Calvary Road Baptist Church
“A MASCULINE RELATIONSHIP WITH WOMEN” Part 2
Proverbs 31.3
Let us reread our text, Proverbs 31.3:
“Give not thy strength unto women, nor thy ways to that which destroyeth kings.”
I remind you that I am speaking only to converted men with direction and purpose in their lives (what I call an agenda), who are indwelt by the Spirit of the living God, who are committed to finding God’s will, and who are actually doing it. This Father’s Day message to fathers and fathers-to-be is not directed to men who are pretenders or who have some insane notion that real Christian manhood is possible apart from God’s grace and a relationship with Jesus Christ.
There are three main points I am developing in these three messages. The first point began this morning, and I hope to conclude it now. Then, I will move to the second point. The final point is reserved for Wednesday night. Of course, this depends upon my progress through the material I want to present. Recall that, in Part 1, I set before you nine examples (all of which are found in the manuscript, though I left several out of the video because of time constraints) of what happened in the lives of men who abandoned their agendas for their wife’s or their mother’s agendas.
First, Adam’s agenda was abandoned for Eve’s. The result was The Fall. Second, Abraham’s agenda was abandoned for Sarah’s. The result is our present Arab-Jewish conflict. Third, Jacob’s agenda was abandoned for his mother Rebekah’s, even though he was seventy. The result was decades of estrangement from his father and his brother and never seeing his mother alive again. Fourth, Jacob’s agenda was abandoned for his wife, Rachel’s agenda. The result? A pattern of chaos was introduced into an already dysfunctional family. Fifth, Judah, the son of Jacob’s agenda, was abandoned for his daughter-in-law, Tamar’s agenda. How does hiring a prostitute not turn out tragically? The sixth example had to do with Samson and Delilah. Abandoning his agenda for hers cost him the loss of God’s power in his life, the loss of his eyesight, enslavement by God’s enemies, and, eventually, his death. David and Bathsheba. Abandoning his agenda by committing adultery with Bathsheba and murdering her husband to cover his sin destroyed his credibility. It gave God’s enemies occasion to blaspheme when his adultery and the murder of Bathsheba’s husband to conceal his adultery became known. Finally, we noted Solomon and the many women in his life. By not adhering to the agenda God established for him, Solomon succumbed to the individual and private agendas of hundreds of women.
Lest you think the outcome is always tragic when a conflict arises between God’s man’s and woman’s agendas, consider these examples: Joseph refused to alter his agenda so that Potiphar’s wife might fulfill hers, and God blessed him greatly. Moses refused to change his agenda when his wife, Zipporah, was displeased with him about the circumcision of their two sons. However, he obeyed God and went on to deliver the Israelites from Egyptian bondage. Moses also resisted the effort of his older sister, Miriam, to advance her agenda at his expense when she called attention to the fact that Moses’ wife was an Ethiopian, Numbers 12.1. God defended Moses and Zipporah by afflicting Miriam with leprosy for a season. Then, there is the courageous example of King Asa. In First Kings 15.13, we are told that Asa removed his mother from being queen. How difficult that must have been for him. So, why did he do it? Her agenda conflicted with his own.
However, the premier examples in the Word of God are those two occasions when Mary sought to impose her will on the Lord Jesus Christ. First, at the wedding feast at Cana in John chapter two, and then in Matthew 12. I read from Matthew 12.47-50:
47 Then one said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee.
48 But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?
49 And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren!
50 For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.
For whatever reason, Mary sought to impose her will on the Lord Jesus Christ, but He would have none of it. Our Lord did not abandon His agenda so His mother could achieve her agenda.
So, you see, this problem of women seeking to persuade a man to set aside his agenda in favor of hers is an old, old problem. Those godly men who set aside their agendas for the agendas of their women did so to their regret. Those godly men who resisted the persuasion of their women and held fast to their agendas did so to their advantage and pleased God. The Lord Jesus Christ set beautiful examples for us in this regard.
The lesson for the Christian woman? There are two: First, do not seek to advance your agenda at the expense of your man’s, be he your father, your son, or your husband. Second, make sure your husband is a godly man who will resist your attempts to advance your agenda at the expense of his, should you succumb to the temptation to influence him in that way improperly.
At this point, the Bible does not prohibit a mother, a wife, or a daughter from seeking to influence her son, husband, or father. The problem arises when a woman strives to supplant the man’s agenda with her agenda. The problem is avoided while influence is maintained or enhanced when a woman employs a Biblical appeal, which is not an attempt to replace a man’s agenda with her own but a process of helping a man sharpen and clarify his agenda.
This ancient problem of women attempting to advance their agendas at the expense of their husbands' agendas has significantly been exacerbated in our modern world by some factors I want to explain. Think with me now regarding the relationship between a man and a woman in different cultural contexts. Try to place yourself in several other cultural settings I will describe and imagine what it would be like for you as a man or a woman in each setting.
First, place yourself in a pre-Christian setting. Imagine being in Ireland, Scotland, central Africa, India, or North or South America long ago. Picture yourself in a civilization in one of those regions, perhaps a comparatively advanced civilization, but one not yet touched by the Gospel, such as I have seen at different times in my life. What would the relationship be between a man and his woman among the Aztecs, the Incas, Timbuktu, the Highlanders of Scotland, or some other ancient setting such as those? Always and in every case, the men would have been thought in those settings to be superior to women by their size, their strength, their aggressiveness, and their tendency toward violence. Is this not true? Would anyone challenge the reality of that male-to-female dynamic in ancient times? I do not suggest it was proper, only that it was.
In a marriage, if you could really call such relationships marriages in those ancient cultures, the husband was always the lord, and his wife (or wives) was almost always little better than chattel or property. She was undoubtedly considered to be inferior to him. So, what would happen if she openly and in any way opposed her man’s agenda? Would she succeed? Could she succeed? Rarely! There might be the occasional Jezebel or Athaliah, but only infrequently. And the man would typically respond to her efforts to replace his agenda with hers by violently subduing her. In Islam, that ethic is still in force, with the Quran advising that men occasionally strike their wives for their good.[1] We can all agree that those kinds of situations were and are perverse and sinful.
This ethic continues until, at some point, the Gospel comes along, and the converted husband or wife finds that God’s will is for the functional relationship that existed previously to remain precisely the same. He is still the leader of the home, providing direction and oversight, and she is still subordinate to him. The difference now is that instead of the husband being superior and the wife inferior, they are both equal in the sight of God, with the leader/follower relationship established by God for functional purposes rather than for merit or value reasons. Still the leader, the man is now commanded in God’s Word to love his wife, to sacrifice for her, to be gentle and kind to her, and to show her honor. Still the follower, the wife is now commanded to fear the Lord, not her husband, and to submit to her husband as unto the Lord.[2] This was the way it was in our country when the Gospel strongly influenced our culture in days gone by.
However, with the passage of time, we now live in a post-Christian civilization. As the Bible is pushed from our culture and society’s memory, only one vestige of Christianity is for now being left behind: the concept of the equality of women. In no other religion ever seen on earth, and only in cultures affected and influenced by Christianity, have women enjoyed the status of equality with men as human beings. However, as the Bible is withdrawn from its former place of prominence, our society’s willingness to continue implementing God’s functional plan of men leading and women following their men has been cast aside. Now, you have men and women valued equally, which is good.
Still, now, women are also struggling for functional dominance through legislation, through lawsuits, and through the imposition of cultural restrictions on men, which in the home and the Church is not good. Please understand that I am not opposed to equal pay for equal work, equal opportunity for advancement in the workplace, or the rightness of those principles. I have no problem with Lydia in Philippi owning and operating her business with full authority over her employees to go along with her decision-making authority as the business owner. I speak here only of the home and social relationships between men and women. However, for how long do you think this struggle for functional dominance will continue without a general societal resolution of the conflict? Do you think a society can survive without a generally accepted norm that requires each man and woman to engage in their conflict to resolve who will be the leader and who will be the follower in the home? Such a society has never existed in the history of mankind. Imagine getting into a car and driving somewhere, but with each vehicle you meet on the road driven by someone deciding on his own whether to pass on the left or the right because society has decided there will be no convention, no societal pattern to follow. People would be nervous wrecks, and worse if each highway encounter required establishing a new set of ground rules for driving interaction. I am speaking of something like that on an interpersonal level, only more complex and more critical.
How long do you think a society can function without having an agreed-upon norm for relations between husbands and wives? With time, we will move from a post-Christian society to a genuinely neo-pagan society and culture, just as things were before Christianity arrived in the scene. There will come a time when it will no longer be taken for granted that men and women are equal in the eyes of God when God has long since been cast aside by society. Things will once again be as they were in pre-Christian times. What do you think will happen between men and women when men and women have not only discarded the notion that men should be the functional leaders in the home but also when men have forgotten about the notion of women being their equals?
Through the Gospel’s advance, the idea that men and women were equal in the sight of God was introduced. What happens when God has been cast aside? How will men and women relate to each other when there is no thought given to who is equal to whom in the sight of God, and the only thing a man notices is the other individual’s size, strength, and capacity for violence? We are not at that low level yet. However, we are seeing the first glimpses of what it will be like when we study the relationships that exist between boys and girls in street gangs or when men look at pornography, using women only for gratification. Is there any semblance of equality between men and women in those situations? There is none whatsoever.
__________
[1] Sura 4:34: “Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High, Exalted, Great.” - Pickthall translation, https://legacy.quran.com/4/34/ The Sahih International translation reads “strike them.” The Muhsin Khan translation reads “beat them (lightly, if it is useful).” The Yusuf Ali translation reads “beat them (lightly).” The Shakir translation reads “beat them.” The Dr. Ghali translation reads “strike them, (i.e. hit them lightly).”
[2] 1 Peter 3.1-5
Question? Comment?
Would you like to contact Dr. Waldrip about this sermon? Fill out the form below to send him an email. Thank you.