Marriage, submission, and so forth.


I saw Mike Huckabee address this question on SBC outpost. It brought to mind two old posts (here and here) that bear repeating ...

Here's Mike Huckabee (same video as at SBC outpost).

Genesis 2 says "It is not good for the man to be alone." There is no corresponding verse about women. I tell single young men, "You require supervision, and the problem is so bad that God wanted help." (SARCASM people - don't take it seriously!)

Eph 5 tells men to love their wives and for wives to respect their husbands.

Why does God give commands? There's a command not to lie because we have a tendency to do so. There is no command to eat more M&M's because we don't need encouragement to do that. Herman Melville in Moby Dick wrote that God more often commands than attempts to persuade, because to obey God we must disobey ourselves. Commands are given to correct faulty portions of human nature.

Husbands are commanded to love their wives. Why? Because it's easy for us to get so wrapped up in our own little world of work, hobbies, and even blogging (oh no!) that we neglect this woman to whom we pledged our lives. She needs to know that her priorities are as important to us as our own. Well, that we're at least making the effort.

Wives are commanded to respect their husbands. Why? Because it's hard to respect someone so clueless that he has to be commanded to love his wife. Another reason, perhaps selfish on my part, is that when a man knows his wife supports him, he has a confidence that can come from nowhere else. He feels 10 feet tall.

The commands, in other words, are there to address the natural faults and needs of the two genders - in a statistically "ok" sort of way; your mileage may vary.

Posted: Sat - January 12, 2008 at 07:35 AM           | |

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