Before examining a few basics of biblical femininity, we must establish two presuppositions: ‘Why were women created?’ and ‘What do we mean by femininity?’ To answer the first question, we find our answer in Genesis. Man was created not only to cultivate the Garden of Eden but to spread it throughout the earth, but he was incapable of doing this alone. This is why God said in Genesis 2.18, ‘It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’ The result of God’s choice was the creation of woman. So women were created to help men – but to help them how? We will examine this in more depth later on, but for the moment we can say that women were created to help men accomplish their mission. Adam’s mission was to cultivate the Garden and spread it throughout the world, but he was unable to do this on his own; thus God created Eve, and the two of them complemented each other in such a way that the mission was able to be accomplished (and we can surmise that it would’ve been accomplished had they not gone off the rails soon after).
The second question is, ‘What do we mean by biblical femininity?’ Femininity refers to qualities or attributes regarded as characteristic of women; to speak of biblical femininity is to refer to qualities or attributes that are characteristic to God’s design for women. Biblical femininity is rooted in what God has created a woman to be through biological composition and inward spirit, not in our culture’s present view of femininity as being personality-driven. Modern culture associates femininity with being a shopaholic, a flirt, disinterested in sports, preoccupied by high heels and makeup, or loving interior design and baking – but nowhere in the bible are women’s personalities, interests, or hobbies indicative of femininity. Femininity isn’t about personality: a woman can love sports, hunting, fishing, and cars, and be just as feminine as the woman who loves interior design, shopping, and shoes. Both personalities can fall within femininity. But regardless of a woman’s personality, interests, or hobbies, she is biologically composed a certain way, is designed to live a certain way, and ought to embrace a ‘womanly’ way of living in which her personality and her pursuit of interests and hobbies finds its home.
We must note that three out of these five ‘characteristics’ of biblical femininity deal with women in the context of wifery and motherhood. In our current day and age, when singleness is praised, marriage is often treated as archaic and outdated, and children are treated as a burden, it can come across to many as offensive that the bulk of biblical femininity as presented in scriptures is focused on homemaking. This is a peculiarity of our times and betrays an ignorance of what God expects of His people. We mustn’t forget that one of God’s greatest desires for His people is that they build families. He said it is not good for man to be alone, created a helper suitable to him, and commanded them to fill the earth. This mandate hasn’t been rejected in the 21st century: godliness involves conforming to God’s expectations for us, and in the vast majority of cases, that involves getting married, bearing children, and raising them in the Lord. As the prophet Malachi puts it in Malachi 2.15, ‘Didn’t the Lord make you one with your wife? In body and spirit you are his. And what does he want? Godly children from your union.’ God’s intention for men and women to get married and build godly households is inescapable, and so a good portion of femininity – and masculinity, as well! – is oriented around fulfilling this mission.
Before examining biblical femininity, we must reject a modern error that views women as intrinsically angelic. The advance of feminism in the western world has led to the idea that men are inherently devilish whereas women are inherently angelic (in the ancient world, ironically, the emphases were flipped). It’s taboo to speak of women in a bad light, at least if you are a man: a woman can call another woman a gossip or a slut, but for a man to do so is abhorrent. Both sexes can speak damningly of men, however; such is our cultural atmosphere. The idea is that women belong in a class all to themselves, far exalted above their sexual counterparts, and they have become the Judge and Jury of all gender affairs. The reality is that neither women nor men are intrinsically devilish or angelic; both men and women are corrupted by sin, and sin manifests itself in all sorts of ways – but it is a good thing to be a woman so long as that’s who God created you to be (and it’s unfortunate that we must note that you can tell what sex God intended you to be by looking at your genitals; it’s not something you need to guess at or feel your way towards).
Women are to be Soft.
1 Peter 3:3-4 – Your adornment must not be merely external—braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses; but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God.
1 Peter 3.7 – Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.
Peter doesn’t say that women are weak; he says that wives are the ‘weaker partners’ in the marriage relationship between a man and a woman. Whereas masculine qualities are underscored by strength – manifested not only in physical prowess but also emotional resilience, masculine courage, determination, sacrifice, and hard labor – feminine qualities are underscored by something altogether different; from a masculine point-of-view (remember that Peter is writing here not to wives but to husbands), women are indeed the ‘weaker sex’ – but this doesn’t mean their attributes are defined by weakness. She is weaker only by comparison to the strength of a man’s masculinity, and the comparison Peter makes is shared by other writers of the ancient world. To say that the wife is weak isn’t to say that she is inferior (Peter makes it clear that wives are ‘co-heirs’ in eternal life) but that she is more tender and delicate (or, in other words, soft), and is thus to be treated with special kindness and attention. Peter isn’t saying that women are weaklings – it’s no easy task to bear, nurse, and raise children while keeping a home, after all – but that they are made of different stuff than men. Husbands are to recognize this and treat their wives in a special, understanding manner.
That men are to be hard and women are to be soft is reflected in our anatomies: whereas men get hard during intercourse, women are supple in their reception of the male organ. It’s also reflected in our personalities: by nature, women are more ‘emotional’ than men in that their emotions are more receptive to what’s going on around them. Look at the way men talk to other men and the way women talk to other women: men are known for being rough and rowdy, even apparently cruel, in the way they interact with their close friends, with the result being laughter and camaraderie; but if most women were to talk to and treat each other this way, there would be plenty of tears and ruined friendships (it’s an accurate saying that men tend to say cruel things they don’t mean while women tend to say nice things they don’t mean). The fact that men are to be hard and women are to be soft was known by all people for all of human history, except for the last five minutes or so. The natures of men and women are different, and godliness involves reclaiming and living-out the nature of your sex. For men to be soft is effeminacy, and Paul says that the effeminate will not inherit the kingdom of God; conversely, ‘hard women’ would also be barred from inheriting the kingdom of God. That statement chafes against modern sensibilities in which differences between the sexes are blurred to nothing in androgyny; it’s even become popular to promote men acting like women and women acting like men. Effeminate men and butch women are embracing lifestyles in rebellion against God’s design, and our culture praises it as enlightened living.
So what does a ‘soft woman’ look like? We know what a soft woman isn’t: our society has become inundated with women who are rejecting the softness of womanhood for a gray-like androgyny or butch hardness; such women are scorning their feminine nature to play-act as men, for whom hardness is natural. Proverbs 7.11 warns against ‘loud and stubborn’ women whose ‘feet do not stay at home’: the proverb isn’t saying that women have no business being outside the home but that there are ‘hard’ women who are known for their loudness and stubbornness and who can’t be trusted to manage a household. God’s desire is for women to get married, have kids, and manage a household, and this is something only a soft woman can do well. A hard woman will refuse to submit herself to her husband’s orbit, will refuse to sacrifice her independence and desires for the sake of her children, and will detest the strenuous labor and perceived imprisonment of homemaking. A soft woman is a feminine woman, and in 1 Peter 3.3-4 Peter says one of the hallmarks of a soft woman is that she has a ‘gentle and quiet spirit’; conversely, a brash and boisterous woman isn’t soft. Of course, women are to be bold, they are to speak their minds, and they can and should correct their husbands when they are wrong; but all this should come from the fountain of a gentle and quiet spirit, which Peter says is ‘precious in the sight of God.’ A woman does not have to be mousy, insecure, or shy to possess this imperishable quality, and in those cases she is operating out of brokenness as opposed to embracing biblical femininity. A woman can be bold, strong-willed, and full of life and laughter, all the while having a gentle and quiet spirit that is submissive to the Lord, submissive to her husband, and respectful and kind towards those around her.
Women are to be Beautiful.
1 Peter 3:3-4 – Your adornment must not be merely external—braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses; but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God.
1 Timothy 2.9-10 – I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, 10 but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.
Women are to be beautiful, and there are two errors women make in pursuing beauty. The first error is focusing only on external beauty, what Peter refers to as ‘braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses.’ This is the predominant error women make in our society, and it’s only heightened with the advent of Instagram and SnapChat. In a disconnected society, in which our personalities can’t be captured in an image, the biggest conveyor of beauty is what can be seen on a computer screen. The western world is experiencing a boom in attractive women who spend thousands of dollars a year on clothes and beautification products and who achieve their physical curves by extreme dieting, damaging amounts of exercise, and (when all else fails) eating disorders. While they may achieve their goals of attaining physical beauty, their obsession with outward beauty is done at the expense of their inward spirit – and many men who’ve won ‘trophy wives’ soon discover that living side-by-side with them is hell on earth. Outward beauty is fleeting, and eventually it’ll fade with age; it is also shallow, for while a husband may be happy taking a supermodel to bed, he may not be as joyful when eating breakfast, paying bills, or raising kids alongside her. True beauty – the kind that lasts and sustains a relationship – is inward beauty. I follow a Dads Group on Facebook, and I can’t tell you how many posts I see each week of men lamenting life with the woman they married because their wives are nagging, loud, boisterous, pig-headed, irresponsible with money, or resentful of raising children; more often than not, when you view the profiles of the men complaining, their wives would score in the 8s, 9s, or 10s in the ‘Beauty Ranking’ Scale. These are often women who have focused so much on their outward beauty that they’ve neglected cultivating the inward gentleness, submissiveness, and quietness of spirit that makes a woman truly beautiful. The Book of Proverbs is pretty stark when talking about women whose inward spirits are corrupt:
‘[A] quarrelsome wife is like the constant dripping of a leaky roof.’ – Proverbs 19.13
‘Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.’ – Proverbs 21.9
‘A wife of noble character is her husband’s crown, but a disgraceful wife is like decay in his bones.’ – Proverbs 12.4
While the author of Proverbs is debated, many believe it was King Solomon, the infamous wise son of King David. If this is true, then Solomon’s wisdom here is telling: Solomon is what we would today call a womanizer, and he found beautiful women intoxicatingly irresistible. He married as many of them as he could, and he lavished all sorts of gifts on them. His priority in choosing wives wasn’t ‘quietness of spirit’ but physical attractiveness, and he paid the price: if he is the writer of Proverbs, then these proverbs undoubtedly stem from personal experience. One can imagine Solomon putting up with his quarrelsome wife’s tirades and lamenting his disgraceful wife’s antics, but at least he got the last word by forever memorializing them in scripture. While he makes it clear that having a bad wife is little less than hell on earth, having a good wife – one with a ‘gentle and quiet spirit’ – is a true blessing:
‘He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord.’ – Proverbs 18.22
‘Houses and wealth are inherited from parents, but a prudent wife is from the Lord.’ – Proverbs 19.14
The second error is focusing only on internal beauty. God designed the woman’s physical form to be attractive to men, and we see this physical attraction praised in scripture. The lover in the Song of Solomon repeatedly extols his wife’s physical beauty, and scripture declares many women – such as Sarah, Bathsheba, Rachel, Esther, and Rebecca – to be physically beautiful. In Proverbs 31 we are given a description of a godly woman, and she is one who pursues physical beauty by making coverings for herself and wearing clothing of fine linen and purple. In 1 Peter 3, Peter doesn’t command women not to pursue physical beauty, but to not merely do so. There is nothing wrong with trying to be beautiful, with buying clothes that accent your best physical parts or wearing makeup when going out for a night on the town; what, then, do we make of 1 Timothy 2.9-10, in which Paul commands women to dress modestly and to adorn themselves not with nice clothes but with good works? Paul isn’t giving commands pertaining to everyday life but to conduct in the church gatherings; he’s telling Christian women that when they come to worship, their focus shouldn’t be on how they look but on how they’re living (their ‘good works’). Commentators speculate that women in the church were treating the gathering as a social club in which they sought to outdo each other in their physical beauty and elaborate clothing; Paul is saying, ‘Try to do outdo each other in good works, not in what you look like.’ He isn’t giving a blanket condemnation of wearing nice clothes or jewelry but emphasizing how a woman’s priority shouldn’t be on external beauty but on internal beauty.
Again: this isn’t to say that physical beauty is to be treated with contempt. It isn’t spiritual to be ugly; indeed, it is actually sinful to refuse to embrace your physical beauty: for a woman to shave her head, purposefully gain exorbitant amounts of weight, or to shun any and all forms of beautifying is to act like a man. A soft woman cares about her physical appearance, for God has created her to do so. God designed men’s primary sexual attraction to women to be physical, whereas He designed women’s primary sexual attraction to men to be more about their personalities and leadership; men are designed to want women who can birth babies and raise them, and women are designed to want men who can establish and lead a household. For a woman to reject all forms of beauty, to put no effort into being beautiful, is a rejection of femininity. Men who strive to be beautiful by being immaculately dressed, shredded of all body fat, and built like marble statues of Greek gods are condemned as effeminate not because beautification is wrong but because it is wrong for a man to do. It’s considered effeminate because it is a feminine pursuit; for women to pursue beauty in a godly manner isn’t sinful but a form of obedience to whom God has created them to be. Physical beauty is an intrinsic part of womanhood, and to neglect it is to drift towards hardness.
Women are to Respectfully Submit to their Own Husbands.
1 Timothy 5.14 – ‘So I counsel younger widows to marry, to have children, to manage their homes and to give the enemy no opportunity for slander.’
Colossians 3.18-19 – ‘Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.’
Titus 2.3-5 – ‘Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, 4 and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.’
1 Peter 3.1-6 – ‘Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.’
Ephesians 5.21-33 – ‘Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.’
In 1 Timothy 5.14, Paul counsels younger widows – whom we could ‘reinterpret’ as any single woman of marriageable and fruitful age – to do three things: to get married, to have children, and to manage their homes. Doing this, he says, will give the enemy no opportunity for slander against the church. In addressing biblical femininity, these three callings or ‘feminine commissions’ cannot be sidelined. They are integral to what it means to be a woman; they are hardwired into women physiologically and psychologically; they are a key component of what women are designed for. We will begin with the first counsel: to get married. Except for extreme circumstances – such as violent persecution or a call to celibacy – women should seek marriage and the building of a home. In the Bible, wives are called to a particular relationship with their husbands. They are called to ‘respectful submission.’
In Colossians 3 Paul commands wives to submit to their husbands, a practice ‘fitting’ for women who belong to Christ; and husbands are to ‘love’ their wives and be gentle with them. In Titus 2 Paul instructs older women to train younger women to ‘love’ their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, so that the word of God may not be despised. 1 Peter 3 says wives should ‘be subject’ to their husbands. Peter appeals to ‘holy women’ of the Old Testament, who adorned themselves with the ‘beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit.’ He specifically appeals to Sarah, who ‘obeyed’ Abraham and called him ‘lord.’ Peter is citing Genesis 18.12, where Sarah referred to Abraham as ‘my lord.’ Of course, Sarah didn’t use the word ‘lord’ in the same way as it is used as a title for God; she used it as a respectful title of authority for her husband. The point is that she acknowledged her husband’s authority over her. While wives are to submit to their husbands, husbands are to ‘honor’ their wives and live with them in an understanding way; Peter warns that God may not listen to prayers from men who dishonor their wives. In Ephesians 5, Paul writes that God has placed the husband as the ‘head’ of his wife, in the same way that Christ is the ‘head’ of the church. For this reason, wives are to submit to their husbands in the same way that the church submits to Christ. The language of ‘head’ is picked up in 1 Corinthians 11.2-16, where Paul mentions male headship, writing that ‘the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife [woman] is her husband [man], and the head of Christ is God’ (11.3). Paul uses the word ‘head’ (Greek kephale) three times to describe three different authorities – Christ is the head of every man, man is the head of woman, and God is the head of Christ. Paul even says that woman is the glory of man. This likely means that woman was made to glorify man, to bring him honor as the one in authority over her. The glory of a thing points to or manifests its dignity, honor, or station; thus a woman is the glory of her husband as she stands in a proper relation to him, thereby manifesting his station, and she does this as she obediently submits to his authority. In the same way, man is the glory of God as he stands in proper relation to God, manifesting God’s dignity, honor, and station as Sovereign Creator by submitting obediently to His authority.
What does it mean that a wife is to submit to her husband? The Greek word for ‘submit’ is hupotassetai, and it means ‘to become subject, to subject oneself, to obey’. Men have covenantal authority over their wives: when a man and a woman get married, they enter into a divinely-wrought covenant, and in that covenant the husband has authority from God. Of course, authority comes with responsibility, and so husbands are responsible for protecting and providing for their wives, both in the physical and spiritual realms, and for loving them as they need to be loved. Some people mistakenly believe that a husband’s authority simply means that he has the tie-breaking vote in disputes, but this is an anemic view of authority: no one would say that God’s authority only entails a tie-breaking authority over our requests or that a parent’s authority involves children having a near-equal say to the parent. Authority means that one party has power over and leads the other party. A husband is in authority over his wife, and he’s tasked with leading his wife. Some people mistakenly believe that this is just ‘servant leadership’ in which the husband dotes on his wife, acquiesces to her every desire, and seeks to give her the life she always wanted at the expense of his own wants and desires. While authority certainly involves service to those under your authority, and while a husband is commanded to listen to his wife and love her and honor her, a husband and his wife are not equal when it comes to who has authority in the marriage covenant. There is only one covenant head, and that is the husband. He’s the one in charge; he’s the boss; he’s the ‘king of the castle,’ and he’s been given authority to determine what his household will look like and how it will operate. His wife’s duty is to help him in this (we’ll touch on that more shortly) and to submit to his commands in respectful obedience. If she doesn’t like the choices he makes, she’s still required to submit to them, so long as they are not violating God’s laws (the husband, it must be said, does not have absolute authority; only God has this kind of authority); this is one of the many reasons it’s important for a woman to marry a man who loves God and pursues holiness. Many women marry bad men for the wrong reasons, and they end up in marriages where they are required to submit to their husbands’ poor decisions. But even if a husband is making poor decisions, his wife is required to submit to him so long as those decisions don’t violate God’s law.
Our culture hates scripture’s teaching on marriage, especially when it pertains to the husband’s authority over his wife and her duty to respectfully submit to him. The submission Paul talks about isn’t verbal acquiescence but a submission of the entire person to the husband’s rule; he is the house-ruler, and the wife is to obey him. This sounds like hell on earth to many women, and for many women it is precisely that, because they’ve chosen to marry men who make poor husbands and poor fathers. The bible doesn’t say that this submission will be easy or pleasant, only that it is the right thing to do; however, when a husband is striving to be a biblical husband and father, submission is much easier than it would be otherwise. A husband’s loving leadership should make his wife’s submission a joy, just as a wife’s respectful submission should make her husband’s leadership a joy. Ultimately, a household where a husband loves his wife, protects and provides for his family, where a wife respectfully submits to her godly husband, and where children submit to their godly parents, is a healthy and effective household that brings praise and glory to God. No family is perfect, and husbands and wives and children all struggle at times to perform the roles assigned to them, but this is the best way for a family to operate. In our society, however, nuclear families are decried as backwater patriarchy; husbands and wives are seen not as members of a godly covenant but as two signers on a contract with plenty of get-out-cheap clauses; and children are viewed as a burden to be expunged as soon as they turn eighteen. Only until the last few decades or so, students of the bible saw the New Testament’s teaching regarding a husband’s authority for what it is, but as egalitarianism and feminism have swept through the western world, some have sought to water down the New Testament teaching so as to make it more palatable for citizens of an ‘enlightened’ age. Because of this, two popular objections have been raised against a husband’s authority over his wife. We will dispel them quickly.
Objection #1: ‘Mutual Submission.’ In Ephesians 5.21, Paul commands the Christians to ‘submit to one another.’ Some argue that this means that husbands also have to submit to their wives, but approaching this objection by the context of the passage and by logic dispels it quickly. In context, this is absolutely not what Paul is saying. In Ephesians 5.18, Paul commands Christians to be filled with the Holy Spirit. This main verb ‘be filled’ is then modified by three sets of principles that show what it looks like to be filled with God’s Spirit: addressing one another in song and singing and making melody, giving thanks to God, and submitting to one another. Paul only elaborates on the third and final participle, showing us exactly what he means by ‘submitting to one another.’ He gives three examples of what submitting to one another looks like: it looks like wives submitting to their husbands, children submitting to their parents, and slaves submitting to their masters. By giving these examples, Paul shows that what he means by ‘submitting to one another’ isn’t ‘each person must submit to every other person’ but ‘each person must submit to those in authority over them.’ Husbands have authority over their wives; parents have authority over their children; and masters have authority over their slaves. Contextually, Paul isn’t telling every Christian to submit to every other Christian; rather, he’s saying all Christians must submit to those who are in authority over them. Elsewhere Paul makes it clear that men, too, are under authority – under the authority of God, the elders of the church, and the civil government. This argument also breaks down when applied with consistent logic: those who insist that Paul means ‘everyone should submit to everyone else,’ and then say that therefore husbands must submit to their wives in mutual submission, are also forced to say (though they never do) that parents must submit to their children and masters must submit to their slaves. This is absurd. God designed the world in such a way that hierarchy exists, and we are commanded to submit to those in authority over us: slaves to masters, children to parents, wives to husbands, men to church elders and civil authorities, and all people to God. We aren’t to submit to those who have no authority over us (and so it must be stated that a wife is not to submit to every woman’s husband, only to her own; her brother-in-law has no authority over her).
Objection #2: Cultural Acquiescence. This argument acknowledges that Paul commanded wives to submit to husbands, but it insists that Paul was constrained by his ancient culture and that, if he were alive today, he wouldn’t dare say such a thing. Some people believe that Paul’s ideas of male headship and a wife’s submission to her husband were rooted in Greco-Roman culture, but the scripture bases his commands not on culture but on two things: the model of Christ and the church, and the created order. In the first instance, in Ephesians 5 he models the husband’s authority on Christ’s authority over the church; if we insist that Paul was working simply from preconceived notions due to an antiquated culture, then we would have to accept that the same holds true with his understanding of Christ’s position towards the church – are we really prepared to argue that Christ does not have authority over the church? In the second instance, if Paul’s commands are rooted in the created order (how God designed things to work), then what culture does or does not say is irrelevant. In 1 Corinthians 11 and 1 Timothy 2, Paul bases his commands towards men and women on the created order; this, not culture, is the basis for what he writes, and it holds true no matter what culture thinks. A husband’s authority over his wife is rooted in how God created the world to function, and to jettison it in the name of cultural enlightenment is just a fancy way of rebelling against God.
Now we get to the crux of the matter: if wives are to submit to their husband’s authority (and they are), then what does that look like in practice? In acknowledging a husband’s authority over the household, we must note the breadth of that authority; it isn’t absolute authority (only God has that), and there are confines to the extent to which the husband calls the shots. Yes, the husband has the right to determine his family’s style of living, what money is spent on, what kinds of food are prepared at the dinner table, even what kind of clothes are worn; he is tasked with determining and enforcing the household rules that govern the family and to oversee the children’s education; as the head of the household, he is responsible for his family’s spiritual well-being, which involves not only raising the kids in the Lord but disciplining them when they sin. In all this the husband is to be the family’s leader, not the family’s pusher: leaders are involved in the day-to-day operations of the households, are more than willing to soil their hands with dish-washing and dirty diapers, and are on an entirely different level than the pushers who lie back in the recliner with a beer while overseeing his family’s activities. As the head of household, the husband is tasked not only with leading his family but is also responsible for his family: as the head of his wife and children, he will answer to God for their conduct. Though it was Eve who sinned first, it was Adam whom God held responsible for the eating of the apple; in the same way, a wife’s sin is her own, but it is her husband’s sin as well. It is no light thing to be the head of a household.
A husband’s authority is granted by God, but it doesn’t trump God’s authority; in this vein, a wife is not commanded to submit to a husband’s sinful commands. A husband has no right to require his wife to commit an act of dishonesty, to connive at wrong-doing, or to interfere with her religious devotions. He has no right to forbid her to go to church or from exercising religious influence over the children. A wife is bound to obey her husband, but she is even more bound to obey God rather than any man; when a husband interferes in such cases, and attempts to control her, he steps beyond his proper bounds, invades the sphere of God’s authority, and his authority ceases to be binding. Given this, it should be noted that wives are required to obey their husbands only in those cases where his commands don’t overstep God’s laws; if a wife feels that her husband is giving her a command that transgresses God’s law, she should do a few things before insisting on disobeying: first, she should reexamine the matter, pray over it, and see whether she cannot, with a good conscience, comply with his wishes; second, if she’s convinced she’s in the right, she should still strive to kindly and respectfully win him over to her way of thinking, and if she differs with him, she should do so with a ‘gentle and quiet spirit’ absent reproach and contention; and third, if she is convinced by scripture and faith to disobey her husband, she should do so not arrogantly or contentiously but kindly and gently, putting even more effort into making her husband and family happy. She should show that even in her disobedience to an unlawful command, she continues to respect her husband and obey him so long as he operates within the sphere of his God-given authority. As for the husband, his commands to his wife should be reasonable and proper, and they are to come from a heart of love, gentleness, understanding, and compassion; a husband who is dictatorial, tyrannical, embittered, callous, arrogant and mean is not the sort of husband who makes a good leader, and living with such a man is worse than being homeless. A husband’s leadership and authority is to be exercised from a heart that loves God, that loves his wife, that loves his children, and which wants the best for them spiritually, physically, and economically; when a husband begins giving commands outside these parameters, it is usually a signal of departing or departed affection and peace. When a husband loves his wife well, and when a wife respectfully submits to her husband well, there will exist such mutual love and trust that the husband’s wishes will be known to the wife, and the wife’s desires will be known to the husband.
A husband has authority in his home: as the ‘king of the castle,’ he’s the ultimate authority in deciding how the home operates. If he so desires, he can dictate the type of clothing that is worn, the food that is prepared, the style of furniture, the cars that are driven and the number of cars purchased. These decisions are within his sphere of authority, and his wife is commanded to obey. In Titus 2 wives are commanded to ‘keep the home,’ and they are to do so in subjection to their husbands’ authority; thus, wives are tasked with keeping the home within the framework of her husband's authority (though, as we shall see, this doesn't mean the wife has no authority herself). The extent to which a husband determines how his household will operate is up to him; while some husbands may be particular, others are much more laid-back, in the sense that they have wide margins in which the household is to operate. The latter isn’t an abdication of authority but a variance in the practice of authority; an abdication of authority would be him giving all the authority to the wife and letting her call the shots, regardless of his desires. Telling a wife she can do what she wants when presented with options isn’t refusing to exercise authority, unless the husband really does have a certain desire he wants to see fulfilled. Tyrannical or micromanaging leadership is, however, an abdication of authority: as we will see, a woman really does have authority in the home (and even over her own husband in some ways), and a husband who refuses to allow her that authority does so at his own peril and at the expense of a well-oiled home. In practice most husbands acknowledge their wives’ ‘sphere of authority’ in which they operate under his authority; for instance, many husbands will grant their wives subordinate authority to determine how the kitchen operates, what meals are made, how cleaning takes place, etc. In these instances, wives will ‘call the shots’ but they will do so under their husband’s delegated authority, and if he decides things will operate differently, that is his choice, and his wife is commanded to obey. Even if a wife’s husband isn’t a Christian, she is required to submit to him; - 1 Peter 3.1-2 says, ‘Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.’ The idea is that a wife’s submission to her husband, coupled with a ‘gentle and quiet spirit’ engaged in living-out the biblical commission of raising children and keeping a home, might persuade her husband to repent and turn to God.
Submission doesn’t come easy. All of us are sinners in need of redemption. A husband’s sinfulness often shows itself in an abdication of authority, whether that’s by being a tyrannical ruler or not ruling at all. A wife’s sinfulness often shows up in a refusal to submit or in being disrespectful towards her husband. Just as husbands are commanded to love their wives as they lead them, so wives are commanded to be respectful towards their husbands as they submit to his leadership. A begrudging submission isn’t praiseworthy just as high-handed ruler-ship isn’t glorious. Paul says exactly this in Ephesians 5.33: ‘Let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.’ Respect is defined as brotherly kindness, charity, courtesy, honor, and deference; it is something to be fleshed-out in day-to-day living. Respect is seen in how a wife talks to her husband: does she honor him with her words? does she speak in kindness? does she show deference to his station in the family covenant? Respect is seen when a wife is considerate of her husband’s needs, and it’s seen when she doesn’t treat him as if he were just another one of the kids. Respect is showed when a wife thanks her husband for his provision, how he provides spiritually and physically, how he’s faithful to her and their children, how he’s kind to her and her parents. Different husbands have different styles of leadership, and one’s provision may not look like another’s, but wives need to be aware of how their husbands provide and show gratitude for that provision. Husbands needs respect like women need love; it is the fuel in the their engines, and the place they need it most is in their homes.
The Book of Proverbs reveals the power that a wife has over her husband. This power is real, for a wife will either be a crown on her husband’s head, bringing him glory and praise, or a cancer in his bones that rots his will to live; Proverbs 12.4 reads, ‘A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband: but she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones.’ Proverbs 14.1 warns, ‘Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands.’ A virtuous or wise woman pours her energies into her God-given calling, and by doing so she builds her house. A man may be the head of the house, but the Bible portrays the ‘building’ of the house as largely dependent upon the character of the wife. A good wife will result in a strong home; a bad wife will tear the home down with her own hands. While all wives have sin in their lives, there are some sins that demolish the household: adultery, indiscretion, failure to respect husbands, and failure to engage in the hard work of home-building all result in dismantled homes. The writer of Proverbs compiled the book as a series of lessons written to his son, and the writer spares no expense in warning him against the type of women who will make a bad wife, the sort of woman who will tear down her own home rather than build it up. Here are just a few such proverbs fired point-blank:
The Teacher warns his son against loud, ignorant, and self-indulgent women: Proverbs 9.13 says, ‘A foolish woman is clamorous: she is simple, and knoweth nothing.’ He warns against beautiful women who are indiscrete: Proverbs 11.22 reads, ‘As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion.’ This proverb gives us the picture of a rutting pig with a jewel in its nose: this, the Teacher says, is what a beautiful woman who lacks discretion is like. The indiscretions of this woman may be bad-mouthing her husband to others, airing her dirty laundry publicly, and showing disrespect towards her husband. A series of proverbs warns against spiteful, combative, angry wives. Proverbs 21.9 reads, ‘It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman in a wide house.’ It is better to live in the garage than to live in the house with a combative wife. Proverbs 21.19 reads, ‘It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and an angry woman.’ Forget the garage; it’s better to be homeless than to live with a contentious, angry woman! Proverbs 27.15-16 reads, ‘A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike. Whosoever hideth her hideth the wind, and the ointment of his right hand, which bewrayeth itself.’ A contentious woman is like a continual dripping on a rainy day, and ‘hiding her’ is like hiding the wind: though a man may try to hide the fact that his wife is contentious, it is plainly obvious to everyone, just as wind is plainly obvious by the effects it has on everything around it. The saddest part about this proverb is that being married to a contentious wife is a betrayal by your most intimate counterpart, the ointment of your right hand. In these verses, the Teacher is talking about a specific sort of woman; this isn’t a woman who occasionally loses her temper or who is sometimes stressed to the breaking point and says things she doesn’t mean. You would be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn’t sometimes lose their temper (as James says, no one can fully bridle the tongue). The Teacher is addressing a woman for whom contention is a way of life, and sadly this is a common reality in our day just as it was in the ancient world. The Teacher’s talking about a woman who is always critical, always argumentative, and never pleased with her husband; this is a wife whose husband is always coming up a little short. Life with such a woman turns the sacred places of the home – the dinner table, the marriage bed, the living room – into bastions of misery. This sort of woman can’t control her tongue or temper, is always harping, and she becomes her husband’s torment and her own shame. This sort of wife will destroy her own home.
So we see that the Bible is clear: a wife has incredible power over her husband, over her children, and over her home. A bad wife is a curse to her husband and to her home; as Charles Bridges said, ‘Many are the miseries of a man’s life, but none like that which cometh from the stay of his life. There’s no lawful escape; at least with a foolish son, you can kick him out of the house, but a wife must be endured. It is a domestic calamity.’ Not all wives are this way, however: Proverbs 21.4 says that a virtuous wife is a crown on her husband’s head, and Proverbs 31.10 says, ‘Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.’ These sort of women are rare – hence the question, ‘Who can find one?’ and the statement that her price is above the rarest of rubies – but such wives will build a house rather than tear it down, will be a help and a joy and life-giving strength to their husbands rather than a dredge and misery. The wife sets the tone for the home, and a respectful wife is good not only for the building of the home but for the goodness of her husband and children. This is why Paul calls women to be respectful; he was familiar with the Book of Proverbs, he knows that men need respect like women need love, and he knows this is the way God designed marriage to operate: husbands are to love their wives and wives are to respect their husbands. This isn’t, of course, something that comes naturally; it must be learned and practiced, but as the years go on, a good husband will learn how to love and lead his wife well, and a good wife will learn how to respect and submit to her husband well. The importance of a husband loving his wife and a wife respecting her husband cannot be overstated; in our culture, where divorce is so easy, most marriages fall apart not because of adultery or domestic abuse but because of a lack of love and respect. The husband wants to leave his wife because, he says, ‘She doesn’t respect me anymore.’ The wife wants to leave her husband because, she says, ‘He doesn’t love me anymore.’ Half of marriage is learning how to show love and respect to your counterpart in the ways they receive it, and to ignore this is to imperil a marriage. It is difficult for a man to love a disrespectful wife, just as it is difficult for a wife to respect an unloving husband; but in all cases, the husband is called to love his wife even when she is disrespectful, and the wife is called to respect her husband even when he is unloving. It’s a psychological quirk that a husband will be more able to love his wife in proportion to her respectful submission, and a wife will be more able to respect her husband in proportion to his loving leadership.
All this language of authority, submission, respect, and obedience may make it sound like the husband and wife are on completely different levels. While it is true that the wife doesn’t hold the same authority as her husband, we must not think that the biblical mandate is for the wife to be a doormat for the whims and fancies of her husband. In Ephesians 5 Paul says that the marriage covenant between a man and a woman is to present a picture of the covenant between Christ and the church. This covenant is based on love, and while Christ exercises authority, He does so with grace, mercy, forgiveness, and sacrifice. The husband isn’t to ‘lord it’ over his wife; he isn’t to be tyrannical or debasing. The wife isn’t a mere peon who lives and breathes at her husband’s discretion; rather, she is to be loved and nurtured by her husband. The husband is tasked with nurturing his wife and washing her in the Word of God; he’s in charge of her spiritual growth and development, just as Christ nurtures and washes his church in His Word. The relationship between an authoritative husband and a submissive wife should be marked with love, honor, respect, understanding, and compassion; and the loving authority of the husband and the respectful submission of the wife is to be oriented in a particular direction. Let us not forget why women were created in the first place: not to be objects orbiting their husbands or doormats upon which husbands can rest their feet but as helpers. In Genesis 2:18 God creates woman to be a helper for man because man, on his own, is incapable of accomplishing his mission. The Hebrew word for ‘helper,’ ezer, comes from two root words: one means ‘strength’ and the other means ‘rescue,’ and when put together, the meaning is ‘strong rescuer’ or ‘life-giving strength.’ The Bible uses this word twenty-one times and always in the context of rescue or support. The wife is to be her husband’s helper, his ‘life-giving strength’ and ‘strong rescuer,’ oriented towards his mission. What mission is man tasked with performing that he is unable to perform without a wife? Simply put, men are tasked with building godly households, and this is literally impossible without a wife to bear your children, raise them, and to keep the home. A man needs a wife in order to procreate; he needs a wife, and the womanly strength she brings, to help raise his children, to keep the home, and to complete the godly household. A man is hard-pressed to build a godly household without a godly wife, and a godly wife is hard-pressed to raise godly children without a godly husband. The ultimate mission of marriage is to engage in the mission of building godly households, and the wife is an integral part of that. His loving authority and her respectful submission is oriented towards the successful fulfilling of this divinely-ordained mission. Two aspects of this mission in which women take center-stage – bearing children and keeping a home – will fill out the rest of this examination of biblical femininity.
Women are to Bear Children.
1 Timothy 5.14 – ‘So I counsel younger widows to marry, to have children, to manage their homes and to give the enemy no opportunity for slander.’
Malachi 2:15 – ‘Didn’t the Lord make you one with your wife? In body and spirit you are his. And what does he want? Godly children from your union.’
Psalm 127.3-5 – ‘Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.’
1 Timothy 2.9-15 – ‘I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God. A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.’
Bearing children is integral to what it means to be a woman. We see this in the fact that women are nurturers by nature; their psychology lends itself towards bearing and raising children. Women are in general more compassionate, empathetic, understanding, and patient than men, all characteristics needed for raising children. We see this design in women’s physical composition: ovaries to store eggs, a uterus to incubate a fetus, and breasts to nurture newborns (not to mention a higher pain tolerance, for children can often be a pain in the ass). A woman’s physiological and psychological composition is that which breeds and nurtures life. Our secular society hates this fact, and secularists debase themselves in an attempt to wriggle free of what science shows them to be plainly obvious. At women’s marches signs proclaiming ‘Hands off My Ovaries’ promote the murder of unborn children and showcase a hatred of the womb’s fruitfulness, and the exposing of breasts strives to highlight their sensual nature over their biological function (it’s awful to expose the curve of your breast while breastfeeding, but it’s exemplary to bare your breasts as sexual enticements). It’s no surprise that modern feminists are some of the staunchest supporters of transgenderism and the confusion over genders, for if we’re able to separate gender and identity from biological composition, we thereby weaken the biological truths by which secularists feel constrained. Nonetheless, a woman’s physical and psychological composition testifies to the fact that women are designed not only for having babies but raising them, too.
We won’t belabor the point, already mentioned, that a woman’s nature is geared towards bearing and raising children for the purpose of building a household and advancing the kingdom of God. We will emphasize, however, that a woman’s role in the advance of the kingdom cannot be overstated. The kingdom of God is advancing throughout the globe, and its victory over the nations is prophesied and assured. So many of us mistakenly believe that the kingdom’s subjection of the nations happens through civil politics, so that we believe that the kingdom can only advance if we have Christian congressmen, Christian senators, Christian judges, and Christian Presidents. While there’s nothing wrong with pursuing that aim – and while God’s Word implies that, in due time, Christians will populate most government seats across the world – we are mistaking the methodology for the outcome. The outcome of the kingdom’s advance is that the civil governments will submit themselves to Jesus’ lordship; the methodology is the changing of hearts and minds as people repent of their sins and submit themselves to Jesus – and the place where this happens the most isn’t in Sunday morning church services but in Christian households. The household is the seat of government: as the household goes, so goes culture; as the culture goes, so goes government. The advance of God’s kingdom primarily happens in the home as godly parents raise godly children in the Lord, and these godly children get married and raise their kids in the Lord. The truth of this is seen in simple mathematics: if a husband and wife have four kids and raise them in the Lord, and these four kids have four kids of their own and raise them in the Lord, and so on and so forth, within 150 years that single godly husband and wife will have set off a chain-reaction resulting in 500,000 God-fearing servants of Christ. That is a vast voting bloc, especially in contrast to the birthrates of those who deny their femininity and loathe children. Ironically, our greatest hope for a ‘Christian Nation’ and for victory in the so-called ‘Culture War’ isn’t so much by getting our choice picks in prime government seats but in simply being patient and breeding like rabbits. In the course of events, within a few hundred years, God-fearing Christians will vastly outnumber those who’ve swallowed the secular Kool-aid. As an aside, secularists are aware of this fact, and it terrifies them; when suppression of the Christian faith comes (and it very well might), that suppression won’t be driven so much by ideology as it will be driven by the fear of losing power. All this just goes to show that bearing children and raising them in the Lord is the best way for Christians to promote the advance of God’s kingdom; and even if this weren’t the case, the fact remains that it is God’s desire, regardless of the outcome, for Christian parents to have a lot of kids and raise them in the Lord. As the prophet Malachi says, one of the key reasons for a man and woman to get married is to bear and raise godly children; and as the psalmist says, children aren’t a curse but a blessing, a reward from the Lord.
Christian women must embrace all that comes with raising children, especially when it contrasts with what culture tells us. Take, for example, the fact that sagging skin, deflated breasts, and stretch marks are viewed as deformities and blemishes. Beauty industries make a killing by promoting products that hide these so-called blemishes. It used to be that these physical signs of childbearing were viewed as marks of honor; our culture’s detestation of children and fruitfulness has turned them into marks of shame. A woman who bears lots of children doesn’t look like a supermodel; she doesn’t look like a teenager. She looks like a woman. A godly, fruitful woman. Christian women must constantly renew their minds and remember that these marks of honor are the true appearance of beauty. Society praises barren, airbrushed cover-girls and in its depravity fails to see that it’s showcasing its own shame.
One of the purposes of bearing and raising children is a woman’s sanctification. Just as there is no show-acting in marriage – for the husband will know his wife intimately, and the wife will know her husband intimately, and they will know each other’s greatest flaws, greatest sins, greatest inadequacies and deficiencies – so there is no show-acting between a mother and her children. Children expose the wickedness in a mother’s heart and reveal how badly she needs a redeemer. A mother is constantly faced with having to die to the flesh. She’ll remind her daughter to ‘do all things without complaining or arguing’ and with a cheerful heart and be convicted at how often she fails at doing precisely that. Children expose our truest and deepest emotions, and God designed it that way. This is a good thing. There is no show in the home; you can’t pretend you’re something you’re not because the children see you at your lowest and highest points. They see you when you’re angry, when you’re frustrated, when you’re exhausted and stressed and at the end of your rope. They see how you respond to frustrations and unfortunate circumstances. They see you lose your temper, they hear you say things you regret – and, hopefully, they see your repentance. Katherine Anne Porter said, ‘Children are the merciless revealer, the great white searchlight turned on the darkest places of the mother’s heart.’ They are one of God’s greatest tools for sanctification, part of the refining fire by which God works in our hearts to conform us to the image of His Son. Just as parents are to discipline their children and raise them in the Lord, so children are a tool in the hand of God to discipline us and promote our own growth in holiness.
Children are bred by conjugal relations, and so in at least one sense a woman has a right over her husband’s body and her husband’s seed. In 1 Corinthians 7.1, we learn that some Christians in Corinth were saying that it was virtuous for a man not have sexual relations with a woman. Paul counteracts this by writing in verses 2-4, ‘But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.’ In this passage we learn that a husband has the right to her wife’s body, and the wife shouldn’t reject her husband’s sexual desires for her. Many husbands stop reading the text here, perhaps believing that the wife’s body becomes his property and that he, in essence, owns his wife. This isn’t, of course, what Paul is saying, for he then says that a wife has authority over her husband’s body, and likewise the husband ought not deprive his wife of his body. While Paul is addressing the intimacy of sexual relations, particularly as it acts as a bulwark against sexual sin, his words cannot be divorced from what he writes elsewhere, and so we conclude that it is wrong for a husband to deny his wife access to his seed; it’s wrong for him to refuse to let her bear his children. A man who does this isn’t only treating his wife poorly, he’s also depriving her of a key aspect of what it means to be a woman. He’s putting a roadblock in her sanctification and godly living. This line of thinking is in line with what we find with a character called Onan in Genesis 38: after Onan’s brother Er was slain by God for his wickedness, Onan’s father Judah told him to fulfill his duty to his dead brother by entering into a levirate marriage with his brother’s widow Tamar to give her offspring. A levirate marriage was a means by which a widow was prevented from economic hardship: by being taken in by her brother-in-law and having offspring by him, she was prevented from being destitute. The first son born to Tamar by her and Onan’s union would be considered the son of the late Er, and as such he would claim the firstborn’s double share of Judah’s inheritance. If, however, Onan and Tamar had no children, or had only daughters, Er would remain absent an heir, and the firstborn’s double share of inheritance would go to Onan as Judah’s eldest surviving son. When Onan had sex with Tamar, he withdrew before orgasm and ‘spilled his seed on the ground,’ thereby ensuring that no child would be born and that he could receive the double inheritance from his father Judah. Onan’s actions were decreed ‘evil’ in the sight of God, and God called him for it. Scholars have wrestled over what it was, exactly, that Onan did which was evil: was it merely the fact that he ‘spilled his seed,’ thus implying that the pull-out method is wicked? was it the fact that Onan dealt treacherously with Tamar and betrayed his brother by his actions? or was it the fact that by his actions he was consigning Tamar to a life without children? I find the third interpretation the most likely, given what we know of God’s design for women and the scriptures’ exhortation for women to bear and raise children. Motherhood is foundational to godly womanhood, and a man who prevents his wife from fulfilling that role is not only dealing treacherously with his wife but is also in rebellion against God.
We have seen that a woman is psychologically and biologically designed for bearing and raising children; we’ve seen how this is intimately connected to the advance of God’s kingdom and to the sanctification of the mother; we’ve seen how it’s God’s desire for Christian men and women to get married and have kids; and we’ve seen how a husband depriving his wife of fruitfulness is acting wickedly. We now come to a mind-boggling text in 1 Timothy 2, where Paul says that ‘women will be saved by childbearing.’ Though his statement has puzzled bible readers for centuries, his meaning is quite clear, and it brings us back around to what it means to be a woman and what it means to be a Christian. In this passage, Paul is using ‘childbearing’ as a synecdoche, a part representing the whole; childbearing is part of godly, womanly behavior, and here it represents biblical femininity as a whole. Women aren’t to ‘teach or exercise authority over a man’ but are to instead ‘remain quiet’ and fulfill their feminine role as exemplified by motherhood; the fact that Paul uses motherhood to exemplify femininity is yet another nail in the coffin of our culture’s hatred of motherhood: motherhood and femininity are inescapably paired by nature and the created order. Paul exhorts women to focus not on their outward beauty but on ‘good works,’ and childbearing is an elaboration upon that: the good works to which Paul calls godly women to focus is that which comprises their femininity. To put it in simpler terms, godly women must act like women. They must act and live as God designed them to live. Paul’s saying that living in accordance with God’s design is part of the process of salvation; he isn’t saying that women are justified – made right with God – by living as women but that they are sanctified – made holy – by doing so. Again: Paul isn’t saying that women must have children in order to be saved, nor is he saying that women are saved by good works apart from faith; he’s simply saying that Christian women must exhibit godly behavior as those who belong to Christ. Godliness isn’t androgynous: godliness for a woman looks different than godliness for a man. For a man to live as a woman is wicked effeminacy; for a woman to live like a man is wicked rebellion. A woman who has been saved by Christ has been forgiven of her sins, has been freed from the power of sin, and has been filled with the Holy Spirit; she is to strive to live as is fitting for a godly woman, and that involves pursuing marriage, having children, and (as we will see) managing her household well.
Women are to be ‘Keepers of the Home’.
1 Timothy 5.14 – ‘So I counsel younger widows to marry, to have children, to manage their homes and to give the enemy no opportunity for slander.’
Titus 2.3-5 – ‘Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, 4 and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.’
Here we want to pay particular attention to how women are commanded to ‘manage their homes.’ The Greek word used for this phrase in 1 Timothy 5 is oikodespotes, and it’s best translated ‘house despot’ and is used elsewhere in the New Testament to show the clear idea of a genuine and functioning authority. Six times in the Synoptic gospels it is translated ‘owner of the house’ (Matt 24.43; Mark 14.14; Luke 12.39, 13.25, 14.21, and 22.11), and three times it is translated ‘landowner’ (Matt 20.1, 11; 21.33). It’s also translated ‘master of the house’ (Matt 10.25), ‘householder’ (Matt 13.27), and ‘master of the household’ (Matt 13.52). The only time this word appears outside the gospels is in 1 Timothy 5.14. Oikodespotes is a term that confers leadership, status, and authority; the one holding such a title was to be respected and honored. At the same time, though authority is a key part of what’s wrapped up in this word, it wouldn’t be right to translate it as ‘ruler of the household’ in 1 Timothy, for earlier in 1 Timothy, Paul gives instructions to church overseers, saying that an overseer must ‘manage his own household well’ (1 Timothy 3.4); the word used here is proistamenon, which conveys a sense of rulership underscored by concern, care, and giving assistance. Though English bibles tend to translate both proistamenon and oikodespotes as ‘manage the household,’ Paul uses different words to underscore the differences. There is a difference in the way that husbands manage their homes and wives manage their homes, and both are called to perform their tasks with love and respect. For our purposes here, we must emphasize that a woman’s ‘managing of the home’ is not merely her responsibility to cook, clean, and change diapers. She isn’t a live-in maid but a key facet to the efficiency and productivity of the household, and her status is one that comes with authority and honor. In Titus 2, Paul exhorts older women to teach the younger women to be ‘working at home.’ The Greek here is oikourgous, and though it can be translated ‘keepers of the home,’ a better English rendition would be ‘guardians of the home.’ Again: her role isn’t simply to keep the home livable but to protect its efficiency and productivity, guarding it against entropy and disintegration.
While a wife is under her husband’s authority, that doesn’t mean she has no authority of her own. She has very real authority within the home, though this authority isn’t over her husband. If the husband is the ‘King of the Castle,’ then the wife is the ‘Queen of the Castle.’ In an ideal household, the husband will wisely give his wife the house as her domain; while he has the right to dictate every little thing, such dictatorial leadership is foolish and unwise; the word choices that Paul uses makes it clear that God’s desire is that a wife exercise real authority in the home. This is sensible: remember that a husband and wife are joined together in a mission to build a godly household, and the woman’s engineering – both physiological and psychological – is geared towards the nurturing of children and the keeping of the home. The wife isn’t a live-in maid or all-purpose drudge; God has given her authority in the home, and the godly husband is to respect that authority. This authority, as the pastor Douglas Wilson notes, ‘extends to issues great and small: The laundry goes here, shoes come off at the door, rinse the dishes before they go in the dishwasher.’ While the husband has the right to step in and say, ‘No, shoes go here, and we don’t rinse off our dishes,’ a husband who exercises his authority in such a domineering manner is missing the whole point of the family hierarchy: he isn’t the head of the household in order to be Chief Dictator, he is the head tasked with ensuring the efficiency and productivity of a godly household. God has given him a wife as a ‘strong rescuer’ and ‘life-giving strength,’ and as his partner in the mission she is to wield real authority over the operations in the home. A good husband will not get in the way of the wife exercising her God-given authority: if she wants the shoes by the front door, he should put his shoes by the front door and command the children to do the same; if she wants the dishes washed a certain way, he should wash them that way and command the children to do the same; if she wants the laundry in the hamper by the bed, then he should put his laundry in the hamper by the bed and command his children to do the same. A feminine woman will manage her home well: she will take care of the children, take care of the cleaning, take care of the clothing, and will set rules in place that the household follows to promote efficiency and productivity. This doesn’t mean, of course, that a Christian home is spotless, free of dust or clutter; ultimately, a clean home is a safe and functional home, and whether or not it would make it on the cover of Country Living Magazine is beyond the point. A woman’s guarding and managing of the home is to be done with the blessing of her husband’s authority, and the husband isn’t to ‘set himself apart’ in that he refuses to help where help is needed. A man who fears his masculinity washing off in dishwater must not have much masculinity at all, and a king who refuses to help with the upkeep of his castle is a poor king indeed.
