead by example. In prayer, worship, and attitude around the house.
2. What does it mean to be submissive as a wife? What does it mean to submissive as a husband?
That the relationship is not a 50% - 50%, it is 100% - 100%.
3. List some of your ideas of what the husband/father should do to be effective as the spiritual leader of the family?
Explain things (decisions, attitudes) Biblically to the children and wife. Be quick to apoligize and make restitutions. Teaching the kids to screen what they let into there lives, be it books, moviews, tv, friends.
4. What do you think the wife should do to help her husband effectively serve as the spiritual leader of the family?
To be in agreement with the husband in a united front against the world for the protection of our children.
Not to agrue and disagree with the husband in front of the kids, save that for later or go somewhere other than in front of the kids to disagree.
To help hold the kids accountable when punishment has been dolled out, and not to let them out on an early parole.
To reinforce biblical principals to children when there is time together.
To discuss and explore each others spiritual life in in effort to grow in the Lord together through each other's experiences.
To share scripture with each other and pray together.
Forgive me for not trying to answer your questions in order. I'm kind of tight on time and would like to take something of a stab at it, though. Being the spiritual leader in my family has meant a few things. First, it means living a Christian walk in front of my family. Lack of integrity means lack of authority.
I am also not a dictator at home. When there are decisions to be made, I take input from my wife and children (the kiddies are 22, 19 and 16). However as the leader of my family, I hold final responsibility for decisions made. That means I never go back to the family and blame them when I make bad decisions, even if I follow their wishes over my own.
As for the submissive wife: I expect my wife to participate fully in leadership of our family. When we disagree on something that matters especially to me, we do things as I see them. Those decisions then fall back to the previous paragraph. If I choose my own counsel over hers and mess up, I'm responsible. This is not as harsh as it may sound, though. We agree on most things. When we disagree, many things either matter more to her, or not much to me at all. I will go with her in those circumstances. Only on a very few things do I insist on my own way.
I don't see where scripture teaches me to be submissive to their wives. Men are to love and respect their wives. I believe I accomplish this, at least most of the time. I ask forgiveness for the rest.
Hi! Thank you so much for taking the time to answer the questions from the group. It really means a lot.
I really liked this comment "However as the leader of my family, I hold final responsibility for decisions made. That means I never go back to the family and blame them when I make bad decisions, even if I follow their wishes over my own."
I also appreciate the attitude you carry regarding a man's wife submitting yet fully participating in the family. And again how you take responsibility for the decisions regardless of whose idea it was. It sounds like your house is run in a godly way.
You mentioned that you didn't see where the Bible says that husband's should submit to their wives. It doesn't say it like that, but in Ephesians 5:21 it says, "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." I've always taken that to mean we are to both give in the relationship.
In my Bible (NIV Life Application) the notes say:
"Submitting to another person is an often misunderstood concept. It does not mean becoming a doormat. Christ - at whose name "every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth: (Philippians 2:10) - submitted his will to the Father, and we honor Christ by following his example. When we submit to God we become more willing to obey his command to submit to others, that is to subordinate our rights to others. In a marriage relationship, both husband and wife are called to submit. For the wife, this means willingly following her husband's leadership in Christ. For the husband, it means putting aside his own interests in order to care for his wife. Submission is rarely a problem in homes where both partners have a strong relationship with Christ and where each is concerned for the happiness of the other."
All that to say it sounds like your home is run as described in the quote above. Have you and your wife considered mentoring young married couples? Just a thought
Thanks again for you time and effort in answering these questions!
This passage in Ephesians is often misinterpreted in this way. Consider this: Paul says "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." It is a general statement, followed by three examples of how one should submit. If we take it to mean that husbands and wives should submit to one another, then it must also mean that parents and children and parents, and slaves and masters must also submit to one another. You can see the logical difficulty with this interpretation.
"In a marriage relationship, both husband and wife are called to submit. For the wife, this means willingly following her husband's leadership in Christ. For the husband, it means putting aside his own interests in order to care for his wife."
Here the question is one of semantics. The husband does not submit to the wife. He submits to Christ. That submission to Christ requires him to love his wife and sacrifice for her, not submit to her. It also follows from the previous point. Marriage is an example of the relationship we (the church) share with Christ. Jesus does not submit to the church. Could anyone suggest that he does not love us, or care for us? He sacrificed beyond anything any husband could be asked to make. However, He clearly does not submit to us. A high standard for husbands.
Dear Robin,
I feel honored to be able to answer the four questions that you posed.
(l) In your opinion, what does it mean to be the spiritual leader of the family? The words of Joshua in Joshua 24:l5 are: But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." a father should live the truth and share the truth with his family and others. The father should labour to produce a harvest in his own family. He will reap a harvest in the souls of his children - if he does not give up.
(2) What does it mean to be submissive as a husband? He must be first of all submissive to the Lord God and then submissive to his wife in the sense of understanding her felt needs including his love for her and the children.
(3) List some of your ideas of what the husband /father should do to be effective as the spiritual leader of the family? He needs to be into the Word to maintain his sensitivity to the Lord God , his wife and his children. He needs to find the time to discern the needs of his wife and family. When he tires in this endeavor he should seek the time and place to refresh his spirit and his own relationship to the Lord. Being sensitive to the needs of his family he will find the time to share time with them. Being sensitive to the Word will help him to be sensitive to his own needs and to the needs of his family.
(4) What do you think the wife should do to help her husband effectively serve as the spiritual leader of the family? She should do all in her power to help him in communicating with her. The husband gets caught up in his work, his commitments outside of the home, and his own battle in this life. And she should gently press for him to spend time with his family - many times making it possible for him to do this. A husband can not be a spiritual leader in his family if he does not spend time with them and shares with them. She should affirm with him the admonition - "as for me (we) and and my (our) house we will serve the Lord.
You asked, "Can you as a godly man, please answer these few questions for us as we strive to make our homes what God would like them to be?"
I will be pleased to respond to your questions, but I am not comfortable refering to myself as "a godly man." I am a person who does my best to live a Christian life.
You asked, "1. In your opinion, what does it mean to be the spiritual leader of the family?"
It has been my experience that "real" leaders don't become leaders by demanding that others follow. Real leaders are those who go about their life in a way that others want to follow. For a husband to be the spiritual leader of the family, he must live his life in a way that his wife and children are aware of his personal relationship with God, and respect him enough that they want to have the same kind of relationship. Obviously, it means that he will be faithful in study of the scripture, praying, attending church, tithing and participation in activities that are consistent with being a Christian. It also means that the husband will refrain from activities that are not consistent with living a holy life. In particular, a husband can't have habits that are destructive and still be a spiritual leader.
2. What does it mean to be submissive as a wife? What does it mean to submissive as a husband?
Being submissive means that one practices "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
3. List some of your ideas of what the husband/father should do to be effective as the spiritual leader of the family?
I think I did that in my answer to #1.
4. What do you think the wife should do to help her husband effectively serve as the spiritual leader of the family?
A wife can be an encourager -- when the husband does something good, she can compliment him. When the husband does something that isn't consistent with being the spiritual leader, she should remind him. Most of all, she should expect him to be the spiritual leader -- men tend to behave the way their wives expect them to behave.
Wives should not complain when their husband gives time and attention to being a spiritual leader, such as attending board meetings, etc.
Those questions include some assumptions that I'd reject, so it's hard to answer them meaningfully, but fools rush in where angels fear to tread, so here I go.
1. To be a spiritual leader in any context, family or otherwise, means to reflect the character of Christ clearly and compellingly enough that people follow you just because they want to be where you are, or to go where you seem to be going. I think true spiritual leadership is always mere modeling rather than compulsion.
2. To be spiritually submissive means to yield to our true heart and follow that leader, even when that means recognizing that to be what they are, to have what they have, to go where they're going, I'm going to have to let go of some hurts and some defenses and some terribly inadequate sources of identity.
3. To be an effective leader means to fall so desperately in love with the God who is desperately in love with us that we are like putty -- like clay -- in his hands, and we hardly even notice that someone's following, except that they're precious because we see them like God sees them, which is just like he sees us.
4. My answers, probably worth what you're paying for them, are, no doubt, starting to get a little repetitious now, but the thing that most deeply drives me to let God do more in my life and take me further up and further in is when my wife or one of my young adult children tells me that they see Christ in me, that they want to reflect him like I do. My 21-year-old son wrote on my "wall" on Facebook the other day: "I love you, Daddy. I'm happy about the man you've helped me become." Nothing makes you humbler or more submissive than that sudden awareness thrust upon you that you're already leading, however imperfect and incomplete and "not there yet" that leadership may seem in your own eyes. You'd give God anything to be what they see in you.
When the basic presupposition is that leadership and submission are about coercion at some level and our challenge is how to be happy and fulfilled in that environment, I think we ask unreasonable and maybe ultimately not entirely Christlike or biblical things of ourselves.
All of this, of course, is just one eccentric's opinion and I may well be vastly outnumbered by the time this thread runs its course.
Thank you mb-nn for taking the time to answer the questions even if they were a bit repetitive. How wonderful about your son's comments on face book. It shows you are being a great leader!
Robin
Agreed with your great post, mb-nn. However, didn't actually see the suggested "coercion" mentioned in the above paragraph in her questions. "Submission" & "leadership," yes; "coercion" into the same, no.
Came back to add that I don't even take well at all to "coercion" of any type ... that creates rebels. But then perhaps I was thinking already re leadership entailing servanthood, rather than coercion ... "if you want to be great ... learn to be the servant of all."
Robin, as spiritual leader of my family, it means that #1, I pray for my family, each one every day. #2, it means that I need to set the example every day not just to talk the talk, but to walk the walk. That's all I can think of for the first question.
2. To be submissive as a wife. To be submissive as a husband. Overall, I'm not sure how to answer these questions, because there are times when I'm probably not the best example. Lets just say that to be submissive means that I give my wife the freedom to disagree with me, to love me if she chooses, etc...
3. As spiritual leader of my family, I really believe my calling is to pray for my family, to set an example for my family, to be the protector(especially being the father of three beautiful girls) of my family, and to tell how Jesus has transformed my life, and that I don't want my girls to make the same mistakes I did., etc...
4. The wife, especially my wife, stands by me for the most part, but there are times when she tells me when she thinks I'm wrong, and helps me to get back on track, if that is needed. Many times, I don't need a yes woman in my corner, I need someone that cares enough to tell me the truth, even if that means sometimes it hurts. For that, I love her very deeply.
After all, I'm still learning and growing as a Christian. I'm not looking to lord it over her. I'm looking for someone that will learn and grow with me, that one day will look at me and say, that man has grown into the man of God that I gladly and willingly will follow, and spend the rest of my life serving. I hope to one day display the servant's heart that she does and has to our family on a daily basis.
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