The wife must lovingly obey a lying husband: The Excellent Wife P/11

                                     Read Part One HERE

In this post I will continue to focus on bible teacher and author Martha Peace. This time we will look at statements from Chapter Thirteen of her book "The Excellent Wife." ( I have skipped a few chapters).

Martha Peace: "A husband who does not think his wife is being submissive has God on his side. A wife must re-evaluate her perspective. A wife's responsibility is to change her perspective and view submission through God's and her husband's eyes."

Martha Peace: "The husband is the head of the home, and the wife is to submit to every small and seemingly unimportant requests or directives from him because they are important to him. Unless she is providentially hindered, her failure to comply is not only subordination to her husband but also disobedience to God."

Martha Peace: "A Husband may be physically, or verbally abusive, immoral, threaten leaving, use alcohol or drugs, and lie or deceive his wife. A wife must choose to answer with love. She entrusts herself to God, knowing that in difficulty God will give her the grace she needs to get through it at the very time she needs it. Not always, but most of the time, when a wife responds by standing up to her husband in the right way, it turns out better than she had anticipated. If in the end it does not turn out well, the wife can have the comfort of knowing that she was pleasing to her Lord and whatever suffering she undergoes will be "for doing what is right" (1 Peter 3:7).

Martha Peace: "A wife who does not submit to her husband does not honour God. When a wife is not submissive to her husband, she brings shame to God's Word because she is not living up to the standard God has clearly laid out for the godly wife. If she is outwardly expressing faith in Christ, but inwardly has not changed her heart regarding submission to her husband, she is not submitting to the Lord in that area of her life."

Martha Peace: "A husband can act selfishly toward his wife. It is the wife's responsibility to change her attitude to be submissive. If the husband is being selfish or unreasonable and his wife dwells on how he has hurt her, it will very likely be very difficult for her to feel being graciously submissive. She may outwardly do the right thing, but she will struggle with bitterness and will not feel like being submissive."


My Comment

Martha Peace's teaching is unbiblical and proves that she does not know the God of the Bible, who is loving, kind and merciful. She, therefore, does not understand that God created the man and the woman as equal partners to rule over creation together, but not over each other (Genesis 1:26-28). Neither does she understand that God has never given the man authority over the woman, not at the time of Creation nor at the time of the Fall. However, at that time the man began to be in authority over the woman because of his then sinful nature (Genesis 3:16d). This sinful pattern has continued throughout the centuries no matter the culture and religion for in every religion of the world be it Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, women are considered inferior to men. But Jesus showed us a different way for He treated women with respect (Luke 7:36-50), taught them (Luke 10:38-42), had women disciples (Matthew 27:56; Luke 8:1-3) and women evangelists (John 4:28-39). Likewise, Paul followed in Jesus' footsteps by recognising the spiritual gifts in many women as apostles (Romans 16:7), prophets (1 Corinthians 11:5), teachers (Acts 18:24-26), overseers (Romans 16:3-5; 1 Corinthians 1:11; Colossians 4:15), evangelists (Romans 16:6; Romans 16:12; Philippians 4:2-3), deacons (Romans 16:1-2). His view on submission is completely misunderstood for it simply means to be aligned with someone be it with other believers or with a husband as we know from Ephesians 5:21-22

"Submit to one another out of reverence for God. Wives (submit) to husbands as to the Lord."

In the Greek text the word "submit" is not in Ephesians 5:22 so the only way we know what wives should do is by studying Ephesians 5:21. This means that the same way believers are to submit to or align themselves with one another is the way wives are to submit to or align themselves with their husbands who are to sacrificially love their wives as Christ sacrificially loves the Church. And we know from the Greek term that Paul has used that this submission  cannot be forced upon anyone by someone but is to be done voluntarily. Moreover, since in Ephesians 5:21 Paul tells believers to voluntarily submit to other believers Christian husbands are to voluntarily submit to their believing wives. Most importantly, Christ is to be everyone's example and He came to serve and not to be served. Therefore, we are called to serve each other. That is true partnership, the partnership God designed for us at the time of Creation, which was lost at the time of the Fall, but has been restored in Christ. Let's begin to live out of the reality that we are New Creations in Christ rather than still living under the Curse of the Fall as Martha Peace seems to want us to do.

 

Read Part Twelve HERE