FBC Morning Light – April 4, 2022

Well, a good Monday morning to you. I hope your weekend went well, that you enjoyed gathering with God's people yesterday, and you learned something from God's Word. More importantly, that God's Word spoke to you in some practical, particular way, either teaching you something about God, or teaching you something about yourself, or teaching you something that God likes or dislikes, but in some way, benefiting you spiritually from your time together with God's people.

And not only what you taught, but just that experience of gathering together, and worshiping together, and singing praises together, and that fellowship, one with another. I hope it was an encouragement to you yesterday.

The Battle of the Sexes and the Cultural Setting of Head Coverings

Well, this morning, we're looking at a passage of Scripture that's really quite interesting. It reminds me of a board game I bought several years ago for a couple's get-together, just a small group of couples that were gathering in our home for a meal.

I found this game, and I thought, oh, this would be fun to play. It's called Battle of the Sexes, and it was really fun. I mean, some of the questions were, eh, but by and large, it was just a pretty fun game.

But that title really kind of brings up an age-old reality in this fallen world, and that is the Battle of the Sexes, that there is this conflict that has gone on, really, since the fall between men and women, and husbands and wives, particularly.

Paul addresses this problem with the matter of using the symbol of the head covering for a woman. Just to kind of indicate what that's all about, that really was a cultural symbolism of authority and of marital status.

So a woman who had her head covered was communicating to everyone else in society, publicly, that she was married, that she was under the authority of a husband. Well, you know, in the first century, not anything different than in the 21st century, not everybody appreciated that.

Many women, they didn't appreciate having to be subject to or under the authority of a man, even her husband, and so they would kind of rebel against that and remove their head covering. They'd go out and just be pretty brazen about that.

It was first century expression of women's lib, if you will. But at the same time, and see, here's the other side of that, at the same time, men were abusing their authority. Men were treating women like they were chattel, like they were property, and they didn't treat their wives well, they didn't treat them with respect, they didn't lead them in a way that was with respectful understanding and grace and kindness.

Again, they just took them for granted and ordered them around and treated them like a piece of property. Well, no wonder women under that kind of a situation would rebel and want to remove the head covering and so on.

Well, that was a cultural problem, but it was also a problem that kind of entered into the church, because the spiritual argument could go like this, well, I'm just as much a Christian as you are, God loves me just as much as he does you, Jesus saved me, and it would even be more pronounced or challenging perhaps for a woman whose husband wasn't converted.

She could feel like she was the superior one. Well, again, Paul addresses that, and he does not kowtow to that line of thinking, either extreme. To the men, he does not give them the freedom to think that their wives are just chattel, and to the wives, he doesn't give them the freedom to cast off the responsibility of submission to the authority of their husbands.

He does that, again, with the symbolism of the head covering. He says, I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of every woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. And he goes on to say, every man praying or prophesying having his head covered dishonors his head.

In other words, that would be dishonoring for a man, because he's supposed to be the leadership. He's supposed to provide the leadership in the home, and not be subjected to the leadership of, say, his wife.

But likewise, he says, every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, for that is one and the same as if her head were shaved. In other words, it's shameful for a married woman to act like she's not married, and is not subject to the authority of the husband's leadership.

Submission, Authority, and Gracious Leadership in the Christian Home

Now, all of that gets very disconstrued, misconstrued, this whole subject of submission and authority, in the world in which we live, where those two ideas are connected to power and authoritarianism.

Women reject the idea of being submissive to their husbands, because they think that means I have to be groveling to him, and he can beat me around or do whatever he wants to me, and I just have to take it.

No, that's not what that submission is all about. Men can take the idea that they're supposed to be an authority as a power thing, that they can order their wives around and make their wives do whatever they want them to do.

It really has to do with a matter of leadership in the home. God has established that in the marital relationship, in the Christian home, the husband is to exercise that leadership. But he does so not as an authoritarian, but as a gracious, considerate, wise leader.

He takes factors into consideration, he takes his wife into consideration, he understands her and her needs, her desires, and so forth, makes decisions accordingly, leads the family accordingly. That kind of leadership, to that kind of leadership, the wife is supposed to give submission.

Sometimes the husband takes everything into consideration, and it's not exactly what the wife would like to do, or things ought to be done, but somebody has to make the decision. He makes it, the wife needs to relinquish any complaint or fighting against that, and you say, okay, you're the leader, you make the decision, it's your responsibility, so I'll go along with that, I'll follow that.

That's more the biblical matter. When he gets to the end of all this, Paul finally appeals to the fact that the role of male leadership in the home, and the wife following that leadership, he also asserts a mutual dependence upon one another.

Look at how he does this in verses 11 and 12. He says, neither is the man independent of woman, nor woman independent of man in the Lord. There is no right on either party to say, I don't need to listen to you, I am independent of you.

Here's how he explains that. He says, as woman came from man, and there he's appealing to creation, God took woman, a rib from Adam, and created woman. As woman came from man, even so man comes through woman.

Every man is dependent upon a woman for birth. There is this mutual dependency that in all things, he finally says, all things are from God. All of us are subject to our God-ordained responsibilities, and our God-ordained roles.

We are dependent upon him. It's important, I think, to keep these distinctions in mind in relationship to the husband and authority, wife submission thing, in contrast to the way the world looks at these matters.

We exercise men, husbands, we exercise that leadership with love, and thoughtfulness, and understanding, and consideration, and not with an authoritarian attitude. Wives, the submission is simply a relinquishing of rebellion against husband's leadership, and recognizing he's the responsible party, expressing your opinion about things, and your desire for things, but then leaving the final decision up to him, and let him take that responsibility, and God will hold him accountable for it.

Again, the head covering, the symbol of a married woman who is responsible to submission to her husband, whose authority over her. Let's do it biblically. Let's do it biblically. Father, we do thank you this morning for the gracious way that you present the responsibilities of the home, and I pray that we as men would exercise our leadership in a way that is pleasing to you, and that glorifies you, and may wives lovingly accept that responsibility that husbands have of leading the home.

We pray these things in Jesus' name, and for his sake. Amen. All right, well have a good rest of your Monday, and I hope your week gets off to a great start. Have a good day.