Soul... It's Easy (and other lies)

One of the most common inaccuracies I hear in marriage seminars is "men, it's easy for your wives to submit to you if you're doing a good job of loving her and leading your household". I want to jump up and yell, "No it's not! It's IMPOSSIBLE for anyone to fully submit constantly, just like it's impossible for anyone to selflessly love constantly!"

This inaccuracy is often presented to us as "encouragement" for men to love selflessly, as Christ loves the Church, usually within the context of improving "sexual intimacy" within marriage (giving us men the idea that our sweet and somehow-less-sinful wives just need to be nurtured into giving us all we desire when it comes to sex). (Don't get me wrong, we men are commanded to love selflessly, just as our wives are commanded to submit completely, and this includes the arena of sex within marriage -- huge blessings follow obedience to God's commands, but they often don't include the results we want.) Why the people who put on and write material for Christian marriage seminars want to promote this lie baffles me, just as it baffles me that we want to make excuses for God rather than admitting that He's in control of everything, including those destined for salvation.

In fact, we who are saved by His grace are the ONLY ones who have even a chance of submitting, or of loving selflessly sometimes, for just as Augustine wrote, we are the only ones who can choose that which is not sin. It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit, living within us, that we can do that which is otherwise impossible.

Don't believe me? Check out Genesis 3:16, where God pronounces His judgment upon women for Eve's sin. I'm incredulous (and cynically amused) that some Bible scholars actually interpret this verse to mean that woman's sexual desire will be for the man (though many women would no doubt think that to be a curse!). No! Women (and therefore men, whom they were designed to help) are cursed with women's desire to take the role of leadership AWAY from men, and our society (and churches) are loaded with examples of women "stepping up" because men "won't" (or won't quickly enough to suit the women watching and waiting).

The Christian life is not easy, or "simple" (though it is for those who are simple, as a word-study within God's Word shows), any more than human life on Earth is. Even becoming a child of God is impossible... except with God! (Matthew 19:26)

(Genesis 3, Matthew 19:16-26)