Men stopped being leaders...Women took over

[heartstrings]

Ben Shapiro just posted a topic in my Facebook feed about people wanting to stay single instead of marrying etc. and, as I was reading some of the responses, came across this one....

[quote]Men stopped being leaders and naturally women took over. I do know several beautiful Godly single women. I’m not so sure a lot of men are looking for them, they look on the outside. So sad [/quote]

Actually, no; we've all stopped being "leaders". And women "taking over" is the opposite of the way the Word of God tells us women should "lead". 1 Peter 3:1-7 says that wives should "lead" by living Godly and by being in "subjection" to their husbands so that hubby can see the Godly "conversation" and either get saved, or be inspired to do better if he's already saved.. What I see as "leading" is to follow God, in God's order of "leadership". I hear men say "I'll have to talk to the "Boss" about that". Well, there's the problem. Sure, talk it over with the wife, that's good. But who has the final say in your family? We have too many men practicing the "subjection" in the first verse and if we try to "assert" any authority, that's considered a form of "toxic masculinity". So, how are we expected to "lead"? What does that even mean? And if you DO try to "lead" you are going to fall short on something at some point; it's inevitable. Even "leader" husbands are human. So how's this thing supposed to work? I'll give an example of what's NOT working.

My son's wife just gave him an angry dressing down in front of the children. He evidently didn't take that too well, so she either she kicked him out of the house, or he left.(I don't have the whole story because I try not to pry into their business). I just know they're now separated and my grandchildren are caught in the middle. I must say I have seen how angry she can get so, it must have been bad either way. When are pastors going to stop telling young men to "lead" their families while failing to admonish womenfolk about their part? Huh? I've heard 2 different  pastors say on multiple occasions "I get onto the men on Father's Day but am nice to the ladies on Mother's Day".(paraphrased) Why is that brother? And I see their church members getting divorces. One just recently divorced and already has her another "feller".

 

Edited August 7, 2023 by heartstrings

[Salyan]

Maybe the pastors think that way because they see that the men have to lead first, so the women have something to follow. You can’t tell people to follow where there is no leader…

[heartstrings]

46 minutes ago, Salyan said:

Maybe the pastors think that way because they see that the men have to lead first, so the women have something to follow. You can’t tell people to follow where there is no leader…

I'm sure they do see it that way. And what if there isn't something to follow? The answer is in the following verse.

1 Peter 3:1 KJV Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; while they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear.

 

^{This also is leadership}

^{Titus 2 3} The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things⁴ That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,

Evidently younger women need to be taught to "love their husbands and children" and they have to be taught it by "aged women" regardless of what a male "leader" does, else Titus 2:3 wouldn't be in the Bible. A family needs a father to lead in his role and a mother to lead in hers. It's plain in the word of God. But if both aren't doing their part, the whole family suffers. If one is waiting for the other to "lead" before they will follow, nothing good can happen. So, like I said above, both men and ladies need teaching on these matters because both need to be "leaders". Paul taught it that way, Peter did too, why don't we?

[TheGloryLand]

You can have someone living by your side for many years, but not really know them completely. Everything is just borrowed or ours temporary. Even our loved ones, can amaze us. Tell me who you are hanging around with, and I’ll tell you who you are. Men can’t let their guards down, there can be someone saying she a sweetheart and she is falling for it. Men cheated on their wife more in the past, but the rolls have turned, now the woman are leaving their husbands for a new man or woman. The devil is hard at work to destroy the family. Take care

[SureWord]

Women are to submit to the husband even if they aren't a leader. There's no prerequisite for this submission. It must be hard for some women to submit to an inferior man but that's the breaks. I've had to submit to plenty of inferior supervisors over the last 25 years.

[Joe Chandler]

22 hours ago, heartstrings said:

My son's wife just gave him an angry dressing down in front of the children.

Proverbs 21:9 It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman in a wide house.

Proverbs 21:19 It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and an angry woman.

Show me a domineering woman and I'll show you confused children, They produce very aggressive or very effeminate boys and another generation of domineering girls. I have seen this in Christian families as well as lost families. Why the Bible doesn't correct this in the Christian family is beyond me.

[Salyan]

12 hours ago, SureWord said:

Women are to submit to the husband even if they aren't a leader. There's no prerequisite for this submission. It must be hard for some women to submit to an inferior man but that's the breaks. I've had to submit to plenty of inferior supervisors over the last 25 years.

Wives are to submit to the husband. Let's be specific here.  

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I was speaking a little in jest before, but to give a serious response to the OP in the area of why pastors don't speak hard to women like they do men -  My observation in the churches here that the women are preached to a little more than the men, and by and large, I see the wives working harder at submitting than the men do leading. If that was the case in the churches with pastors like those mentioned above, I can see why they wouldn't place a harder burden on those actively trying to obey than those that aren't.  Perhaps this is something that varies greatly by region and church.  

I think my response here is also colored by what may be a different issue, and that is that I have heard of church leadership advising wives to submit through extended, unrepentant abuse as the only option for moving forward. That is neither Biblical nor helpful (nor actually legal).  So maybe I'm applying my distaste for this mentality to this discussion in a way it doesn't belong. I totally agree that if pastors truly are failing to teach the wives their part, that is a grave problem, and that the wives are responsible to obey God's commands for them within marriage. 

I don't really see how someone can truly submit to someone who is not leading - because decisions have to be made, and as nature abhors a vacuum, someone will have to step up and make them.  One can't just stop moving forward. But maybe that's why God still has me single. 

Heartstrings, I am so sorry over what's happening in your son's marriage - what an awful thing to have to witness in your own family. 

[TheGloryLand]

Indeed everyone is different, Indeed everything is the same. While I work in the Jail, for many years, I seen beautiful Ladies with their children, families, visiting ugly troublemakers, husbands, in jail. I wonder, what does this model female, see in this man. Eyes are in the beholder.

[heartstrings]

4 hours ago, Salyan said:

Wives are to submit to the husband. Let's be specific here.  

-----------------

I was speaking a little in jest before, but to give a serious response to the OP in the area of why pastors don't speak hard to women like they do men -  My observation in the churches here that the women are preached to a little more than the men, and by and large, I see the wives working harder at submitting than the men do leading. If that was the case in the churches with pastors like those mentioned above, I can see why they wouldn't place a harder burden on those actively trying to obey than those that aren't.  Perhaps this is something that varies greatly by region and church.  

I think my response here is also colored by what may be a different issue, and that is that I have heard of church leadership advising wives to submit through extended, unrepentant abuse as the only option for moving forward. That is neither Biblical nor helpful (nor actually legal).  So maybe I'm applying my distaste for this mentality to this discussion in a way it doesn't belong. I totally agree that if pastors truly are failing to teach the wives their part, that is a grave problem, and that the wives are responsible to obey God's commands for them within marriage. 

I don't really see how someone can truly submit to someone who is not leading - because decisions have to be made, and as nature abhors a vacuum, someone will have to step up and make them.  One can't just stop moving forward. But maybe that's why God still has me single. 

Quote

Heartstrings, I am so sorry over what's happening in your son's marriage - what an awful thing to have to witness in your own family. 

Thank you Salyan,

 

One of my points, as much as I can relate it, is that both spouses need reproof and encouragement. Both Paul and Peter offered these to both spouses in the same writings. consecutively and that is the way it should be done. Likewise, a pastor/preacher should never upbraid the ladies in a sermon without giving the men their equal turn and visa versa. The same is true for encouragement. And Mother's Day or Father's Day shouldn't be the day to rebuke and correct; there are 50 other Sundays out of the year to do that.

 

Quote

 

I don't really see how someone can truly submit to someone who is not leading - because decisions have to be made, and as nature abhors a vacuum, someone will have to step up and make them.  One can't just stop moving forward.

 

 

 

The same could be said for "leading" someone who won't "submit". But again I would point out 1 Peter 3:1If we say "they won't do their part so I won't do mine", nothing can go forward and it only makes things worse. In 1 Peter 3:1 the wife is actually "leading" by submitting to her failing-to-lead-husband and living Godly before him because it says  "if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives;" Likewise, the husband is admonished, about 7 verses down, to do his part too. The best example I know of how it should work, in the Word of God, is in Proverbs 31. Read through it and you can see that each member of the family is prosperous, content, and each builds the others up. The husband is a respected man in the community, all his needs are met by his wife, the kids are so happy that they "praise" their mother and so does the husband. Is she a "virtuous woman" because her husband constantly shows his love and appreciation for her? Or is he a prosperous man because of how she honors him? Who knows? But the fact is, in the Proverbs 31 example, the members of the family build each other up instead of selfishly tearing one another down. If one stumbles and falls for a bit, the rest are still doing their part to help get it back on track.

 

Edited August 8, 2023 by heartstrings

[heartstrings]

And about cases of abuse. The Bible only gives one exception for leaving one's spouse and that is "fornication". So I've often wondered if physical abuse falls under that category. As it is, I don't have any experience with that. I did hit my sister one time, when I was about 6 years old. And when my Dad got done with me, I never hit a girl again. I never knew my Dad or any of my grandfathers to strike a woman either. I did know of one man, in my former church, who struck his wife, but he didn't attend our church for very long.; and they're still together; go figure.. I know of a friend of my wife's whose father beat her mother repeatedly and the mother stayed with him until it got so bad, she had to leave. He even shot at her with a gun on a couple occasions. So, even without a Bible verse to back it up, I would say, yes, get out, press charges. An idiot like that needs to be in prison.

[TheGloryLand]

I believe to find the best Christian couples for today post or example, you will need to find a small County, Country Baptist Church. Most likely farmers families members. Where you will find everyone living their rolls. The city lifestyle Christian man, and women are living in a material world. More stuff, more stuff, and two jobs, sometimes 3. The women in many cases earning much more than the man. It’s getting harder for the modern man to take leadership in the home, but not impossible. Take Care

[heartstrings]

6 minutes ago, TheGloryLand said:

I believe to find the best Christian couples for today post or example, you will need to find a small County, Country Baptist Church. Most likely farmers families members. Where you will find everyone living their rolls. The city lifestyle Christian man, and women are living in a material world. More stuff, more stuff, and two jobs, sometimes 3. The women in many cases earning much more than the man. It’s getting harder for the modern man to take leadership in the home, but not impossible. Take Care

You know, we live in a rural area too. I always went to work, worked 2 jobs and built a house on the side while my Wife was a stay at home Mom. She homeschooled our children. But you wouldn't believe the talk and the peer pressure that came even from other members of our IFB church whose wives worked and believed kids should go to public school. They believed that our kids wouldn't know how to get along socially and these busybodies didn't keep those beliefs to themselves either. I could relate other things they did to undermine me in raising my kids but I won't. But I can say, despite the homeschooling, all three of our kids have good jobs, none of them are socially inept and have way more friends than I could count.

[BrotherTony]

18 minutes ago, TheGloryLand said:

I believe to find the best Christian couples for today post or example, you will need to find a small County, Country Baptist Church. Most likely farmers families members. Where you will find everyone living their rolls. The city lifestyle Christian man, and women are living in a material world. More stuff, more stuff, and two jobs, sometimes 3. The women in many cases earning much more than the man. It’s getting harder for the modern man to take leadership in the home, but not impossible. Take Care

City or country has nothing to do with it. I know many, many Godly families in the largest cities in this country, and I know of many who are lecherous, ungodly people in the country. Blanket statements don't help find solutions, and the best solution is for a man to take his role as the leader, and the wife to be in Godly submission to her husband, and on down the line to the children. 

I was raised with a father who wouldn't lead, and a mother who, at times, was overbearing. She FORCED the Bible, God, and church on us, a spiritually abusive church, and now has one atheist son, one who is in a church that preaches the Gospel but is very much off on other things, and me, two daughters who are still living, one who is serving the Lord and one who is getting divorced for the second time and in politics. Often when the wife steps up the family suffers.

[JenM]

Regarding leading and following:

It's clear to me that a husband can choose to display leadership, whether or not his family chooses to follow.

It's less clear to me how a wife can follow a husband who chooses not to lead. The act of following kind of assumes that some sort of direction has been given, and in the absence of that, how do you follow? I honestly don't know.

[Pastor Scott Markle]

16 hours ago, JenM said:

It's less clear to me how a wife can follow a husband who chooses not to lead. The act of following kind of assumes that some sort of direction has been given, and in the absence of that, how do you follow? I honestly don't know.

The picture that you imply with your comments about "a husband who chooses not to lead" seems to be that he is not moving forward at all and/or that he has no agenda of any kind whatsoever at all.  Yet these things are simply not a reality in human existence.  The husband in your scenario above may not "take" the leadership, may not administer leadership, may not show strength of leadership; but it is likely that he does have some form of personal agenda (even if he never directly communicates it) and does move forward in life in some manner.  Now, if he moves forward in life at all, then a wife can indeed follow him simply by waiting for his next step forward and then stepping in behind.

However, for many wives the husband's agenda simply does not fit with her agenda, so she dominates over his agenda with her own, until his agenda simply becomes to "keep his wife happy, to do whatever she wants." Indeed, for many wives the husband moves forward more slowly than she prefers or in a different direction than she prefers, thus she excuses her dominance over him by simply claiming that he is not leading aright; and since he is not a "strong" leader, he simply steps in behind her and follows her.