Marriage is…(1/4)

Marriage is…

Men and Women Are Equal in Value and Dignity

Upon creation of humans God said He created them in His image.  Genesis 1:27   –  So God created man in his own image,  in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

To be in God’s image is a extraordinary privilege as even the angels are not said to be in ‘God’s image’.  Thus, we need to start with this beginning as we view our life with our spouse.  After all we are the person that God created.  We (men and women) are more like God than anything else in the universe. 

Due to sin there are errors of ‘male dominance’ and ‘male superiority’ complexes.  As men we need to guard thinking that we are; better than women, that we can act as selfish dictators, that we can treat woman unfairly because that is a result of sin.  If we behave or think in that manner we are outside of God’s approval and what His plan when creating the original pair.

It is well to remember that we are of ‘equal’ value to God.  Recognizing the fact that a standard of  ‘equal value’ is placed on each male and female.  Having equal worth before Him for all eternity and this truth should exclude all our feelings of pride or inferiority.  We can not decide that one sex is ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than the other.  It then settle the issue of ‘personal worth’ in that God thinks us equal and thus it is His evaluation that counts for the true standard of personal value for all eternity.  

The early church demonstrates this equality:

Acts 2:17–18 –  “ ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions,

      and your old men shall dream dreams; 18 even on my male servants and female servants

      in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.

As the church was started men and women were baptized into membership of the body of Christ.  Both received the spiritual gifts for use in the life of the church  (1 Cor. 12:7, 11:1, Pet. 4:10)

Gal. 3:28 clearly states:  Galatians 3:28  –  There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

In marriage when husbands and wives do not listen respectfully and thoughtfully to each other’s viewpoints they are demonstrating a lack of wisdom in that our mates area there to bring other viewpoints to the table.  Each have different gifts and God has placed the mate in our life to help us.  He knows what is best for us, even if we can’t see it.

The problem is that our wife frequently comes at things from a different perspective and we don’t always understand it.  Just because we don’t understand it doesn’t mean we void it.  We need to be careful that we don’t take the voice of  our wife away from her by not listening.  The failure to listen is a dis-respectful attitude and undermining God’s plan.

Quoting “Marriage and Family Statement” issued by Campus Crusade for Christ in July 1999. After three paragraphs discussing both equality and differences between men and women, the statement says the following:

In a marriage lived according to these truths, the love between husband and wife will show itself in listening to each other’s viewpoints, valuing each other’s gifts, wisdom, and desires, honoring one another in public and in private, and always seeking to bring benefit, not harm, to one another.

The BASE is that when we discuss our ‘manhood’ and ‘womanhood’ we need to start identifying not what is different, but what is ‘equal’ about ourselves.  From above it shows that we are have our equality in the image of God.  In order to have a starting placelet it be thatwe can become fully convinced in our hearts that women share equally with us men in the value and dignity that belongs to being made in the image of God.

We are ‘equal’ yet we have different roles in marriage.  This is part of the way God has ordered things.

#1 – Adam & Eve were created in God’s image, equal before God and yet distinct in their manhood and womanhood.

#2 – The distinction of masculine and feminine roles are ordained by God as part of the created order and thus that should resonant in our hearts. 

#3 – Before the fall God established Adam’s headship.

A chart taken from (Biblical foundations for manhood and womanhood. 2002 (W. A. Grudem, Ed.)) shows the two directions of distortion that can occur.   As we try and follow the Biblical counsel of Ephesians 5:23-33 of being a loving and in humble leadership in the home.  The wife, under that counsel,  would act in joyful, intelligent submission to and support of her husband’s leadership. 

The center column is the Biblical Ideal and we will find ourselves moving left and right of that while we pray and seek assistance from the source of the marriage bond, God.   One problem that will confront us is that as we, the husband, works toward not becoming a ‘wimp’ or a ‘tyrant’ we don’t always find our wives not having trouble staying in the center column area.  Our humanism wants a receptacle action from our spouse for what we do.  We need to review our ‘motive’ and see if we behave as a loving and humble husband in accordance with God’s will or our of an ‘expectant’ attitude of getting a return on our investment.

The errors of aggressiveness are those that had their beginning, as we saw, in Genesis 3:16. Being aggressive the husband can become selfish, harsh, and domineering and act like a tyrant.  When this occurs the husband is not following biblical headship but a distortion of it. 

Aggressiveness can occur by the wife by resisting and continually struggling against her husband’s leadership.  This attitude would reject his leadership and thus not want to support it but take a stand against it.  When one takes such a stand they would cause conflict every step of the way. She could distort the biblical pattern of equality in the image of God by being a usurper.

What does “passivity” on either side look like:

For the husband he could abdicate his leadership and neglect his responsibilities. He does not discipline his children, and he sits and watches TV and tunes out.  He basically checks out of the family.  The outcome frequently is that the family is not going to church regularly and they may go further into dept.  Some relative or friend is verbally harassing his wife, and he does nothing. This also is a tragic distortion of the biblical pattern. He has become a wimp.

For the wife rather than participating actively in family decisions, rather than contributing her wisdom and insight that is so much needed, her only response to every question is, “Yes, dear, whatever you say.”     She might become as a ‘doormat’.  She would put up with verbal or even physical abusive and not seek church discipline or civil intervention.  She might take a ‘silent seat’ in all things thinking that she is being ‘submissive’ to her husband.  Yet both are a distortion of the biblical pattern of marriage. 

When we look at the left or the right side we may find ourselves more prone to behaving to the left or the right.  To correct this unbalance condition we need to be in God’s Word each day and pray for God’s help.  It would be well to get up each morning and acknowledge our love for our spouse (even tell her that) and pray for assistance.  Our human weakness is not an acceptable excuse, it is sin to fail to recognize the ‘equality in the image of God’.

Getting someone else involved to help you might be a suggestion.  There might be a time that making an appointment with your pastor for counsel and prayer together would be advisable.   One could seek out a godly man in the church to be an ‘accountability partner’ with. 

If having a godly marriage was easy there wouldn’t be so much written about how to improve it.  We are products of a sinful inheritance and of much cultural distortion in our thinking and behavior. 

Can we look and see the wisdom of God in giving us life partners who are placed in our lives to aid in our ‘sanctification’ process?  Learning to accept the basic principle of “equality of the image of God” that was started at the creation of the human family is a good starting point in our ‘spiritual cleaning’ process.  Daily we are given the opportunity to see the wisdom of God’s plan and enhance our own lives while living it.