This. A Million Times, This.

This. A million times this.

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I can attest to the harmfulness of the teachings she references in this article. As someone who typically doesn’t shy away from confrontation, I have experienced their ill effects.

Tim and I shied away from disagreement for years because neither of us wanted to dishonor or disrespect the other. That sounds beautiful, but it wasn’t. It led to quiet treatments that held us back from true intimacy. In his mind, he was trying to keep the peace, but in my mind, I was trying to keep from sinning.

The “headship” teaching that insists on male leadership in relationships is harmful. The Holy Spirit gives gifts to the body of Christ regardless of gender. Leadership is a quality that can be demonstrated by either sex. God raises both men and women to excel in leadership qualities. To deny leadership roles based on gender is to deny God the ability to use who he wants and how he wants. If I remember correctly, Scripture has something to say about hindering the Spirit.

We must allow the Holy Spirit permission to violate our understanding of the Scriptures with the truth he actually intended to be revealed in the Scripture. If we don’t allow God to offend our understanding, he’s not really Lord over us.

Not once does Scripture instruct one spouse to hold a gender trump card in marriage. Scripture emphasizes servanthood and humility, as well as transparency within intimacy. Two people cannot be equal if, at the end of a disagreement, one partner always gets to be correct and the other wrong. Two people cannot be equal if, at the end of a disagreement, one is expected to submit or sin, while the other partner gets to hold his ground without sinning just because of their sex. That’s spiritual manipulation and abuse. And it has no place in a marriage that’s Christ-centered.

There is one mediator between God and man, and that’s Christ. There is one who holds the trump card, and it’s not either one of us. The Bible teaches mutual submission in a Christian marriage. Anything less than equality in a relationship that’s held to represent how the Trinity relates to each other in terms of authority hinges on teachings that elevate one person of the godhead over the other, and that’s not scriptural at all. If Christ is under the authority of the Father no matter what, theologically, Christ would be eternally subordinate to his authority. That means that when Christ prayed in the garden for God’s will to be done, if he had chosen his own will at that moment, he would’ve sinned. Do you see how manipulative that sounds?! Christ was choosing to overcome his own weakness in his humanness at that moment because he already knew that what he really wanted was the Father’s will more than his body ached for a way out.

If you’d like more scriptural support regarding what Paul meant in his teachings, check out the Assembly of God Position Paper on women in leadership. Another site that does a great job elaborating and explaining scriptural egalitarianism can be found here: https://margmowczko.com/home/

Assembly of God Position Papers: https://ag.org/Beliefs/Position-Papers

The beauty of the unity of the Trinity is that each member is 100% their own person and together still 100% God. The Christian faith isn’t entered into by shame and manipulation but by revelation and choice. If you shame someone into saying they believe the gospel out of fear, I plead with you to reexamine the gospel you’re preaching. God never took choice away from people. Think about it: he put the tree of good and evil in the garden. He created men and women in his image to live in harmony with each other.

I believe a day is coming when the Church will rise up, wake up, step out, and shine like never before. Men and women will rule and reign together, being completely real with each other and with God. That’s intimacy. We were created to be so much more than we are choosing to be. For too long, we’ve hidden our sins, disguised our pride, and stood on our soap boxes, insisting the world Christ died to save, obey the laws or live in shame.

It’s a shame the world has led the way in advocating for the marginalized while we’ve sat around talking about who’s in charge so we can maintain our own personal rights at the expense of others.

It’s a shame we’ve missed the point of dying to ourselves. It’s a shame we don’t really understand what we claim to believe. We must repent and cling to the cross. Cling to the cross more than your own understanding, your personal rights, and your selfish desires. We must never leave the cross. We must find ourselves on the altar for the gospel’s sake, no matter what. And we must do it with all of our hearts, minds, and strength. Christ deserves nothing less than willful surrender.

If you’ve never known the perfection of the real Jesus, I’m so sorry if I’ve represented him wrongly. He sees you, he knows you, and he loves you. If you’ve suffered abuse at the hands of those who claim to know him but don’t, I’m so sorry. His ways are so much better than the ways we’ve shown him to be, so much higher.

Our marriage thrives because we both love God, and we love each other. It’s simple. We don’t have to argue about who’s in charge or fear being ourselves. Making choices out of fear isn’t the way into a relationship with God or each other. When we stop naval gazing in the way we think things should be, we’ll be free to lay our rights down in love for the sake of the gospel, the Good News of a Savior who gave up his rights for love as he didn’t even see equality with God as something to be held onto. Marriage isn’t about who’s in charge. It’s about love. It’s not about being more masculine, feminine, this, or more that… It’s about discovering each other and how God created us to be. Lay down your preconceived notions about how things should be and what you or others should be doing, and be free to grow in love.

There’s a revival coming that will blow the world away with a love they’ve never known before. It will come when we hit our knees at the foot of the cross in absolute surrender, with reckless abandon. It will come when our sin breaks our hearts more than the world’s sin offends us. It will come when we yield to each other out of love and take off the masks of our people-pleasing disguises. It will come when we value the gospel more than our culture, our rights, our personal vindication, and more than anything. There is a Revival coming. Will it start with you? How real will you let yourself be with God and each other? I’m tired of the fake, shiny golden calves we’ve fashioned out of what God wanted to bless us with. Our idolatry has no place in revival. Revival is about Christ, not us.