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You see, the religious people — most of them — really think this planet is an experiment. That's what their beliefs come down to. Some god or other is always fixing and poking, messing around with tradesmen's wives, giving tablets on mountains, commanding you to mutilate your children, telling people what words they can say and what words they can't say, making people feel guilty about enjoying themselves, and like that. Why can't the gods leave well enough alone? All this intervention speaks of incompetence. If God didn't want Lot's wife to look back, why didn't he make her obedient, so she'd do what her husband told her? Or if he hadn't made Lot such a shithead, maybe she would've listened to him more. If God is omnipotent and omniscient, why didn't he start the universe out in the first place so it would come out the way he wants? Why's he constantly repairing and complaining? No, there's one thing the Bible makes clear: The biblical God is a sloppy manufacturer. He's not good at design, he's not good at execution. He'd be out of business if there was any competition.
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Carl Sagan
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For instance, some evangelicals have turned Proverbs 31 into a woman’s job description instead of what it actually is: the blessing and affirmation of valor for the lives of women, memorized by Jewish husbands for the purpose of honoring their wives at the family table. It is meant as a celebration for the everyday moments of valor for everyday women, not as an impossible exhausting standard.
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Sarah Bessey (Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women)
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If the Pentateuch is inspired, the civilization of of our day is a mistake and crime. There should be no political liberty. Heresy should be trodden out beneath the bigot's brutal feet. Husbands should divorce their wives at will, and make the mothers of their children houseless and weeping wanderers. Polygamy ought to be practiced; women should become slaves; we should buy the sons and daughters of the heathen and make them bondmen and bondwomen forever. We should sell our own flesh and blood, and have the right to kill our slaves. Men and women should be stoned to death for laboring on the seventh day. 'Mediums,' such as have familiar spirits, should be burned with fire. Every vestige of mental liberty should be destroyed, and reason's holy torch extinguished in the martyr's blood.
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Robert G. Ingersoll (Some Mistakes of Moses)
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you wives, be submissive to your husbands, so that some, though they do not obey the
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Scott Hahn (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament)
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Until that moment I'd thought I could have it both ways; to be one of them, and also my husband's wife. What conceit! I was his instrument, his animal. Nothing more. How we wives and mothers do perish at the hands of our own righteousness. I was just one more of those women who clamp their mouths shut and wave the flag as their nation rolls off to conquer another in war. Guilty or innocent, they have everything to lose. They are what there is to lose. A wife is the earth itself, changing hands, bearing scars.
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Barbara Kingsolver (The Poisonwood Bible)
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7You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.
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Charles F. Stanley (NASB, The Charles F. Stanley Life Principles Bible: Holy Bible, New American Standard Bible)
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The man who wields the blood-clotted cowskin during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday, and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus. The man who robs me of my earnings at the end of each week meets me as a class- leader on Sunday morning, to show me the way of life, and the path of salvation. He who sells my sister, for purposes of prostitution, stands forth as the pious advocate of purity. He who proclaims it a religious duty to read the Bible denies me the right of learning to read the name of the God who made me. He who is the religious advocate of marriage robs whole millions of its sacred influence, and leaves them to the ravages of wholesale pollution. The warm defender of the sacredness of the family relation is the same that scatters whole families,— sundering husbands and wives, parents and children, sisters and brothers,—leaving the hut vacant, and the hearth desolate. We see the thief preaching against theft, and the adulterer against adultery. We have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the poor heathen! all for the glory of God and the good of souls! The slave auctioneer’s bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave-trade go hand in hand together. The slave prison and the church stand near each other. The clanking of fetters and the rattling of chains in the prison, and the pious psalm and solemn prayer in the church, may be heard at the same time. The dealers in the bodies and souls of men erect their stand in the presence of the pulpit, and they mutually help each other. The dealer gives his blood-stained gold to support the pulpit, and the pulpit, in return, covers his infernal business with the garb of Christianity. Here we have religion and robbery the allies of each other—devils dressed in angels’ robes, and hell presenting the semblance of paradise.
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Frederick Douglass (Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass)
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We can assume that when the Bible teaches submission, God knew full well that wives would have to watch their husbands fail and make mistakes. Thankfully, this verse also presents some boundaries. If you submit “out of reverence for Christ,” you are never obligated — ever — to do anything that would offend Christ.
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Gary L. Thomas (Sacred Influence: How God Uses Wives to Shape the Souls of Their Husbands)
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1. A husband loves his wife passionately and selflessly. Jesus was the embodiment of love and he showed us that love is much more about action and commitment than it is about feeling. He pursued us passionately and then displayed the ultimate love by dying in our place on the cross. The Bible specifically calls husbands to love their wives with that same type of selfless love.
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Dave Willis (iVow: Secrets to a Stronger Marriage)
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Many modern readers assume teachings about wives submitting to their husbands appear exclusively in the pages of Scripture and thus reflect uniquely “biblical” views about women’s roles in the home. But to the people who first heard these letters read aloud in their churches, the words of Peter and Paul would have struck them as both familiar and strange, a sort of Christian remix on familiar Greco-Roman philosophy that positioned the male head of house as the rightful ruler over his subordinate wives, children, and slaves. By instructing men to love their wives and respect their slaves, and by telling everyone to “submit to one another” with Jesus as the ultimate head of house, the apostles offer correctives to cultural norms without upending them. They challenge new believers to reconsider their relationships with one another now that, in Christ, “there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female” (Galatians 3:28). The plot thickens when we pay attention to some of the recurring characters in the Epistles and see a progression toward more freedom and autonomy for slaves like Onesimus and women like Nympha, Priscilla, Junia, and Lydia.
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
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We have noted thatthe two creation stories contained no pointers toward male “headship” in the sense that men or husbands are supposed to exercise authority or leadership over women or wives. But the audience of Genesis knew that patriarchy was a reality of life. Genesis here tells them how this came to be. Male authority or domination was not God’s design but a consequence of a breakdown in relationship between humanity and God, between humanity and the animal world, and between human beings and one another. From now on, the Bible will assume the reality of patriarchy and of male headship, but it begins by noting that this came about only as a result of those various breakdowns of relationship.
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John E. Goldingay (Genesis for Everyone: Part 1 Chapters 1-16 (The Old Testament for Everyone))
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Later on, however, I actually did read an unabridged Bible and researched more verses using online topical Bible resources, only to find out that Stanton might have been right. The Bible definitely left room for the relegation of women’s status in all respects. Women appeared to have been held accountable for every sinful act that’s committed because of a single woman who lived in the Garden of Eden, hence appearing to make them required to be silent in church. Women were supposed to be mothers and wives, which are noble pursuits, but it appeared as if men had a wider range of opportunities: they could be fathers and husbands… along with apostles, pastors, political leaders, polyglots, AND leaders of municipal congregations! The pursuits other than being a father and husband were considered to be noble pursuits for men, but if a woman pursued any of that, even if she had the capabilities and the good intentions, it would be considered blasphemous, at least from what I understood
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Lucy Carter (Feminism and Biblical Hermeneutics)
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Life within a Templar house was designed where possible to resemble that of a Cistercian monastery. Meals were communal and to be eaten in near silence, while a reading was given from the Bible. The rule accepted that the elaborate sign language monks used to ask for necessities while eating might not be known to Templar recruits, in which case "quietly and privately you should ask for what you need at table, with all humility and submission." Equal rations of food and wine were to be given to each brother and leftovers would be distributed to the poor. The numerous fast days of the Church calendar were to be observed, but allowances would be made for the needs of fighting men: meat was to be served three times a week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Should the schedule of annual fast days interrupt this rhythm, rations would be increased to make up for lost sustenance as soon as the fasting period was over.
It was recognized that the Templars were killers. "This armed company of knights may kill the enemies of the cross without stated the rule, neatly summing up the conclusion of centuries of experimental Christian philosophy, which had concluded that slaying humans who happened to be "unbelieving pagans" and "the enemies of the son of the Virgin Mary" was an act worthy of divine praise and not damnation. Otherwise, the Templars were expected to live in pious self-denial.
Three horses were permitted to each knight, along with one squire whom "the brother shall not beat." Hunting with hawks—a favorite pastime of warriors throughout Christendom—was forbidden, as was hunting with dogs. only beasts Templars were permitted to kill were the mountain lions of the Holy Land. They were forbidden even to be in the company of hunting men, for the reason that "it is fitting for every religious man to go simply and humbly without laughing or talking too much." Banned, too, was the company of women, which the rule scorned as "a dangerous thing, for by it the old devil has led man from the straight path to paradise the flower of chastity is always [to be] maintained among you.... For this reason none Of you may presume to kiss a woman' be it widow, young girl, mother, sister, aunt or any other.... The Knighthood of Christ should avoid at all costs the embraces of women, by which men have perished many times." Although married men were permitted to join the order, they were not allowed to wear the white cloak and wives were not supposed to join their husbands in Templar houses.
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Dan Jones (The Templars: The Rise and Spectacular Fall of God's Holy Warriors)
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Likewise, wives, k be subject to your own husbands, so that l even if some do not obey the word, m they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, 2when they see your n respectful and pure conduct.
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Anonymous (ESV Global Study Bible)
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Another reason to reexamine some passages is because of what’s at stake. Our own view of women reveals what we think God says about half the people on the planet. And our view of women will also determine how we treat our female friends and coworkers, our mothers, our daughters (if we’re parents), and our wives (if we’re husbands). Our perspective affects how we view power and how we see sex. If our views are based on faulty interpretations of Scripture, we will embrace a faulty view of God. Indeed, God’s very reputation is at stake if we misunderstand how to view those who image him.
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Sandra L. Glahn (Vindicating the Vixens: Revisiting Sexualized, Vilified, and Marginalized Women of the Bible)
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Cheaters only cheat when they are missing something. There is a loss going on and it is up to you to figure out what that is. Their reason might be stupid to you, but to them it was more important than you realize. Cheaters know the risks they are taking. They know cheating is not a casual thing. There is something so intense inside of them to drive them to that point. You might not like what that thing might be, but you must accept it is there and either fill that need or move on. This loss could be anything: attention, someone more attractive, control, dominance, boredom...you name it. You will never heal a relationship unless you accept that there truly is a "why" that the cheater is not willing to share with you.
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Shannon L. Alder (The Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Bible)
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{18:21} Because of this, give their sons over to famine, and bring them to the hand of the sword. Let their wives be widows without children. And let their husbands be slain by death. Let their youths be stabbed with the sword in battle.
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The Biblescript (Catholic Bible: Douay-Rheims English Translation)
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33 Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself: and the wife see that she reverence her husband. If every man were as pure and as self-sacrificing as Jesus is said to have been in his relations to the Church, respect, honor and obedience from the wife might be more easily rendered. Let every man love his wife (not wives) points to monogamic marriage. It is quite natural for women to love and to honor good men, and to return a full measure of love on husbands who bestow much kindness and attention on them; but it is not easy to love those who treat us spitefully in any relation, except as mothers; their love triumphs over all shortcomings and disappointments. Occasionally conjugal love combines that of the mother. Then the kindness and the forbearance of a wife may surpass all understanding.
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Elizabeth Cady Stanton (The Woman's Bible)
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The reason is that the state has an interest in promoting the familial arrangement whereby a mother and a father raise the children that came from their union. The state has been in the marriage business for the common good and for the well-being of the society it is supposed to protect. Kids do better with a mom and a dad.1 Communities do better when husbands and wives stay together. Hundreds of studies confirm both of these statements (though we all can think of individual exceptions I’m sure).2 Same-sex marriage assumes that marriage is redefinable and the moving parts replaceable. By recognizing same-sex unions as marriage, just like the husband-wife relationship we’ve always called marriage, the state is engaging in (or at least codifying) a massive reengineering of our social life. It assumes the indistinguishability of gender in parenting, the relative unimportance of procreation in marriage, and the near infinite flexibility as to what sorts of structures and habits lead to human flourishing.3
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Kevin DeYoung (What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?)
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wives should submit f in everything to their husbands. 25[†] g Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and h gave himself up for her, 26[†]that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by i the washing of water j with the word, 27so k that he might present the church to himself in splendor, l without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. [1] 28[†]In the same way m husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30because n we are members of his body. 31[†] o “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and p the two shall become one flesh.” 32[†]This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33However, q let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she r respects her husband.
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Anonymous (ESV Global Study Bible)
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{5:28} So, too, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
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The Biblescript (Catholic Bible: Douay-Rheims English Translation)
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Ephesians 5:25-27 is actually one long sentence. In these verses Paul is saying that husbands should love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her. He did this that He might sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing of water in the Word, in order that He might present the church to Himself glorious, without spot, wrinkle, or any such things.
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Witness Lee (The Conclusion of the New Testament (5): The Church, the Kingdom, and New Jerusalem (Life-Study of the Bible))
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{5:25} Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the Church and handed himself over for her,
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The Biblescript (Catholic Bible: Douay-Rheims English Translation)
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To acknowledge that there are such fundamental differences between the genders, and that men an women were designed for different roles, many not correspond with modern feminist sensibilities, but this is after all, what God's own Word says. God created men and women differently with a purpose, and His plan for them reflects their differences. Scripture is clear in teaching that wives should be subject to the authority of their husbands in marriage and that women are to be under the authority and instruction of men in the church.
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John F. MacArthur Jr. (Twelve Extraordinary Women : How God Shaped Women of the Bible and What He Wants to Do With You)
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a big mess. Somebody needs to start somewhere, and though I hope that both partners are going to be willing to start and do exactly what God says, I want to encourage you to go ahead and be first. But even if it seems that one of you is more willing than the other one, continue doing what is right as a service to the Lord. Love has to start somewhere. If what you are doing now is not working, then you have nothing to lose. Everything will stay the same until someone makes a change. If you want to see what God can do then, wives, be submissive and adapt yourselves to your own husbands as a service to the Lord. There is probably no one better qualified than I am to try to teach women how to submit and adapt because I was the least likely person to ever want to adapt to anything or anyone. I wanted everything and everybody to adapt to me. And when I first began to read in the Bible that a wife was to adapt to her own husband, it gave me the creeps! Just the thought of adapting made me uncomfortable. It is amazing how miserable we can make ourselves because we will not adapt to some simple little thing that somebody’s asking us to do. But because of
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Joyce Meyer (Making Marriage Work: The Advice You Need for a Lifetime of Happiness)
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As a woman,” she added softly, “I know how important it is for someone to hear you, and how hard it is. There are so many places where I cannot speak, even if I had a lot to say; it wouldn’t be permitted, and you as my husband must speak for me. I cannot stand in the street like a man and cry out what is in my heart. God can’t do this either, I think. She needs you to speak for her. Without your words, the priests would keep her shut away behind that veil in the Temple, the way some husbands shut away their wives, or locked into the Ark; no one would hear her.” Her
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Stant Litore (The Zombie Bible: Digital Box Set, Volumes 1-5 (Stant Litore Omnibus Editions))
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18 Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting for those who belong to the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly.
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Gary Chapman (The Love Languages Devotional Bible)
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Under no circumstances is sexual assault of any sort acceptable in marriage. The Bible teaches husbands, “Love your wives, just as Christ loved the church,”b and “dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel.
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Mark Driscoll (Real Marriage: The Truth About Sex, Friendship, and Life Together)
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Due to the clarity in which these verses are presented regarding submission, the verses do support wives’ submission. Since these verses are very direct with emphasizing wives’ submission, and this submission is considered “fitting with the Lord,” it is true that God found it to be a biblical value, but, as mentioned in the main claim, husbands’ submission to their wives is also implied to be a biblical value as well.
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Lucy Carter (Feminism and Biblical Hermeneutics)
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Christ loved His people with a responsible love. In His loving, He took on Himself all the sins of His people. These were sins which He had not personally committed and for which we had no right to blame Him. And yet, on the basis of the covenant union, He assumed responsibility. The ground of our salvation is nothing less than Christ’s assumption of that responsibility. In the same way, a husband may not be to blame for a particular problem in his marriage. But whether he is at fault or not, he remains responsible. Christ was never to blame for anything that God held Him responsible for, and yet He assumed the responsibility for all our sins. You would think that we as husbands who do share so much of the blame would find it easier to assume the responsibility. But the flesh revolts, and we do not want to take an ounce of responsibility over the measure of our blame—and frequently, we want even less than that. Another way of saying this is that husbands don’t want to love their wives the way the Bible tells them to.
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Douglas Wilson (Federal Husband)
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A man may not be a vocational theologian, but in his home he must the resident theologian. The apostle Paul, when he is urging women to keep silent in church, tells them that "if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home" (1 Corinthians 14:35). The tragedy is that many modern women have to wonder why the Bible says they should have to ask their husbands. "He doesn't know." But a husband must be prepared to answer his wife's doctrinal questions, and if he cannot, then he must be prepared to study so that he can remedy the deficiency. This famous passage is not such a restriction for wives as it is a requirement for husbands. If he doesn't know, he must find out.
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Douglas Wilson (Reforming Marriage: Gospel Living for Couples)
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God creates man and woman to cherish their shared equality while complementing their various differences..Most people view marriage as a means of self-fulfillment accompanied by sexual satisfaction..The husband is the head of his wife? Wives should submit to their husbands? Are you serious?.In our limited understanding, we hear [these] words and we recoil in disgust..As soon as we hear the word submission alongside the previous picture of headship, we immediately think in terms of inferiority and superiority, subordination and domination..God made clear from the start that men and women are equal in dignity, value and worth..[submission] means to yield to another in love..The three persons of the Trinity are equally diving..Yet the Son submits to the Father..this doesn't mean that God the Father is dominating and that God the Son is cruelly forced into compulsory subordination. Rather, the Son gladly submits to the Father in the context of close relationship..submission is not a burden to bear..Onlookers will observe a wife joyfully and continually experiencing her husband's sacrificial love for her..the world will realize that following Christ is not a matter of duty. Instead, it is a means to full, eternal, and absolute delight..the first sin occurred..as a response to a gender-specific test..the man sits silently by-- like a wimp..the man has the audacity to blame his wife..the first spineless abdication of a man's responsibility to love, serve, protect, and care for his wife..Sure, through a job a man provide[s] for the physical needs of his wife, but..that same job often prevents him from providing for her spiritual, emotional, and relational needs..He never asks how she feels, and he doesn't know what's going on in her heart. He may think he's a man because of his achievements at work and accomplishments in life, but in reality he's acting like a wimp who has abdicated his most important responsibility on earth: the spiritual leadership of his wife..The work of Satan in Genesis 3 is a foundational attack not just upon humanity in general but specifically upon men, women, and marriage..For husbands will waffle back and forth between abdicating their responsibility to love and abusing their authority to lead. Wives, in response, will distrust such love and defy such leadership. In the process they'll completely undercut how Christ's gracious sacrifice on the cross compels glad submission in the church..Headship is not an opportunity for us to control our wives; it is a responsibility to die for them..[Husbands], don't love our wives based upon what we get from them..Husbands, love your wives not because of who they are, but because of who Christ is. He loves them deeply, and our responsibility is to reflect his love..the Bible is not saying a wife is not guilty for sin in her own life. Yet the Bible is saying a husband is responsible for the spiritual care of his wife. When she struggles with sin, or when they struggle in marriage, he is ultimately responsible..If we are harsh with our wives, we will show the world that Christ is cruel with his people..God's Word is subtly yet clearly pointing out that God has created women with a unique need to be loved and men with a unique need to be respected..Might such a wife be buying into the unbiblical lie that respect is based purely upon performance? So wives, see yourselves in a complementary, not competitive, relationship with your husband..we cannot pick and choose where to obey God.
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David Platt (A Compassionate Call to Counter Culture in a World of Poverty, Same-Sex Marriage, Racism, Sex Slavery, Immigration, Abortion, Persecution, Orphans and Pornography)
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An angry discussion followed, during which belligerent ministers, who had come to the convention in an attempt to disrupt it, read aloud passages from the Bible to disprove Antoinette Brown's contention of equality. They read passages like "Let your women be silent in the churches; for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience," and "Likewise, ye wives, be in subection to your own husbands.
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Miriam Gurko (The Ladies of Seneca Falls: the Birth of the Women's Rights Movement (Studies in the Life of Women))
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Jonathan Edwards said in a 1733 sermon, “God is the highest good of the reasonable creature, and the enjoyment of him is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows. But the enjoyment of God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams, but God is the fountain. These are but drops, but God is the ocean.
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Randy Alcorn (Heaven: A Comprehensive Guide to Everything the Bible Says About Our Eternal Home)
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the Bible, it tells men thirty-three times to love their wives? But it tells wives only twice to love their husbands.
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Joe Keim (My People, the Amish: The True Story of an Amish Father and Son)
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IN THE FAMILY. [Col. 3:18–21] Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers,15 do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.
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F. LaGard Smith (The Daily Bible® - In Chronological Order (NIV®))