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blogging, faith, marriage, men and women, opinion, sanctification
A good spiritual food fight has broken out over this Desiring God article, “Husbands, Get Her Ready for Jesus.”
Tim Fall has posted a rebuttal of sorts, My Wife Has a Savior and I’m not Him
You know I can’t ever avoid a good food fight, but in this case I have to go right down the middle, declare neither of them are really wrong.
The first problem right off the bat, is the definition of “sanctify.” Sanctify means to, “set apart for sacred use.” To consecrate. To approve, sanction, condone, vindicate, support, authorize, unburden, and backup.
Absolutely true, from the Desiring God Article, “God calls husbands to be instruments of his sanctifying work in the lives of our wives.” The problem being we often have a bit of a perverse distortion of the very definition of the word “sanctify.” Suddenly it means rebuke, cleanse of all evil, manipulate, transform, mold, like the Great Potter with a filthy clump of clay.
People with an awareness or a history of abuse are going to just recoil in horror, because that false definition is a recipe for disaster. Sadly many people don’t see sanctification as Jesus Christ’s work to, “set us apart for sacred use.” They don’t perceive Christ as someone who will approve, sanction, condone, vindicate, support, authorize, unburden, and back us up.
Sadly, the perception of Jesus Christ sometimes becomes more about judgment, criticism, discipline, punishment, condemnation, fear and control. Under that false conception, “husbands sanctify your wives” takes on much darker connotations.
Tim Fall writes, “But to take Ephesians 5:25-26 as the pastor who wrote that article sees it would mean husbands are more priestly than wives.” Well, in theory husbands should be more priestly, meaning more Christ-like than their wives. So should wives! If there is any gender competition going on there it should always be, so how can I be more Christ-like towards my spouse?
A husband is not going to lift up his wife by being less priestly so she doesn’t feel insecure or over-powered. If his priest-liness is about more, about moral superiority, about robbing her of her own, than it isn’t “priestly” at all.
In order to understand scripture properly, we have to take abuse totally out of the equation. We cannot read and understand scripture properly if in the back of our minds we are always thinking, so what can go wrong here? How could an abusive person pervert this passage? People can foul up anything, even the most beautiful ideas. Scripture is never wrong however, people are. We have issues with reading instructions properly, we fail to ask for directions.
So, discipline, the healthy kind, we shall call that “love” or “caring,” is a part of both marriage and sanctification. It is impossible to express love towards one another, without discipling them. “Disciple” is the same word we get discipline from and it simply means, “to teach.” Every word we say to one another, every interaction we have, is a teaching process.
Tell someone they look beautiful today, you are teaching them something about themselves. Tell someone you support them, you’ll back them up, you are teaching them something. Tell someone you notice they haven’t got out of bed for 3 days and you are now involved in their sanctification process. Wipe your feet. Wear your coat. Stay in touch. Drink your orange juice. Pray about it. These are all forms of discipline, meaning to teach, to express love and caring.
Men sometimes withdraw emotionally, sometimes they will just let their wives do it all, carry the whole emotional load. She can just take care of the kids, she can take care of me, and she can take care of her own self, too. I go to work, or I put some laundry away, so my job here is now done. I am not required to make any emotional or spiritual investment. Au contraire! There’s no caring going on in that situation, no relationship, no sanctification. That is a failure to love. Husbands love your wives.
My child, bless her heart, really drove this point home to me the past few days. She annoyed her Dad, so she comes in the kitchen and asks, “so is Dad still caring about me?” Ha! So it seems! It seems as if he still has a few caring words to express.
It made me laugh, just kind of a sweet interaction between them. The kid, though she may be grown, still needs people who care.
So Tim Fall, that is more like what Pastor Bryan Stoudt was saying in his article when he spoke of “Well, you don’t challenge your wife enough.” It is actually not kind for men to withdraw emotionally and spiritually, to provide no challenge for their wives, to fail to call us to our higher selves. Indeed, some husbands can get it all wrong, but the truth and beauty of Ephesians 5:25-26 still stands.
See, there's this thing called biology... 
Well-said, IB! ❤
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Maybe this is why most (if not all) family oriented TV sitcoms in the last 30 years have the husbands depicted as complete buffoons, often bailed out (emotionally or otherwise) by a much more centered wife.
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Yes, well said Doug. You’ve nailed it.
While that might work on a TV sitcom, it actual life, few women want to be in that position.
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Oh dear… we are talking positions now? Shhh.. not so loud.
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I’m going to add this part here. Tim Fall says,
“I didn’t see where you addressed his false notion that husbands have a special role in a wife’s sanctification, a role he thinks is different from the role of a wife to her husband.”
We are simply different. Why is it not “wives love your husbands? ” Wives sanctify your husbands?” Perhaps because that is so innate to who and what women are, it doesn’t even have to be said?
I have never met a woman that didn’t believe in someway that she was emotionally,spiritually responsible for children,for men,for many of the people around her. However,there really are a lot of men in the world who do need to know this, who do need to know they are called to love. Men can and will emotionally detach, they will buy into stereotypes about what it means to be men, they will grow timid, they will keep the peace, whatever it is that motivates men,to love effectively and emotionally, is often a challenge for them.
Pastor Bryan Stoudt does pretty well here, in making sure he is being clear about how women stand before God, “Like us, one day our wives will meet Jesus and be perfect, “without spot or wrinkle or any such thing . . . holy and without blemish”
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Blech to both those articles.
You are right on the money when you say there’s a problem with their understanding of “sanctify”.
🤢
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I think you have the right of it when you consider the meaning of the word sanctify. Husbands and wives don’t become one to fix each other. They become one to love each other. It is not just incidental that that love bears fruit in the form of children.
Jesus is the one who saves each of us, but when we love each other He can use us. When two become as one, they work together to bring greater glory to Jesus than either could separately.
Do men and women have distinct roles? Yes, but few husbands and wives really want to be seen by their spouses as fix-it projects. Instead, we want to be special to our spouse, seen as that person given by God for our spouse to love and care for. That is, sanctified by God for a special purpose, for two to become one so each can begin to understand just how much our Lord cares for us.
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“I seldom permit dissenting views. I don’t debate dissenters.”
Seems to be very prevalent view. Somewhat amusing to be shut down and silenced by those calling themselves egalitarians and allegedly advocating for women’s rights.
Apparently our first right is going to be the right to remain silent. That is a right I am quite grateful for and yet seldom wise enough to use. 😉
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Well said. It’s a cliche, but I think the term ‘servant leadership’ applies here. Sorry if you mentioned that, I have a headache this morning so my comprehension is compromised. 😀 When we love our wives, we are sanctifying them. There’s a notion of justice, too, in that I think it’s the duty of both to steer the family toward just behavior both within and without the unit. We ought to always speak up for justice, though.
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