Imagine starting marriage counseling by asking the prospective bride: “Are you ready to call him lord?” referring to her boyfriend.
The reaction you would likely receive would be visceral and immediate. After recoiling, they would likely inform you very quickly that the only Lord they serve is Jesus Christ. Well, some would. Others would likely sit and stew as they crossed their arms, revealing they aren’t about to allow anyone to take their current position of being number one in their own eyes. These narcissistic individuals have bought into the idea that the world revolves around them, and as such, they will serve no one.
When you point out that God instructs the man to be the earthly head over his wife many ladies refuse, ripping Ephesians 5:21 out of context and demanding mutual submission. If one were to continue reading in Ephesians 5 theywould discover the Bible clearly depicts a hierarchy with Christ as the church, and the husband as the head of the wife. In 1 Peter 3:6 “as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid with any terror.”
The reason many women recoil at the very thought of calling their husbands lord is because they have been influenced and impacted by radical feminism and our culture. For more than fifty-years femvertising—that is, advertising that sells the concept of empowerment—has dominated our media. We’ve gone beyond Rosie the riveter’s message of “We can do it” to feminist author and tenured professor Vivan Gornick’s message of, “Being a housewife is an illegitimate profession…the choice to serve and be protected and plan towards being a family-maker is choice that shouldn’t be. The heart of radical feminism is to change that.”
At some point in this empowerment movement women began craving work outside the home. They longed for independent careers, claiming equal rights and equal pay. (Let me calmly point out a real biblical worldview clearly teaches fair compensation, “a worker is worth their wages.” 1 Timothy 5:18). But the unstated message that was being preached over and over is that a woman is incomplete if all she does is manages the home and rears children. They were silently—but effectively—brewing discontentment in the hearts of many Christian women.
Fast-forward 50 years and we see their revolution has been extremely successful in many ways. Women have abandoned the home. They are hiring others to raise their children. They are competing in every aspect of the workforce. They, too, are bringing home the bacon.
But has it really been a success? A recent American Family survey found liberals, especially liberal women, are significantly less likely to be happy with their lives and satisfied with their “mental health”, compared to their conservative peers aged from 18-55.
Survey after survey is finding women not really satisfied, as they realize you “can’t have it all.” Julie Bindel recently published an article in Aljazeera titled, “Liberal feminism has failed women,” pointing out that many of the crazy practices of feminists actually benefit men.
What all of the studies and articles fail to point out is that God’s plan—if followed—is both empowering and fulfilling. When you read about the virtuous wife in Proverbs 31 you do not get a sense of discontentment or a woman screaming, “My body, my choice.” Instead, we read, “She watches over the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed; Her husband also, and he praises her” (Proverbs 31:27-28).
Christian women would do well tuning out the femvertising pushed on them by our culture, and instead look at women in the Bible like Hannah and Mary—women who humbly set about being good mothers. Instead of kicking against the goads in rebellion, we need to raise up a generation of women who realize their power comes from harnessing meek and gentle spirits that are willing to train up the next generation of warriors for Him!