Curt Harlow [00:00:00]:
Hello, my friend, and welcome back. If you're a regular viewer or welcome to, if you're new with us, the podcast called the Bible Study. That's right. Where we kind of take the sermons that we preach on all of our campuses, Bayside Church, and we go a step deeper into them. We have more time to kind of flush out some of the questions people have around the passage. Just try to model and teach you a little bit how to approach the scripture from a very solid hermeneutic and exegetical point of view. And, boy, is that important in our passage this week. Dena Davidson, how you doing, my friend?
Dena Davidson [00:00:33]:
I'm good. I'm excited that it's just us.
Curt Harlow [00:00:35]:
Well, you know, I love our guest. This passage is particularly interesting and. And can be challenging. So we didn't want any of those subpar scholars on here, obviously, only the very best, as I always say, the frontal lo of Bayside College and yours truly, because I'm. I'm an expert in humility. So then that makes a good team. We're in Ephesians, and I'm going to read the verse that I believe sets up the whole context for this passage. And then I'm going to let you read the passage.
Curt Harlow [00:01:01]:
If you are following along, and I hope you are, open your Bible to Ephesians 5:21. Some of you already know where we're going with this, but here's the context. In chapter four, after three chapters of preaching the story of salvation and the grace of God and the goodness of God, and praying that that goodness would. Would be unmeasurably poured out on the gala, on the Ephesians, after, you know, just grace, grace, grace, grace, grace. He says now, because of grace, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble, be gentle, be patient, bearing with one another in love. So Paul says, because of grace, let's set the standard very high on how we live out our life. And how do you set that standard? High with humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love.
Curt Harlow [00:01:55]:
And then he gets even more specific in the second half of chapter five and into chapter six on how you do that in multiple relationships, starting with husbands and wives. Dena, you're married, correct?
Dena Davidson [00:02:08]:
Yes, I am.
Curt Harlow [00:02:08]:
And who is your husband?
Dena Davidson [00:02:10]:
The incredible Cheyne Davidson? He is.
Curt Harlow [00:02:13]:
He really is incredible.
Dena Davidson [00:02:14]:
He is part of Thrive College. He does a lot of the ministry, internship side of things, and then men's discipleship, and then he's also in a doctoral program for practical theology.
Curt Harlow [00:02:23]:
Nice. And I've been I'm married to the wonderful Kelly. How long have you guys been married?
Dena Davidson [00:02:27]:
Oh, wow. I have no idea. It's somewhere. Honestly, 13 years.
Curt Harlow [00:02:32]:
How many kids you got?
Dena Davidson [00:02:33]:
Math is hard. I have three kids.
Curt Harlow [00:02:35]:
Okay, at three kids, you have no idea how many years you've been married.
Dena Davidson [00:02:39]:
Honestly.
Curt Harlow [00:02:39]:
Don't worry, it'll all come back. As soon as that younger one gets a little older, the dates will start coming back. But I.
Dena Davidson [00:02:46]:
Somewhere over a decade.
Curt Harlow [00:02:47]:
I'm an empty nester, so I know right away it's 38, so two married folks. You have three kids. I have four kids. We're going to jump into this passage and see if we can get the original meaning and intent from the Holy Spirit and then do some application. Dena, why don't you go ahead and read 21 to the end of chapter five.
Dena Davidson [00:03:07]:
Perfect. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Dena Davidson [00:03:11]:
Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.
Dena Davidson [00:03:14]:
For the husband is the head of.
Dena Davidson [00:03:15]:
The wife, as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which.
Dena Davidson [00:03:19]:
He is the Savior. Now, as the Church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Dena Davidson [00:03:26]:
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy clergy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife, loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church.
Dena Davidson [00:03:57]:
For we are members of his body.
Dena Davidson [00:03:59]:
For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery, but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Curt Harlow [00:04:18]:
All right, here we go. The Submit one to another. Wives, submit to your husbands.
Dena Davidson [00:04:23]:
Husbands, there is no controversy.
Curt Harlow [00:04:25]:
Die for. Die for your wife. And by the way, this is a spiritual mystery. So much so good in here. Okay, let's just take verse 21. We're going to get to all of the questions. By the way, we have some questions today that you gave us. Thank you so much for that.
Curt Harlow [00:04:40]:
Before we get to the questions, let's just focus in on verse 21 first. Dena, I remember the first time I heard this passage taught. And the teacher won't mention his Name started in verse 22. And I didn't know Ephesians very well back then. I was a college student, and I can remember later having just tons of questions about this. And when I went back to it, I just happened to read verse 21, and I thought he should have read that verse as part of this teaching. Tell me what submit one to another out of reverence for Christ means.
Dena Davidson [00:05:14]:
Oh, that's so good. Well, the first thing that it means is that if you were to create a list of all of the people that a woman is called to submit to, a married woman is called to submit to, and you were to create the same exact list for a man, a husband, they would be the same because we are called to submit to one another. Submission is something that is supposed to mark the Christian's relationship to one another, essentially, that we're not supposed to be after what is best for us. We're not supposed to be just about our preference. Rather, we are supposed to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Curt Harlow [00:05:51]:
Yeah, I would say this is another way of saying the gospel.
Dena Davidson [00:05:55]:
Yes.
Curt Harlow [00:05:56]:
Jesus said, if you seek your life, you will lose it. If you lose your life, you will find it. And Paul is saying that same exact thing in submit one to another out of reverence for Christ. Because Christ loves me and died for me, I lose my life for his cause and purpose. I lose all my preferences, and in doing so, I discover who I truly am and what I should do. I lose my life out of reverence for Christ, and I gain and therefore gain it. Or Second Corinthians, which we dealt with last week in the podcast, says it the exact same thing. Submit one to another.
Curt Harlow [00:06:32]:
Said it this way, they first gave themselves to Christ, then that's reverence for Christ. They first gave themselves to Christ, and then because of the will of God, surprisingly, they really surprises and gave themselves to us. This is the same thing. So submission is the gospel. Now, why does. Why do you think, before we get into the wives thing, why do you think submission is such a hard word for us? Why do we want to leave verse 21 out of our study here of wives and husbands?
Dena Davidson [00:07:08]:
I can speak about this from a sinner standpoint and an American standpoint.
Curt Harlow [00:07:13]:
Okay, great. Which you are both.
Dena Davidson [00:07:15]:
I am both. Yes. A sinner standpoint. I want what I want.
Dena Davidson [00:07:20]:
Right.
Dena Davidson [00:07:20]:
Like you go all the way back to the garden. God said, you can have everything except this one thing, you know? And instead of submitting to that rule, we said, I want what I want, and I'm going to reach for what is my preference and what is my will, instead of submitting, submitting to the will of this good God who created this garden for me. I fight the same battle that Adam and Eve fought in the garden. I want what I want, and I want to do whatever I need to do in order to get it. And against that, we get this command and we get the gospel which says, don't chase what you want. Lay your life down for. For the sake of the One who loves you and laid his life down for you. You are to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Dena Davidson [00:08:04]:
So that's like, from a sinner standpoint. We don't like this word submit because it cuts to the very core of our own sinfulness, is we want what we want, and we want to go out and get it. And God is at times saying, no, you need to surrender that.
Curt Harlow [00:08:17]:
Yes. Can I give you a perfect illustration of this? And you'll get this, because earlier in sermon prep, you were talking about your kids. Every. Almost every child that has ever been born in the toddler years will take a toy or a coloring book or something like that, even though they've never earned a cent in their life. Don't know how to drive to a store. Don't know how to handle a purchase. Don't even understand really what gift giving is. They will say to another toddler, mine, yes, exactly.
Curt Harlow [00:08:52]:
Even though nothing could be further from the truth, you have done nothing to possess this object. You intrinsically know you should submit to me and give me this thing. It is mine because I want it for no other human nature you're talking about.
Dena Davidson [00:09:05]:
Yes, 100%.
Curt Harlow [00:09:07]:
Give me the cultural reason.
Dena Davidson [00:09:08]:
Okay, the cultural reason is that we are immersed in a society that says whatever the authority is, that is just the thing that we are meant to rebel against. Right. We are after individual freedom, our own rights, against everyone else. You think even about how America was born, it was born from this independent spirit. We want to be independent. We want to be able to rule over ourselves. I'm not critiquing the American Revolution. I'm just saying we have to realize the culture that we're swimming in.
Dena Davidson [00:09:39]:
If we're not careful, we're just gonna conform to the American way of doing things, which is to always be fighting for our rights, instead of the gospel way of doing things, which is to fight for the right of others.
Curt Harlow [00:09:51]:
Right? So also, I think one thing that has to be noted before we move on is how incredibly countercultural this idea is. So the Roman Greco world was a world where the father reigned in the household, where they had their codes, their mores were, dad makes all the decisions, no one else makes any of the decisions. And they were a militaristic culture. They were occupied by the Roman army and they worshiped Caesar. So in every way, how the family was, how the culture is set up and how even their, their religious commonality was set up. It was all about authority and power and gaining authority and gaining power. And then Christ comes along and he says, I refuse to overthrow governments. That's not what I'm here to do.
Curt Harlow [00:10:47]:
I'm here to submit to my father and to serve Jesus. Said I, the son of God came not to be served, but to serve it. So even in our culture where we've got that American independence, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. We're a, a nation of immigrants who said we're not going to tolerate what's happening here. We're going to go move somewhere else and create our own lives. Even that we're probably not as authority based right as they were. And yet in the midst of that, just let your 21st century hears ears. Here in the midst of centurions marching outside my door, I say my plan to overcome the occupation and to bring down the false God of Caesar and to lift up the invisible people in my culture that have no rights or say and are treated like property.
Curt Harlow [00:11:39]:
My, my plan is to get us all to submit to one another. I mean it's, it's the Bible's only boring when you don't understand the context. Yes. When you do understand the context, it's like, wow, what a radical thing to say. Okay, now this ne next bit is where we people get upset and they get upset on both sides of it. Some people are upset because they're like, you are not saying that women should submit. And we know that the wom this is the right place for the woman, it's healthy for the woman. And you're just giving into our culture that wants everything to be equal.
Curt Harlow [00:12:14]:
And other people get, submit, get very, very mad and say this is diminishing women, this is devaluing women. Wives, submit yourself to your own husbands and do so as unto the Lord. What? Just give me your take on this. Dena, what does this mean that wives are to submit their husbands?
Dena Davidson [00:12:33]:
Yes.
Dena Davidson [00:12:33]:
Well, I think we should in fact submit to our husbands, Kurt. And I say that in a cheeky way, but I think before we can really dive into it, let's talk about what it doesn't mean.
Curt Harlow [00:12:44]:
Okay.
Dena Davidson [00:12:45]:
I don't think wives submit to your husbands, first of all, means that in any way a woman is inferior to her husband. That is not in the gospel language. So if you're. If you're hearing that, if you're reading that, I urge you to understand that the. The whole of this passage dignifies women, gives them a place in the body of Christ, gives them an assignment. The fact that they're even being spoken to here. And then as the passage goes on, it's going to talk about the. The role of a husband in protecting and loving his wife.
Dena Davidson [00:13:18]:
This is revolutionary. And in every way, this does not speak to a woman's inferiority, but only to her dignity and. And that she has an assigned role in the kingdom to play. So that's the first thing. Second, it is not calling us to submit to sinful behavior. We can submit to sinful people, but we are never, ever to submit to sin. So today in sermon prep, Kevin talked about if there is adultery, if there is abuse or addiction. Addiction.
Dena Davidson [00:13:50]:
These are three areas where this is not the verse to apply. There are other verses that speak into those situations. Because truthfully, Kurt, I've. I've sat with children. I've sat with college students broken, because their. The dad in their home had used this verse to bully their wives into submitting, to allowing abuse in their household, abuse of the children. And. And they were traumatized by this verse.
Dena Davidson [00:14:18]:
And. Right. Rightly so. That is not the right way to read this. If there is abuse, if there is addiction, if there is adultery, this is not the verse to read. There's other verses about confronting. Confronting sin, speaking the truth in love, and protecting the vulnerable under your care. So that's the second.
Curt Harlow [00:14:36]:
And there, that is the importance of putting verse 21 before any of the specific instructions.
Dena Davidson [00:14:43]:
Absolutely.
Curt Harlow [00:14:44]:
Submit everyone, husbands included, out of reverence for Christ. If you are a husband that has submitted in reverence for Christ, you will not see abuse, manipulation, or any of those things as something you're permitted to do. So if you're walking in submission, Paul's already taken care of this issue by saying, first of all, submit with reverence to Christ. Christ I'm doing. If it doesn't look like Jesus, it is not submission. If it doesn't look like Jesus, it is not what this verse is talking about. So absolutely not. Never is this to be used as permission to enable sin.
Curt Harlow [00:15:28]:
You're absolutely correct. Go ahead and finish your thought.
Dena Davidson [00:15:30]:
I think the third thing is that this is in no way a call for women to not Speak up. This is in no way a call for women to just in every way go along with what their husband wants and what their husband thinks. I think that that would be an abdication of what all of scripture talks about, about a woman's shared call to rule and to steward, a woman's shared call to make sure that the household is being run under God's instructions. So, and ultimately it's. It's not loving to interpret the scripture that way because that's, that's assigning almost like a deity role to the husband in the home. And the scriptures are certainly not meaning to do that. So I think all of those, Kurt, are poor interpretations before we go on to a good interpretation. Anything you want to add on to poor interpretations?
Curt Harlow [00:16:17]:
Well, in a minute I want to talk about the specific idea of. So what comes up here, first of all is, okay, wives submit. That means the husband gets a veto vote, which I do not think getting a veto vote is submission, right? If I'm owning a veto vote, I'm not submitting. Mutual submission only works. I've had this, this council all the time where one of the spouses will come to me and say, I'm submitting, he's not, or she's not submitting. I'm like, this is not. You're not there yet. You know, you're not getting results.
Curt Harlow [00:16:48]:
And the reason is both of you have to submit, and oftentimes you don't have complete control over that. So it's firstly just the language of submit. But I want to emphasize something you said. Our ears hear that wives submit. And it feels very misogynistic to us. It feels very anti liberty to us. It feels very anti civil and personal rights to us. Their ears would have heard.
Curt Harlow [00:17:15]:
He's talking directly to the women, right? They. I can imagine them reading this in the church at Ephesus and go bring the women closer so they could hear. Let them. He's talking. He's talking to the women now and people going, what?
Dena Davidson [00:17:28]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:17:28]:
And then later on, he talks directly to slaves. That now he's really being disruptive to their ears. This was elevating, liberating. And part of the reason that our ears hear the offense of wife submit, we hear it in that tone, is because the Christian church has done such a spectacular job of educating boys and girls, educating women, making every single calling and role that a woman would want to do accessible and normal. And, you know, if you were a female business owner in the first century, some very special things had to come together. These were they existed, but they were very, very rare. And so the reason this has become offensive to us is because of the calling and the liberty and the empowerment of the invisible that Christ has put into it's. It's the imago dei, because we really believe that the full image of God rests on every human creature of boy, girl, child, regardless of subculture, regardless of racial heritage that has caused us to elevate everyone.
Curt Harlow [00:18:37]:
And so now we're sensitive to anything that feels delevating to us. And it, but it's not to them. They would have been, oh, my goodness, he's, he's, as you said, now he's only addressing him, he's giving him a role. The second issue here is the headship. Okay? For the, the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church.
Dena Davidson [00:18:59]:
Yes.
Curt Harlow [00:19:00]:
So does that mean, does head. What headship doesn't mean is inferiority. And it. And we know that because Christ was completely dependent on the Father. Christ said everything the Father told him to say did everything the Father told him to did. He said, not my will, but your will. Christ submitted to the Father for the mission of redeeming mankind. So if that submission in Christ, how do you reconcile Christ saying this? I say nothing he doesn't want me to say.
Curt Harlow [00:19:37]:
I do nothing he doesn't want me to do. I completely obey the Father. I and the Father are one. If that submission does not equal inferiority, then this submission does not equal inferiority. And so what is that headship of Christ? What does it mean? Yeah, go ahead, answer the question honestly.
Dena Davidson [00:20:00]:
There's a division in the body of Christ on how we should properly interpret that. The two main views are called complementarianism and egalitarianism. This factors into roles within the household, gender roles, as well as roles that are open to men and women within the church leadership context. So church leadership aside, because that's outside the scope of this passage, I personally don't know where I stand between these two views, complementarian or egalitarian. So the egalitarian way to interpret this passage is to say the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. They would interpret it as a source. It is the one from whom it comes. So women came from Adam, Eve came from Adam.
Dena Davidson [00:20:43]:
And that shows that Adam is the source, not the authority figure. And then the other way, the complementarian way, is to actually view it as an authority picture. The that just as Christ has authority over the church, so too the husband has some authority over his wife. Not complete Authority. She's obviously under Christ's authority, first of all. But he has a level and measure of authority that's been given by God due to the nature of their relationship. I don't know where I fall between those two views. I think there's great arguments on both sides, but I think the thing that they share is that there is a specific role that a woman has in the marriage relationship and a specific lane that's marked out for her by God in which she can submit to her husband out of reverence for Christ as a way to display the gospel, as a way to honor Christ.
Dena Davidson [00:21:42]:
So too, in the passage, there's going to be a specific lane that's carved out for men in the way that they can honor women and respect and love them. So I think what it means that the husband is the head of the wife. I just think that there is a special relationship between the husband and the wife. And there is at the very least a responsibility and a protective element that comes from the husband. And the woman has this responsibility to respect and honor that responsibility that's been taken on by the man in her life that she has wed herself to.
Curt Harlow [00:22:15]:
Well, you're completely wrong.
Dena Davidson [00:22:16]:
Okay, perfect.
Curt Harlow [00:22:17]:
Just joking. Tell me. You know, I, I'm, I'm. I'm on the egalitarian side of this, not the complimentary. I do believe that men and women are complimentary to each other. I do believe generally the genders are different. Very generous. Big debate in our culture.
Curt Harlow [00:22:32]:
To me, it's kind of obvious that we have. If you look at the testosterone levels in a man, what's normal, and the testosterone levels in a woman, what's normal, you will find that her testosterone levels very, very, very widespread, very, very common, lead her to be more nurturing and the male to be more aggressive. You know, 1% of all crime is committed by women. 0.01% of crime that is violent as committed by women. Almost, you know, statistically, almost every violent crime is committed by a man. We are different. Therefore there are different roles. But does this mean that a woman has to be dependent on a man? Or that a man in any way, shape or form can demand behavior from a woman because he is the source? I'd say a smarter way to think about this passage would be to imagine your Paul talking to real Ephesians, that you want them to do really well in the Greco Roman world.
Curt Harlow [00:23:40]:
And he would say to them, hey, in your situation, the husband is the head of the household as Christ is the head of the church. What was their situation, the husband was the head of the household. She had zero rights. If the husband didn't like the amount of babies that were female in the Roman culture, he could take the female babies, place the baby outside and let it die of exposure. No one bat an eye at it. Christians gain the moral high ground by saying that behavior is no longer tolerable. You cannot do that. We're going to go rescue that baby.
Curt Harlow [00:24:15]:
So I think from a practical point of view, Paul is saying, and when we get to talking about husband's responsibility, he's saying, understand, in this circumstance, this is. This is the culture we're in. A very similar thing is going to happen when we talk about in a couple weeks when we talk about Paul's instructions as slaves and masters. I think part of this passage, he's acknowledging the reality of the culture. I think another tension is this. While a woman has the complete and full image of God, a woman has. And I will bring the leadership piece into this, Dena, because a woman funded the ministry of Jesus. A woman helped Paul plant the church in Philippi.
Curt Harlow [00:25:01]:
When Mary and Martha remember that story, and. And who's doing the dishes? Martha. Martha, why do you worry about. So what was Mary doing? She was at the feet of Jesus, listening. What is the traditional posture of a student at the master? The rabbis teaching at his feet. She was being taught by Jesus. Part of what Martha is mad at is like, you're not playing the right role.
Dena Davidson [00:25:25]:
Right.
Curt Harlow [00:25:25]:
We're the dishwashers, not the disciples. And Jesus is teaching her freely. So clearly, I just don't know how you can, you know, get around the deacon that's a female, and the. The wealthy lady that funds Jesus ministry and Mary sitting at his feet and. And not say, there's absolutely an elevation of women. And Jesus leads the way of that elevation of women. So this can't mean that. Does there.
Curt Harlow [00:25:56]:
Is there a tension, though, where, because the genders are different, we have different roles? I think you hit it on the head. I think the. Should the wife submit to the husband? Yes, with loving, absolute loving respect. What a man needs is loving respect. Should the husband submit to the wife? One of the questions we got on Instagram is, do husbands submit to wives? Of course they do. Submit one to another. Submit one to another. Christ submitted himself to us to die for us.
Curt Harlow [00:26:27]:
He submitted himself to the creation. So of course the husband submits to the wife. And I think the husband submits to the wife. The theme there is sacrifice, sacrificial loving. So respectful loving and sacrificial loving. And they both tie into what the other needs. Literally in this culture, a husband needed to be sacrificially protective of his family. And, and, and I think it's still true to this day that my role as a male is to lead the way in showing sacrificial, loving submission.
Curt Harlow [00:27:06]:
So I, I, I'm very, very hesitant to in any way. Like if you are using this to solve an argument, right, it says right here, you should submit to me. You are unsubmitted and in sin.
Dena Davidson [00:27:21]:
Oh, that's such a poor exegesis.
Curt Harlow [00:27:24]:
Honestly, it can't be that.
Dena Davidson [00:27:27]:
I think let's go back to Genesis because, you know, when we're in Ephesians, we're literally dealing with a broken and fallen world. So go, go back a little bit and see God's original design and the way that he created us. When you go back and you flip back and you're in chapter two and you get the more detailed explanation of how men and women were created, you see that women are given a special role. And I think that powerfully plays into this call to submit. So when women were created, God gave us this name that we would be a helper. He said, it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him. Now, in total truth, like as a woman, I don't love that word helper.
Dena Davidson [00:28:10]:
That means that I am like second fiddle to him. It's not a word of inferiority, but that means like his mission and I need to come help him instead of be about my own dreams and my own ambitions. I'm not a fan of. But then when I read through the Old Testament, I understand that that word is there is actually used most often to describe God's irreplaceable help that he offers to mankind. So it's not the help of an inferior helping a superior. Well then that kind of takes on new meaning for me. First of all, I'm already laying down my ambitions for the sake of Christ. I've already submitted my dreams and my desires.
Dena Davidson [00:28:49]:
So now I've put him at the foot of Christ and he's telling me that there will be moments in time where I have to take my dreams and ambitions and I have to submit them and instead chase my husband's dreams and ambitions. Not all the time. Sometimes he's doing that for me. But when I think about my call as a woman to be a helper, to provide irreplaceable help to my husband, when I think about the passage where Jesus says Greater love has no one.
Dena Davidson [00:29:15]:
Than this to lay down one's life for one.
Dena Davidson [00:29:17]:
One's friends. Why does a part of me chafe at. At doing that for Cheyne? Like, if I'm not going to do that for my friends, why would I have a. Less. A lesser standard? Why. Why would that offend me so much that I'm supposed to lay down my life for Cheyne's sake to submit to him? So, I mean, we're going to go on to read the rest of this passage. We get stumped on these first few verses because that's a hard word, submit. But honestly, I think that what Paul calls husbands to do is far more challenging and a higher standard of love than even submission.
Curt Harlow [00:29:53]:
Yeah. Part of the reason I think we have the offense of submit one to another and wives submit and husbands submit is we feel like if we take the risk of submitting, submitting, we are going to lose ourself. And we are highly, highly. We highly value individualism. So am I going to be erased?
Dena Davidson [00:30:16]:
Right.
Curt Harlow [00:30:17]:
And I think it needs to be said that in no way is Paul implying that this is the erasure of your giftings, your calling, your talent. It's just not what's modeled in every situation, whether the character in the Bible be male or female. So it's not the erasure of self, but it is the act of everything. Curt Harlow is all my gifts and talents. I give those to you, Kelly, for you to use them. They're not mine. I'm sharing them with you. And so if you want to use them in a way that I would not choose, that's the relationship we've entered into when I took vows.
Curt Harlow [00:30:59]:
And the same thing with you. It's not the erasure of Dena. Cheyne doesn't need Dena light or, Or Dena the empty shell. Cheyne needs Dena, the incredible discipler of students, the great apologetics person, the mom. He needs all of that, Dena as the helper to him and the. The. The drawing a line between God being our helper and the spouse. And I think.
Curt Harlow [00:31:26]:
I think the principle is so profound. None of us do good alone.
Dena Davidson [00:31:30]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:31:31]:
Not just the male, although the male does especially Battle on. Let's just. I just was in the kitchen of our media crew here, and there's not a lot of women on the team in this particular department. That kitchen definitely shows a bachelor effect in there. Okay, let's. Let's. Let's get off that for a second. Wives, submit to your husbands is a gift.
Curt Harlow [00:31:53]:
It is not a devaluation. Husbands love your Wife, Just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for. So what does a mutually submitted husband look like?
Dena Davidson [00:32:07]:
Yes, Well, I love how Pastor Ray put this. He said, hey, wives, you have to submit, but husbands, you have to die like that. That is the call here, okay? Women's women, you're not supposed to fight your husbands. You're to submit to them. Husbands, you're not to control your wives. You are supposed to love your wives. You are supposed to die to your wives or die to yourself and live for your wife.
Dena Davidson [00:32:28]:
So just as Christ loved the church.
Dena Davidson [00:32:29]:
And gave himself up for her, the standard that he is making right here for a husband is so incredibly high. It does not get higher than the picture of Christ's sacrifice, who left everything, who, by the way, calling back to that Genesis passage, left his Father in heaven and came down to earth to come after his bride. That's the standard here. And I think about when I read this, yes, part of me is like, oh, I don't want to do verses 22 through 24. But, man, I really, I would love to be in a marriage. And I am, in fact, in a marriage where, thankfully, my husband is constantly dying to himself. And he's taking his dreams, he's taking his desires and what he wants, and he's putting them to the side for the sake of me and the sake of my family. I think every wife, that is what.
Curt Harlow [00:33:19]:
She wants in a marriage, you know, that's excellent. I would put it this way. The call to submit for a wife is what I said before. It's loving surrender in the theme of respect. The call to submit for a husband is loving surrender in the theme of sacrifice and sacrificing everything. So this means that a husband is called to embrace the pain of responsibility. And I think it is in the male nature to not want to embrace. We are Peter Pan.
Curt Harlow [00:34:01]:
We want to stay a boy. We want to play golf. Whenever we want to play golf, as long as we want to play golf, we want to live where we wanted to live and eat what we want to eat. And it's a call to grow up and say, no, you are to let go of for the sake of responsibility. Jesus, it says in Philippians 2, did not think. The Greek says, did not think. Heaven was something that he should grasp at, that his authority and throne of Heaven he should grasp onto and say, I don't have to do this. Instead, taking on the very nature of humans, he came to service.
Curt Harlow [00:34:36]:
Now he services service on by dying not just any death, but death on a cross. This is the same exact thing. We give up our preference and we let go of our preference. And instead we say, I take full responsibility to support, to love, and to guide. Now, here's what's so powerful about this little bit of family advice. It's 2,000 years old. We know now from plethora of scientific study, plethora of study, that when a man will take responsibility for his actions and his role in the family, children do amazing. That children do amazing.
Curt Harlow [00:35:20]:
What happens is children have better mental health, they get better grades, they get better job outcomes, they have better income in every category, just that one factor. Now, can a child that didn't have a responsible father have great outcomes? Yes, but it's usually because, and this was my case growing up, because other fathers that were not their real father came in and did that role for them. And the most crucial moment in my adolescence when I got saved, I had these godly fathers come into my life. And without them, I literally would not be sitting here today. So I think you see, you see this incredible wisdom. If a man will say, it's time to grow up. And what's not growing up? Demanding your way, it's mine. Bullying, manipulating.
Curt Harlow [00:36:13]:
Like, here's one way Dean I would, I have advised been for a lot of years a guy, a guy that was incredible family and marriage and parenting teacher, guy named Gary Smalley. My wife and I listened to all of his teachings at the very beginning of our marriage. And it's still, he's got one teaching called the Incredible Worth of a Woman. It's powerful, powerful thing. But one of the things he would say is that when you are unsubmitted and you are fleshly and you are wanting your way as the husband, you will, you can actually see your way, wife's spirit close. And so one of the things I ask couples all the time, I'm like, when you talk, does she lean in more? Does she feel more free to talk? Does she feel more free to be vulnerable? Or is she closing herself off more and more? How does she feel after speaking to you? How does she spill, especially after speaking to you about something very important or very complicated, like, for instance, the children. Because the female brain is, generally speaking, wired to be more empathetic. Like Gary Smalley would say, you know, you yell at the child and the wife cries.
Curt Harlow [00:37:24]:
Why? Because she felt that pain. She felt that pain maybe even more than the child developmentally was able to understand what had just happened to her. So what does a mutually submitted husband look like? A mutually submitted husband Looks like someone who says, I am going to own my responsibilities, I'm going to do my job and I'm going to speak to my children and speak to my wife and treat them in such a way that they build affection for me and they open to me and they can trust me. Later in the passage, we'll talk about this one too. He says, husbands, don't exasperate your children. That's the opposite of it. That's the unsubmitted husband. So, man, we've gone eight minutes over and I didn't even look at the clock once.
Curt Harlow [00:38:07]:
Next week we're going to talk about for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to and and this is the mystery. So if you want to understand these last three verses on this, where Paul teaches us Genesis 2, and then he kind of does a reveal ending that makes this whole passage kick up several notches of importance. Don't miss next week. A bri who do we have on next week? Josh Powers will be here, my executive pastor up at our campus in Auburn. Before we go though, Dena, tell me, what is one specific application thought you have for this passage?
Dena Davidson [00:38:45]:
Yep.
Dena Davidson [00:38:46]:
So wherever you fall reading this egalitarian, complementarian, I urge you, speaking to the women specifically, I urge you wives, if you are married, to ask, ask God this question. Is there anything I'm fighting my husband on that you want me to yield on? Is there anything that I have just been fighting him on, whether it's verbal fight or just in the air that we disagree on this, that you just want me to honor his preferences, honor his wishes in this area? You don't even have to do it. I want you to ask God the question and start that conversation.
Curt Harlow [00:39:26]:
That's great. Mine is very similar. And that is I would like you to examine yourself and see if you're more concerned about someone else's submission or yours. Now understand verse 21. Submit one to another. Paul's going to apply it to the parent relationship. He's going to apply it to the household relationships. He's going to even apply it to slaves and masters of that time.
Curt Harlow [00:39:48]:
So this is a universal principle. So am I. Here's one way to tell that you're worried about someone else's submission more than yours is when you're hearing a sermon, you're thinking of them. Like I, I always say when I'm teaching some convicting passage, I said, this is a no elbow passage. You're not allowed to elbow your neighbor, your husband, your wife, your Kid, your friend, you got to only apply this to you. So mutual submission is the goal. And that, that means your spouse, your kids, your friends, your church, they have to all cooperate. But it starts with you.
Curt Harlow [00:40:25]:
It starts with me saying, I'm going to lose my life for the sake of loving. Surrender to serve others the way Christ lost his life to lovingly surrender for me. You start with you. Your heart. You start there. That's the best thing you can do. So. All right, my friends, by the way, we did get a bunch of questions on this.
Curt Harlow [00:40:43]:
I think we answered most of them. If we didn't, we're going to come back to them. Keep those questions coming. We love it. It's amazing, especially a passage like this. It's so. It's such a great Bible study skill to make sure you don't avoid the questions, but ask them and, and ask them really as honestly as you can. Keep that coming.
Curt Harlow [00:41:05]:
Like, subscribe. Yeah, you get it. All that sort of stuff. Matter of fact, take a minute right now. Pass this on to someone you won't remember a half an hour from now. Do it right now. Share it with that. Yeah, yeah, share it with your spouse.
Curt Harlow [00:41:17]:
Very good, Dena. And that way we're going to keep this. This ethic of let's go study the Bible together. We're going to keep it spreading and going far and wide. So, again, thank you so much. We'll see you next week.