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In the previous parts of this discussion, we talked about Christian women in discipleship and Christian women in ministry. Let’s conclude our conversation with a talk about some misunderstandings around the role of Christian women in marriage and family.

Christian Women in Marriage and Family

Disclaimer: I’m not married and I’m not trying to give you marriage advice. 😉 You have spiritual leaders and mentors in your real life who can help you work through those details.

Even before I’m married with a family, I want my views on this subject to be shaped by God’s Word, and I believe you want the same. So, my goal is for us to have a conversation around the objective teaching of Scripture. Let’s talk through some key points of interpretation and application when it comes to the Bible’s words on marriage roles.

Spiritual Leadership in the Home

Ephesians 5:21-6:9 and Colossians 3:18-4:1 and 1 Peter 3:1-7 are the most popular passages on Christian marriage and family. A common view stemming from these passages is that husbands are called to be the spiritual leader of their families. With that role comes some duties that he’s traditionally expected to fulfill:

Be the breadwinner/provider, protector, final decision-maker, teacher/disciplinarian of the children, lead the family in prayer and Bible studies, etc. Sometimes there can also be an expectation that his career or ministry calling and desires should have a greater level of priority than the wife’s. The wife is traditionally expected to function in a support role to his leadership in the family.

What I find interesting is that those phrases we often use to practically describe a husband/father’s role in the family, for the most part, don’t actually appear in the biblical marriage passages we base them off of or anywhere else in the Bible. Neither does the phrase “spiritual leader of the home.” It’s not necessarily wrong for a Christian man to hold a value of spiritual leadership out of a heart of love and service to his family. That should be commended!

I wonder, though, if the rigid way those role descriptions are understood and upheld by some Christians can put unnecessary shame and pressure on people when we tell them every situation is exactly the same and every marriage/family has to look exactly the same regarding roles and responsibilities. (More on that in a minute.)

In our dating chat, we discussed how unhelpful it is to label cultural gender stereotypes as biblical standards, as well as how men and women in the Bible were diverse in their personalities, gifts, and callings.

Submission

And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. (Ephesians 5:21)

Another aspect of these verses that people wrestle with is the concept of submission. Submission, as used in these verses, is a shared attitude of cooperation, yielding, and bearing a burden/responsibility alongside.

You’ll notice in Ephesians 5:21 that God calls both husbands and wives to this in marriage. (Here’s a great podcast by Lisa Hensley on the definition of submission) God actually calls all Christians to submission in how we relate to each other, using our strength to humbly love and serve the best interest of others above our own. (Philippians 2:3-4).

Within that context of mutual submission, some Christians believe the husband has a unique role of humble, servant-leadership of his wife family and the wife a unique role to submit (the complementarian view). Other Christians, like myself, believe that Ephesians 5:21 mutual submission expresses itself in a partnership of equal roles between husband and wife (the egalitarian/mutualist view, which I hold).

(Again, as I stated in the previous blog, Christian egalitarianism/mutualism rightly upholds the historic Christian sexual ethic as taught clearly and consistently in the Bible, and rightly recognizes there are physiological gender/sex distinctions between male and female, and that men and women complement each other, as part of God’s design. Egalitarians simply believe those distinctions don’t require a difference in role when it comes to ministry leadership and service in the Church or in the household.)

We also have to note that there are cultural and theological considerations (explained here) to keep in mind as we prayerfully study and apply these marriage passages. Some of those being: (1) The secular social order the early Christians were living in and how adhering to that social order impacted their Christian witness. (2) The idea of men and women having different roles or authority is first mentioned in Genesis 3:14-19 when God is announcing the curse and the effect Adam and Eve’s sin would have on the world, not as part of God’s original design where He tasks Adam and Eve equally with stewarding the earth (Genesis 1:26-28).

When you consider all this as well as how Paul describes marriage roles lived out in Ephesians and Colossians, it doesn’t seem to imply a subordinate role of women. (The term “helper” found in the Genesis 2 story of the creation of Eve doesn’t imply any subordination of women to men either.)

Rather, the intention of the marriage teaching in Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3 seems to be mutual humility, oneness, respect and Christ-like self-sacrificial love. It also doesn’t seem to imply a rigid, one-size-fits-all expectation of what each spouse’s role in the family should look like. When Paul explains what he means by “head” and “submit” related to husbands and wives, he emphasizes love, care and respect between spouses, and that’s as specific as he gets.

In my opinion, the more dogmatic we get about the details of how men’s and women’s roles in the family should be expressed, the further outside the boundaries of Scripture we will go. Often, it seems our traditional and cultural expectations are more detailed than the Bible itself is on this topic.

Christian Marriage Roles in Real Life

Here’s an enduring principle in Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3 that we can all agree on regardless of stance on culturally conditioned gender roles or wherever you may fall on the complementarian-egalitarian spectrum:

God has instructed us on what the attitude of our heart should be towards the members of our household–use Christ’s character and actions as an example of how to treat others. Beyond that, however, He has left us freedom to flourish in the details.

You won’t find super specific instructions in the Bible when it comes to the details of how a family’s life is managed, how each spouse contributes to the family or who executes what roles because there’s not one biblically right or wrong way to approach them.

The details are things like: how decisions are made, how you divide up household chores, caring for and teaching/disciplining the kids, whether both parents work outside the home or which one stays home, how you school your children, who handles the money, what the spiritual life of your family looks like, how you approach pursuing each spouse’s calling and desires in career or ministry etc.

You get to figure out together with your spouse what works best for your family based on each of your personalities, strengths, desires, callings and the needs of your family. And you get to do so with guidance from the Holy Spirit and mature married Christians who are further along on the journey than you. Even Christians who hold to some measure of a complementarian view can do so and still seek God concerning the specifics of how that should be expressed unique to their family.

At the end of the day, each of us has to study this out in Scripture for ourselves to decide what to believe and then follow the leading of Holy Spirit in walking it out. But I hope this gives you a launching point into conversations with God and spiritually mature believers in your life as you engage the process.

Resources:

• Start here: Half the Church by Carolyn Custis James explains the key considerations in this conversation without taking sides

• For an egalitarian-leaning view: this blog by Debra Fileta, this sermon podcast by Pastor Jon Tyson, the book, Rediscovering The Scripture’s Vision for Women by Lucy Peppiatt, and Marg Mowczko’s blog.
  
  
• For a soft complementarian-leaning view: Worthy by Elyse Fitzpatrick & Eric Schumaker

Let’s Talk: Which parts of this discussion were most helpful to you or provoked you to study them out more in the Bible? Discuss this post in the comments below.