"Duties are ours and consequences are God's." -- Samuel Rutherford
Lady Lydia applies the excellent and Biblical principle behind the above quote by Samuel Rutherford to the woman's role in her blog post, "Do What God Says Do and Let Him Take Care of the Rest."
To the woman, God has assigned the role of wife, husband-helper, mother, and home-keeper. She is to be productive and assist her husband in furthering his goals for their family, but she is not responsible to make the living or be out in the workforce, striving for her own independent, competing career. The husband is not given to a wife; rather, a wife is given to the husband, for him, to help him; she is (should be) like gift from God to him.
The husband labors in the field (the world), and the wife labors in the home. The husband's blood, sweat, and tears is in his productivity in making the living; the wife's blood, sweat, and tears is in her productivity in bearing children and keeping the home. He makes the living, and she makes life worth living, gives a man something valuable to work for and strive for beyond himself. By the grace of God, she helps him bring order to creation, which has become a thorny wilderness because of sin. Christ came to redeem His creation from sin, and He has given instruction to His people on how to occupy until He comes.
As Christ cares for and provides for His bride, the Church, as for His own body; so a husband cares for and provides for his bride, as for his own body. They are not separate--what affects her affects him; what affects him affects her. She takes what her husband provides and makes the most of it, in gratitude and in submission to his leadership and rule. She helps him rule, by carrying out his wishes and by passing along (supporting) his commands, his way of doing things, to their children. This is a way she helps him be productive. They work together to produce fruit and pass on an inheritance (spiritually, and also materially to children borne of their union, should God cause them to be fruitful this way).
In the Scripture, the family home is his home, his table, his household. It is hers, too, because she has married him, and they are one flesh, but the work was given to the man. He provides it all, and his wife helps him keep it, maintain it, and work productively in it. He is the king (of his castle), and she is the queen (of his castle).
In this sin-fallen and topsy-turvy world, there are all kinds of "reasons" (ethical rebellion against God) why we (both men and women) "can't" (yes, we can!) or "don't want to" (doesn't matter!) obey God in His commands in this area of gender roles and family order. God says to serve Him best, a wife should call her husband, "lord," that she show him loving trust and not be afraid he can't do what God says he must do. She's on his side, on his team, takes his name. A husband serves God by making his wife happy, by cherishing her, by providing for her, by leading her, taking her under his wing, being responsible for her. This is God's order and hierarchy of authority in the family.
And when we obey God without fear for our future, we find ourselves blessed by Him in ways we never could have expected or thought of. God is our Provider, ultimately; money is not our provider.
5 comments:
I added the article you requested, on the upper left of my blog. You are welcome to paste it on your blog if you like. Lydia
Thank you, LadyLydia! When I saw this quote from Rutherford on SermonAudio, your post popped into my mind...I plan to link to it from this post...Thanks, again,
GentleDove
Most of the time the reasoning I hear is that it is not financially possible for the woman to stay home. That too, is based on a belief. If that were true, then God's word is a lie, and the Bible says to let God be true, and every man a liar. Women think they have to work but in reality most of them do not. We see the Mennonites and Amish all around us and their women take care of the home and the men work in the fields. Why does it work for them, but not for others? The answer is, it only works for those who will step out in faith and do it. In general there is an attitude that things can only be done if it is financially feasible. The first thing most people think about these days is money. The feminists have told women they cannot depend on their husbands to be providers. The towns are full of women working, but where are the men? Men used to run banks, post offices, police stations, and hardware store, and they can still do it, but women have taken over those job and feel they have A "RIGHT" to them, but it at the expense of the men, who build their manhood on the ability to provide for their families. God's word clearly shows the service women need to be providing as wives, mothers and home keepers, and in the past, women understood this, especially women in the church. Now, even church women are out working. It is possible to stay home if you will look to the old paths and ask how it was done before.
Men, just starting out in business, used to work in what are now primarily "women's jobs" or administrative positions (attaches or clerk positions). Very young men or older or handicapped men used to take all the lower level positions, that women have taken over, to get training, apprenticeship, and a foothold in the working world of men. With the glut of labor with women entering the workforce, now those lower positions, pay so little that men can't take them and provide for their families anymore.
Jobs open to men are shrinking. The men who aren't the most brilliant, the most advantaged, the most aggressive, the most physically strong and everything all-rolled-into-one find it very difficult to get in and stay in the workforce.
And when men "can't win," they tend, sinfully, to give up. And too often their women are right there to do their work for them, supporting them financially. It seems so loving, but this is actually bad for men. It undermines their masculinity, their masculine role, and their reason for living and working. And their women will often become contemptuous of these "lazy" men and divorce them.
The other day I was speaking to a woman at church, whose husband has been unemployed for months. He can't find work as an architect, so he's taking welfare (unemployment $, relying on the State, not God, to provide). She is working part-time at a warehouse store. This family is at the end of their rope and falling apart. The individuals in the family will not live out their family roles, and the family is falling apart.
Why doesn't she quit her second job, and take up her first job of taking care of him, their three children and their home (they are losing their house to bankruptcy), whether it be a trailer or whatever, and he take a job at the warehouse store or some other lower level position or several part-time jobs.
They won't because he "makes" (passively receives) more MONEY not working, even though he is healthy, intelligent, and in his early forties. He ought to step out in faith, take a lower paying, entry level, whatever he can find, and WORK, be PRODUCTIVE, even if it brings in less money. He will feel more like a man and he will be obeying God, Who said, if a man will not work, neither shall he eat.
Another problem is that a husband and wife do not start out right, living God's assigned roles, so the get themselves into trouble with debt, living above their means, plugging the woman into the workforce, plugging the children into daycare/public school for more money, money, money, and when economic problems hit or one fo them loses their job, the man cannot sustain by himself the lifestyle they've built up based on false role constructs.
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