A LETTER TO THE CHRISTIAN WIFE I studied the first half of 1Peter in my morning devotion today. It was going personal for me until I got to the third chapter. Suddenly it began to speak to me concerning another, that is, the Christian wife. I got this when I read about Sarah and her relationship with Abraham her husband. I suddenly thought that if the wives of ministers and Christians at large, will relate with their husbands in the same way as Sarah did, we will not be as embarrassed about the Christian marriages as we are today. Let us look at that passage as I apologise that this may be a lengthy post. Peter is addressing a young church of young Christians. Actually, the first epistle of Peter was used as a kind of baptismal catechism manual for the early church. In it, he tries to use some imageries to point the young Christians to the basic facts of the new life in Christ. One those is the image of Aliens and Strangers in the world (2: 11). The Christian man and woman is not an indigene of this world and must live contrary to it. This is the summary of what I hear Peter saying to us. We have a calling and that calling is to be different. It is in this section dealing with us as Aliens, specifically the third chapter, that the Spirit stopped speaking to me personally and moved to speak about our Christian sisters as wives. I was prompted to consider the recent culture of divorce and remarriage which is marring the testimony of the Christian Church. By the way, we do not hear this much about the Muslims. They seem to have imbibed a better theology of marriage than our sisters and their theology is helping to keep the Muslim marriages intact. That is not to say that those marriages are rosy. I am only saying that they are not scandalous like we have among the Christian faithfuls; worse still, among the ministers. That is something to worry about! Isnt it? I insist that there is something faulty with our theology of marriage which is responsible for this malady. The first problem is in relation to the foundation of marriage and the second is with respect to the superstructure of marriage. Today, I read a lot of garbage on social, the print and mass media from so called marriage experts. I call them garbage because they are teachings that are not founded on sound Biblical exegesis. It grieves me so much when someone calls him or herself a Christian minister but resorts to the principles of the world in his teachings. That is what has laid the very foundation for the failures of Christian marriages. The abandonment of sound Biblical theology of marriage is totally and solely responsible for the issues in our marriages. Having said these, let me look at the passage in 1 peter. (1Pe 3:1) In the same way you wives must submit yourselves to your husbands... (1Pe 3:5) For the devout women of the past who placed their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful by SUBMITTING themselves to their husbands. (1Pe 3:6) Sarah was like that; she OBEYED Abraham and called him her master. You are now her daughters if you do good and are not afraid of anything. I have omitted much that is very useful just to make this shorter. Firstly, let me call your attention to the fact that in the family life, the first person to be commanded is always the wife. There can never be a harmonious family if the wife fails in her responsibility because the duty of the wife is the foundation upon which the superstructures of the family life are built. (Pro 14:1) A wise woman builds her house, but the foolish plucks it down with her hands. Next, let me call your attention to the appeal to an Old Testament family - that of Abraham and Sarah. Alongside this appeal is the call to our sisters to follow in her footsteps. Next, we are to observe the two words that summarize the divine injunction to our ladies, if they are going to be successful in being suitable helps to the called brethren: SUBMISSION and OBEDIENCE this time, not to her God but to her husband. Before I move forward, let me tell you that the Western mind will call me chauvinist but that is how they have labelled everything godly with a bad name. A good Christian is called radical and fundamentalist implying he is a fanatic. So the bad names from the West have a way of telling me what is godly and right. They call evil good and evil is promoted as a foreign policy under the guise of human rights which is the slogan of secular humanism. Let us leave this distraction and continue our study. The word submitis the Greek word hupotasso. Here is Thayers Dictionary definition. G5293 ὑποτάσσω (hupotassō) (underlining is mine) Thayer Definition: 1) to arrange under, to subordinate 2) to subject, put in subjection 3) to subject one’s self, obey 4) to submit to one’s control 5) to yield to one’s admonition or advice 6) to obey, be subject Here is the Greek for the second word “OBEDIENCE” G5219 ὑπακούω (hupakouō) Thayer Definition: 1) to listen, to harken 1a) of one who on the knock at the door comes to listen who it is, (the duty of a porter) 2) to harken to a command 2a) to obey, be obedient to, submit to You can reach your conclusions yourself! Personally, I find it difficult to reach the same conclusions about the role of women with much of the Western Preachers and their followers. For whatever reasons, ranging from culture to fashion, there seems to be this conscious downplaying of the meaning and implication of this subordinate role of the woman IN THE FAMILY. May be this springs from the fear of the woman being regarded as inferior but I do not believe that it means that the woman is inferior. Being the last man on the defence does not means that you are weaker than the attackers. It is merely a matter of roles! It is the same with the role of the wife in the family. She is to be subordinate. She is to do that volitionally and joyfully; finding fulfilment in doing so. This is where many Muslim and traditional African women have gotten it better than the Christian! Finally let me call your attention to the fact that these injunction concerning family life, both to the wife first and the husband later, are given in the context of Peters teachings concerning unjust suffering which is the means to spirit of glory (1: 11; 2: 13-25). CONCLUSIONS Much of the crisis I hear of recently, is rooted in the failure of the ladies to follow these two words: the manifestation of which is captured in the phrase, a gentle and quiet spirit. At the prize of a bad name let me suggest to you that where this is practised, Peter believes as I do that a bad husband can be transformed (3: 1,20. The reasons why our Christian women do not follow this are: Fear (3: 6b) False beauty (3: 3-5) Infiltration of the Neo-Matriarchal philosophy of the West. The error of Secular humanism whose god is man and its creed is human rights. I may not have struck all the needed balance and I am willing to have you add them here. Thanks for reading!
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 08:21:18 +0000
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