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“Real Men Love Strong Women” by Paul Maxwell
I loved this! So well said. You can click to read, if you like. Kirk Cameron is on a marriage tour, advocating for marriage all over the place, and he posted this article on facebook the other day.
Paul Maxwell poses a really good question and makes a great statement, “The real question we need to ask is: Do we want women to be weak? And the answer must forever be, on the basis of Scripture, “May it never be.” “
May it never be, indeed.
He goes on to say, “men have two choices: to find female strength captivatingly attractive, or to be insecure and intimidated.” Amen to that! The solution is always to become stronger, more self assured, more confident of your own abilities, not to try to tear women down as if that will ever elevate your own sense of worth. I sometimes say, you can’t shrink someone else thinking it will make you bigger.
It takes strong women to love strong men. It takes all of us being strong together to spread the good news and to represent Jesus Christ to those who need to know Him.
There can be some real misconceptions about what it means to have a gentle, quiet spirit. Let me tell you, it sure ain’t for the faint of heart.
“There is nothing is so strong as gentleness, and nothing is so gentle as true strength.”
See, there's this thing called biology... 
Amen and amen.
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I love a strong women and would describe my wife that way. Unfortunately society can take this too far, to the point that men are not needed. We were made to work together for the glory of God. Both are important in society.
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Men are so needed! They are absolutely vital to our society, and even to the well being of women ourselves. It’s a shame our culture is trying to convince people of something different. Most strong women owe their very strength to men, fathers, pastors, husbands, all the men who help to keep us sane. 🙂
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Bravo IB!
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my girlfriend has been noticing my newfound strength and has been admiring me for it as I admire her for her strength.
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Amen! Strength is good in this world, we need it, and two that are strong together are even better.
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St Mary the Ever-Virgin wouldn’t be Queen of Heaven unless she took that initiative in becoming the handmaiden of the Lord and been brave throughout his entire ministry either.
I love reading Eastern Orthodox Mariology because we westerners succumb to a temptation to see her as a bit weak which is by no means the reality.
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It’s the Apostle Paul that taught us the truth behind the words, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” Genuine power is often so misunderstood in our western world.
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I salute you for getting rid of that submission of a wife to a husband idea, you previously advocated!
Sometimes strong men also love strong men and strong women love strong women, though. 😉
But the weak people are in need of love just as much as the strong ones, are they not?
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Ahem, I have done no such thing! I still whole heartedly advocate submission. Submission is not weakness, in fact, it takes a great deal of strength and courage.
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No, submission does not require any strength, nor courage at all. It is quite typical, that physically, emotionally, or in character weaker people submit all the time in the face of strength, be that imaginary, real, or mere presentation of strength. In fact, the weak seem ot worship presentations of strength in order to be saved by that strength, sometimes even from that very same strength. Look at how people act under dictatorships.
If a stronger persona submits to a weaker persona, then it is only the pretense of weakness in favour of the weak persona, to shrink someone else thinking it will make them bigger. If two people are equal partners, neither has to submit to anything. Do they? To what ever end?
I do not even think, that a weak person should be submitted, or expected to submit to the strong persona. I can see such only as a form of emotional violence in personal human relationships.
Now, it could be argued, that bearing the pressure of being supressed, or constantly being expected to submit, requires strength. Is that what you mean? However, that would harldy be a good situation in a relationship. Would it?
I am sorry, that I misread you. But in that case you do have a bit of a contradiction here going on, do you not?
Again, weak people are in need of love just as much as the strong ones, are they not? Should they seek out the love of stronger, even weaker, or equal partners? What would be ideal, in your opinion?
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“No, submission does not require any strength, nor courage at all.”
LOL! So says the non believer afraid to submit to God Himself.
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Ha! Indeed I say so. I would be affraid to submit to any might makes right authoritarian rulerships be they real, or imaginary like gods. Submitting to the will of any other person seems not like an adult choise at all, but weak people do it all the time and they do not express any courage at doing so. Do they?
A god as unethical and immoral as the one alledgedly responsible for the authorship of the Bible is a thing I could not honestly recommend to any person. Not having submitted my moral judgement over to a god makes it possible for me to make moral judgement of this god and evaluate, if it infact represents anything moral at all. After my assesment, I have found it wanting in the moral compartment even if it was real, and infact I have not come to any compelling evidence for it to even exist outside human imagination, wich is the place where you can propably admit most gods do come from. Do they not?
I would not consider it a courageous, nor a strength requiring act from anyone to submit to a spouse, dictator, nor a god. Do not weak people do commit to such all the time? On the other hand, would you feel especially courageous if you submitted to something you do not subscribe to? Why would you submit to the authority of anyone? To awoid responsibility for making your own judgement?
Are we even talking about the same meaning of the word? Here are two that a dictionary gives me:
“A bending to the authority or control of another.”
“The usually forced yielding of one’s person or possessions to the control of another.”
I assume you refer to the first one, am I right? Or is there a nother universally acepted meaning to the word you refer to? If I got you right, may I remind you, that you do not get to define the concept only to mean that, do you? Even if you only choose to use the first dictionary meaning for the word and even in if you tried to define it as a willfull act, it still means the refusal of the autonomy of an adult person from that point on, and if you demand that for example wives should for some reason submit to their husbands, you are in fact demanding that other adult people (than just yourself) give up their autonomy for the benefit of a nother. What purpose such a demand could serve? Other than to “shrink” the wives thinking it will make the husbands feel “bigger”? This is not how healthy adult relationships should function. Is it?
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I’m certainly with you here, IB, respect and submission can and often do take a lot of strength! The difference here in lies in understanding that respect and submission in marriage are not the same thing at all as the image of a dog submitting to an alpha dog or even a grudging human afraid of being beaten. Where I mentioned down below about ‘now I understand how and why’, that difference between what is really called for and what many men want or think respect and submission should look like and feel like from their end is the crux of the matter. And that difference is like the difference between day and night. My own father also wanted a little too much of the wrong sort and had too little understanding of the right sort. Plenty of people may admire a man who has others under his thumb, but they are dead wrong in what they think of real leadership.
Maybe those folks could compare it to a good CEO whose company flourishes and who has flourishing employees at every level over the long haul. There are also bad CEOs making lots of money and running their companies their way, but still running them in all the wrong ways where eventually the poor leadership and all the massive unhappiness trickling down through the whole company shows in some way or another. People leaving jobs they hate are usually leaving bad managers.
Conversely being a great CEO or manager requires respecting, utilizing and appreciating the strengths and talents of your team just as much as it requires having a great team that is both following your direction and bringing their own thoughts and talents and strengths to the able and sometimes even disagreeing with the leader even though that disagreement doesn’t have a goal of taking over the authority and forcing itself.
I’m reading The Power Of The Other right now and really enjoying it. From how much I’ve read so far, I highly recommend it!
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Instead of saying that respect and submission in marriage are not the same thing at all as… I should have said at least not in a godly marriage. Certainly plenty of women throughout history and in this modern world are treated as chattel and are submitting out of weakness or fear.
But God gives instruction on both sides of the marital coin. When Paul first taught for men to love their wives, that was radical teaching. (I guess it still is!) It lifted women up just as the second on command in a big successful organization enjoys a lot of respect in this world sometimes as much or more than they would as CEO. I always find it pretty crazy how many people (both in and decidedly outside of churches) deny the power of God telling husband’s that if they don’t learn to live with their wives with understanding their prayers will not be heard.
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Such women submitting out of fear and never being lifted up in love quite often never had any autonomy to begin with. Most often they live within ungodly societies and/or under the thumbs of ungodly men. But as sad as stories out of such places are (I’ve read some real tearjerker a out of Yemen in recent years) there are also stories of God’s light lifting people up. I read a lovely one just the other day of a drunkard and a wife beater with a Christian wife in India who repented and was baptized and was praising his wife for showing him the light so that he could become a better man.
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I needed that, IB. I’ve been accused of not respecting when the truth was more like I dared to have other feelings too, feelings that could be hurt. It would also be fair and valid to say that he was incapable of perceiving or receiving real respect. Maybe I understand better some of how and why in retrospect. But it was hard to live through. Now I understand that what was wanted was a total disappearance of me as an individual. Now he has the gratification he was looking for and is happy with it, but it’s with someone whose all too happy for them to carry each other to the pit. And I’m praying for the existence of real and godly men.
Plus Jael reference… Yes, plz. I’ve always loved that story. Maybe because as you know, I like it where the wild things are. It’s a surprising (and maybe challenging) story, but a needed one. I wish more people paid attention to it. Even far more ignored than Rahab and I wish that got a little more airtime too.
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