A Word to Men Who Demean Their Wives

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Well, this is an important and too common theme

00:00:07.760 | in our inbox, a question over men belittling women

00:00:11.640 | as inferior, perhaps in the name of complementarity even.

00:00:16.640 | I see this too often in the inbox and emails from wives

00:00:20.040 | and we haven't covered this yet head on.

00:00:22.320 | I wish we didn't have to, but we do.

00:00:24.200 | Dear Pastor John, my husband and I have been married

00:00:26.500 | for nearly 30 years.

00:00:27.840 | He's grown convinced that there is something wrong with me.

00:00:31.180 | I'm a Christian and have been since I was 10 years old.

00:00:34.040 | He is also convinced that God sees me as subservient

00:00:37.120 | to him and in every way.

00:00:39.280 | Tonight I asked him if he believes women are subservient

00:00:41.760 | to men in creation and he answered without hesitation, yes.

00:00:46.240 | He has always treated me like he is superior

00:00:48.800 | to me in every way.

00:00:50.680 | The way he treats me is very hurtful

00:00:52.400 | and I don't think I can continue to go on

00:00:54.480 | with his angry, aggressive spirit.

00:00:56.880 | When he gets angry with me about anything,

00:00:58.920 | he locks me out of the bedroom and out of the house.

00:01:01.720 | I literally want to run away.

00:01:04.280 | I despise this life.

00:01:05.720 | Please help encourage wives who are treated like this,

00:01:09.480 | who are treated as inferior.

00:01:12.560 | - Perhaps it will be of some help.

00:01:14.680 | I hope so.

00:01:15.880 | If I explain from a biblical standpoint,

00:01:19.760 | five sinful, damaging mistakes,

00:01:25.440 | this man is making and which he should be held

00:01:29.560 | accountable for.

00:01:30.960 | She doesn't say if he claims to be a Christian or not.

00:01:34.640 | He certainly is not acting like one,

00:01:38.480 | but some man or men need to step in to his life

00:01:43.480 | and call him to account for these five sins.

00:01:49.320 | Now, before I mentioned the five sinful

00:01:53.400 | and damaging mistakes he's making,

00:01:56.040 | let me go behind them to something deeper

00:01:59.160 | because there's always something deeper

00:02:01.680 | than the principles from which we behave.

00:02:05.680 | He clearly has some principles from which he is behaving

00:02:09.600 | and it is clear that behind them is something deeper.

00:02:14.280 | Namely, he is in significant bondage

00:02:18.240 | to the root sin of selfishness and pride.

00:02:23.640 | That is, he himself occupies such a central place

00:02:28.640 | in his own preferences that he cannot see or feel

00:02:34.080 | the beauty of getting outside himself

00:02:39.360 | and finding joy in living for the good and gladness

00:02:44.360 | of another person.

00:02:46.100 | Now, there's a fancy name for this today.

00:02:48.560 | It's called narcissism.

00:02:50.520 | He is so fixated on himself and his pleasures

00:02:55.520 | and his privileges and his rights

00:02:59.680 | that counting another person more significant

00:03:03.560 | than himself is literally, literally inconceivable.

00:03:08.560 | If you were to speak those words to him

00:03:11.600 | from Philippians 2, 3,

00:03:13.120 | count others more significant than yourselves.

00:03:16.360 | If you were to speak those words to him,

00:03:18.320 | they would be like a foreign language.

00:03:21.680 | They would not even connect.

00:03:24.760 | They would be like wind blowing in the curtains.

00:03:28.660 | So there's the root.

00:03:30.240 | The biblical words are sin, not narcissism.

00:03:35.240 | That's a new fancy word.

00:03:37.720 | It may or may not be helpful,

00:03:39.560 | but the biblical words are solid and forever.

00:03:43.040 | Sin, pride, and self-exaltation

00:03:47.920 | until God breaks in and reveals to this man

00:03:51.480 | the deep ugliness of his soul

00:03:55.600 | so that he weeps and weeps with conviction

00:04:00.600 | and contrition that are not intended

00:04:03.800 | to manipulate anything or anybody.

00:04:07.040 | These five sinful traits that I'm gonna talk about

00:04:10.800 | probably won't change.

00:04:12.520 | That's the miracle that we have to pray

00:04:15.640 | toward every Christian has experienced this miracle.

00:04:20.080 | It's called the new birth,

00:04:21.920 | and God can cause it in the worst of sinners.

00:04:24.200 | So that's the direction I pray.

00:04:26.560 | So here are my five sinful, damaging mistakes he's making.

00:04:31.560 | Number one, he thinks there is in creation,

00:04:36.020 | that is the way the world is made,

00:04:38.700 | a built-in subservience for women.

00:04:42.720 | She says, "Tonight I asked him

00:04:45.040 | "if he believes women are subservient to men in creation,

00:04:49.440 | "and he answered without hesitation, 'Yes.'"

00:04:52.400 | Now, I'm assuming from the word subservient

00:04:57.400 | and from the fruit of this man's conviction

00:05:02.460 | that what he sees in creation is very different

00:05:06.720 | from what creation actually teaches.

00:05:10.360 | If we go to Genesis 2 and 3

00:05:13.480 | and watch creation unfold sequentially

00:05:17.600 | after the foundational statement in 127

00:05:20.480 | that men and women are created equally in God's image,

00:05:24.180 | what we see is, number one, and there are more,

00:05:27.480 | I'm just summing up a few.

00:05:29.240 | Number one, that man was created first

00:05:34.240 | and given the instructions for life in the garden

00:05:37.640 | so that he, by God's design,

00:05:40.800 | has a kind of unique responsibility

00:05:44.200 | that will be unlike his wife's responsibility.

00:05:48.720 | Number two, God says in 2:18,

00:05:51.400 | "It's not good for this man to be alone.

00:05:54.980 | "I will make a helper fit for him."

00:05:59.600 | So a woman is created, unlike the animals,

00:06:02.920 | from Adam's side, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh,

00:06:07.920 | that is deeply alike and yet so wonderfully different

00:06:12.960 | called a helper fit,

00:06:16.020 | that is suitable, completing, complementing.

00:06:20.600 | That is, by the way,

00:06:21.440 | where the word complementarian originated

00:06:23.860 | from that word fit or suitable or complementary

00:06:27.760 | in Genesis 2.

00:06:30.260 | Then third, the tempter came

00:06:32.960 | and the man failed to take the responsibility

00:06:37.280 | God had given him.

00:06:38.480 | You can see that in 3:6,

00:06:41.480 | "The woman took of the fruit and ate,

00:06:43.960 | "and she gave some to her husband who was with her."

00:06:48.560 | Crucial words in verse six, "Who was with her, and he ate."

00:06:52.880 | In other words, he was there falling right into line

00:06:57.200 | with the devil's assault on God's wise and good order

00:07:02.200 | by being silent when the enemy was attacking his wife.

00:07:07.320 | And then four, sin ravages the beautiful relationship

00:07:12.600 | that God had created, this complementary relationship.

00:07:15.560 | Sin ravages that relationship,

00:07:18.280 | and you see it because the man blames the woman

00:07:21.400 | and says, "Look, if you're gonna punish somebody,

00:07:22.880 | "punish her 'cause you gave her to me and she tempted me."

00:07:25.400 | In other words, God's really the problem here.

00:07:27.400 | It's a devastating description of the ravages of the fall

00:07:31.640 | in human relationships and divine relationships.

00:07:35.080 | So what creation teaches,

00:07:37.840 | so what creation teaches is that man was designed

00:07:41.880 | to be thrilled by his partner helper,

00:07:46.360 | Paul calls her his glory in 1 Corinthians 11,

00:07:50.960 | gladly bearing a unique responsibility

00:07:54.720 | to take a special initiative to protect her.

00:07:57.760 | Who was superior to whom and on what counts was irrelevant

00:08:02.760 | for the central issue of love and protection.

00:08:07.920 | They were in God's image and perfectly suited

00:08:12.600 | to each other's fruitfulness and joy.

00:08:16.120 | They were naked and not ashamed.

00:08:19.720 | They did not shame each other.

00:08:22.720 | The fact that they were profoundly the same

00:08:25.240 | and wonderfully different in God's design caused no shame.

00:08:30.240 | So this husband that we were just being asked about,

00:08:35.040 | this husband has deeply misread creation.

00:08:40.040 | That's sinful mistake number one.

00:08:43.400 | Number two, his second sinful mistake

00:08:47.760 | is to infer from creation a built-in

00:08:51.800 | superior inferior relationship.

00:08:55.280 | She says, "He has always treated me

00:08:57.880 | like he is superior to me in every way."

00:09:00.360 | Men superior, women inferior.

00:09:03.920 | And she says, "In every way."

00:09:05.560 | There are two kinds of mistake here.

00:09:09.080 | They're both serious.

00:09:10.600 | One is to fail to distinguish whether the words superior

00:09:15.600 | and inferior refer to greater or lesser value.

00:09:19.880 | Don't even address that.

00:09:20.880 | Don't even have such a thing in mind.

00:09:23.240 | And the other is to fail to distinguish capacities

00:09:28.240 | and competencies in which women are in general

00:09:32.920 | superior to men and competencies and capacities

00:09:37.520 | in which men are in general superior to women.

00:09:42.040 | And those differences do not imply greater

00:09:45.840 | or lesser value in personhood.

00:09:49.920 | Who you are in God's image.

00:09:52.080 | So this husband is sinfully inferring

00:09:57.080 | an undifferentiated superiority for men,

00:10:01.960 | for himself in particular, that does not exist.

00:10:05.840 | Third, the third sinful mistake he makes

00:10:10.560 | is by inferring from superior inferior paradigm

00:10:17.120 | for men and women that he may therefore

00:10:20.000 | rightly treat his wife in demeaning ways.

00:10:24.880 | So he moves from misreading creation

00:10:28.840 | to misconceiving the meaning of superiority and inferiority

00:10:33.120 | to justify demeaning behavior.

00:10:35.680 | This is evil at several levels.

00:10:38.360 | I'll just mention one.

00:10:39.880 | In 1 Peter 3, 7, Peter says,

00:10:45.300 | "Husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way

00:10:50.300 | for according to knowledge,

00:10:52.680 | showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel

00:10:58.720 | since she is a fellow heir with you of the grace of life."

00:11:04.000 | Here's the point this man is totally missing.

00:11:08.000 | Even when one focuses on an area where women are weaker,

00:11:13.520 | the biblical, the Christian response of a husband

00:11:17.180 | is not demeaning, but honoring.

00:11:21.100 | There's the catch, deep, profound, serious thing

00:11:25.500 | he's blind to.

00:11:27.240 | Actually, the way the verse in 1 Peter 3, 7 is structured,

00:11:32.020 | you have the central term showing honor,

00:11:36.060 | and on one side of it is woman as weaker vessel,

00:11:41.260 | and on the other side is woman as fellow heir of glory,

00:11:45.800 | which means that this man is utterly oblivious to this,

00:11:50.800 | that whether you focus on any particular weakness

00:11:55.280 | or on destined for glory, the call is the same.

00:12:00.280 | Honor, honor, honor, not shame, shame, shame.

00:12:07.800 | Honor, not demeaning, and he can't see it.

00:12:12.140 | Number four, his sinful mistake that he makes

00:12:17.140 | is that he lives now with anger and aggressiveness.

00:12:22.700 | This is his prison cell.

00:12:24.760 | Given what he sees and feels, anger is inevitable.

00:12:29.760 | He's living outside of God's good design,

00:12:35.780 | and the inevitable dissonance causes continual aggravation.

00:12:40.500 | James says, "Let every person,"

00:12:42.940 | this would apply to this husband,

00:12:44.640 | "Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak,

00:12:48.880 | "slow to anger, for the anger of man

00:12:53.480 | "does not produce the righteousness of God."

00:12:57.500 | Oh my goodness, what an important text for marriage.

00:13:00.940 | And then finally, number five,

00:13:03.180 | the result of living in the bondage of sin and delusion

00:13:08.180 | is acting like a jailer.

00:13:11.540 | Let me just make sure you heard the paradox there.

00:13:14.620 | The result of being in bondage to sin

00:13:19.580 | makes you act like a jailer to hide the fact

00:13:23.620 | that he's in jail.

00:13:24.780 | He has become a childish bully, right?

00:13:28.900 | He's become a childish bully,

00:13:31.700 | locking her out of the bedroom and the house.

00:13:35.100 | This is pathetic.

00:13:36.860 | It's like a child throwing a tantrum,

00:13:39.600 | only he's bigger now.

00:13:41.060 | So instead of running into his bedroom

00:13:43.020 | and slamming the door against his parents,

00:13:45.020 | he can run in and lock her out.

00:13:46.960 | Now, she didn't ask me for any counsel.

00:13:50.980 | She just wanted me to say something that might be helpful

00:13:54.280 | in general when women are dealing with a man like this.

00:13:58.580 | But let me go ahead and say what I think.

00:14:01.520 | I'm assuming there hasn't been physical abuse.

00:14:05.620 | She didn't say that.

00:14:07.300 | And the reason I'm telling you that

00:14:08.900 | is because what I'm about to say would be different

00:14:12.240 | if there were, in other words,

00:14:13.420 | if he is brutalizing her,

00:14:16.620 | then she is, I think, obliged, rightly and legally,

00:14:21.380 | to go to police and to the ways

00:14:24.580 | that the arm of our government has set up

00:14:27.700 | for helping women or men deal with that kind of brutality.

00:14:32.700 | But short of that, she should be, I think, stepping forward,

00:14:39.660 | and I do hope she's in a church where this is possible,

00:14:44.100 | to go to trusted elders, tell them her situation,

00:14:48.340 | and ask for them to intervene.

00:14:51.140 | I think it's part of the elder's job of a church

00:14:55.300 | to step into the lives of the sheep,

00:14:57.340 | men and women, and be a part of their protective shield

00:15:02.340 | and to give them guidance and wisdom

00:15:04.340 | for how to move forward.

00:15:06.020 | - Sobered, straightforward, clear words.

00:15:08.700 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:15:10.460 | Next time, we talk about fertility technology

00:15:13.260 | and whether or not IVF babies are knit together

00:15:15.900 | in the womb by God.

00:15:16.980 | Does human technology override the ways

00:15:19.780 | we talk about natural conception

00:15:21.940 | and the origin of human life?

00:15:23.900 | It's a really great question, and it's up next.

00:15:26.660 | We'll see you next time on Monday.

00:15:28.020 | Have a great weekend.

00:15:29.060 | (upbeat music)

00:15:31.660 | (upbeat music)

00:15:34.260 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

A Word to Men Who Demean Their Wives

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