Covenant Home Part 3： The Marital Duties of Wives with Dale Partridge
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Summary
In this episode, Pastor Ken continues his series on the role of fathers and husbands in the home by discussing the roles of wives and husbands, and how they are to be understood in the context of the Bible. This series is part three of a five-part series on The Covenant Home.
Transcript
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Well, what a blessing it is to continue this series through the Covenant Home.
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Actually, it's probably going to be six, so I'm just going to say six-part series on the
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And I want to remind you once more that the hope of this church is that it may transform
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this city over many years, but that cannot be realized if we cannot allow the gospel
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and the truths of scripture to transform our own homes.
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And so civic fruitfulness always is dependent upon household faithfulness.
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We should not expect a fruitful city without fruitful homes.
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And so in the previous sessions, which are available online to listen to,
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we explored the concepts of male representation and responsibility.
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Last week, I defined Christian marriage, what that is according to Scripture.
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We discussed the role of husbands and fathers as covenant heads, how they set the example
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We learned how men must shift their perspective of their family from that's their problems
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And that was an important shift of shifting away from just me to having a mindset of a father and a husband to say, no, it's we.
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And as a man, we learned that covenantally, a wife and children's or a child's condition is the husband and father's responsibility.
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So the condition of your wife and the condition of your children is your responsibility.
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You're not guilty for the sinfulness of your wife and child, but you are responsible for the behavior and action or state of your wife and children.
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And when a man takes responsibility, authority flows to that man.
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If you want to see a man who has no authority in his home, it's because he takes no responsibility for his home.
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But when a man assumes the responsibility, shoulders the responsibility of the state of the home,
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the spiritual state, the physical state, the financial state, the moral state,
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that man has authority and influence in his home.
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And last week I laid the groundwork for the understanding of Christian marriage.
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we discovered that marriage is not just one feature of the Bible but it's
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actually the wraparound feature of the Bible the Bible starts with a marriage
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between a husband and wife and it ends in revelation about a marriage between a
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husband and wife Christ and his bride and so we learned that marriage serves
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as an earthly representation of a spiritual truth of a gospel truth it's
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acting as a symbol which God communicates the gospel to a fallen world
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it's helped us understand why over the last 50 years the gospel has been just
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or that marriage has been so heavily distorted if you can corrupt marriage
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then you can confuse the gospel and the enemy knows this it's exactly why we've
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been having so many problems over the last several decades in other words when
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the symbol that represents truth is distorted then the reality it
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represents is disoriented. So confuse marriage and make the gospel less clear.
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I also clarified that marriage is not a relationship, it's a covenant. There's
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relational aspects, but truly it is a covenant. You don't become one with any
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of your relationships. That would be absurd. You have relationship with your
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children, relationship with your brother and sister, relationship with your friend.
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You don't become one with any of those people. You only become one with your
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spouse. A relationship can be forsaken without any sin. A marriage covenant can
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not. It is a morally binding reality. We looked at several observations from Genesis 2, 18 through
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24. We learned that marriage is a solution for singleness. Marriage is a human solution to
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loneliness. It's a helpful monogamy. It's a human solution to companionship. We talked about last
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week. Marriage is a setting for realizing creational identity. Marriage is a sanctuary
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from physical shame. And marriage is the means for dominion and defense against sexual immorality.
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So marriage, as a kind of clinical observation of what it is, the ontological reality of
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marriage, we discussed last week, today we are going to talk about the duties of wives
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And you would think that it would be husbands and wives, but the reality is that Ephesians
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So I'm going to start with the wives because scripture starts with the wives.
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Now, Paul gives, if you look at that passage of scripture, you'll notice quickly that Paul gives
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the husbands three times more direction than the wives. So the scripture today is a couple verses.
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Next week, I'm going to struggle to fit all that I can on the husbands in one sermon.
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Let's go ahead and start and we'll go verse by verse through Ephesians 5, 22. You guys can
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follow along with me. It says, wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.
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So this is one of the most hated passages in all of scripture.
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And it's hated because of its clarity and its severity. The amount of interpretive gymnastics
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to get around the intention of this passage even frustrates the feminists. It's difficult,
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man. It's so clear what this passage says. Wives are to submit to their own husbands.
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It's what the scripture says. To be clear, this does not say that women are to submit to all men.
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Although I do believe that women should not ever be in positions of authority over men in the home,
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in the church, and in civil life, and I'll explain why in a second. I believe that biblically and
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theologically, it's inconsistent to hold a view of men where men are ruling the home, men are ruling
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the church, but then all of a sudden we expect these men to start submitting to women when they
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go into roles of work or in the military or in the professional space or in politics. There's an
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inconsistency there with complementarian theology versus biblical patriarchy. You can't lead in the
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home. You can't lead in the church, but you can be the governor of the state and lead all the
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homes and all the churches. It's an inconsistent reality. Men and women are not given their station
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based on interchangeable roles, but based on their actual being. Okay, men are divinely designed to
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rule look at any six-year-old boy and you will see this okay women are divinely designed to help
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look at any six-year-old girl and you will see this it's very clear when you have enough kids
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yeah is there some exceptions to those realities sure but the general reality is men little boys
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go and they they get on top of things and they growl and they jump down and they stomp on things
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and they tried to conquer lizards and snakes and animals.
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They're not like the little girls that are walking in
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in their very being and combing the doll's hair
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and decorating and laying out their stuffed animals
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and saying goodnight to them before they go to bed.
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Therefore, we should not encourage our daughters
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where they have authority and rule over men.
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In an article on Forbes, I found, it was titled, it says, Do We Hate Female Bosses?
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It says, quote, It appears both men and women prefer being led by a man.
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If Americans were taking a new job and had their choice of a boss, they would prefer
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Unfortunately, research suggests this shouldn't come as a surprise.
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What's interesting is despite a slow increase in female leadership across American companies,
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the presence for a male boss has remained steady. So this is something that we can observe even in
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secular reality. Rule and submission between men and women is part of our nature, and it is the
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normative experience of history, for sure, and social life. This is the consistent reality
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through history. It is only in the last 50 years, I mean you could argue say for the last 150 years,
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but really the last 50 years, that we have been more confused about male and female roles than
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any other time in history. It's not if men will rule, it's how men will rule. This is important.
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It reminds me, I don't know if you guys remember the clip of Drew Barrymore
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groveling at the feet of Dylan Mulvaney, who's the guy that, you know, the transgender guy that
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dropped Bud Light last year. And I sat there watching this, and if you strip all of it away,
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what you really have is a woman bowing down at a man's feet. Patriarchy still wins, but that
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patriarchy is not biblical. It's disgusting. It's perverted. It's distorted. It's not if men will
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rule. It's how men will rule. And we want to restore order in society that we have men ruling
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according to glorious standards in the scripture, not some perverted, distorted, weird, transgender
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reality, or even some misogynistic, overbearing, dominating reality that is abusive, or some
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wimp that stands by and doesn't do anything, but still acts like a fool when he bursts
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and anger. There's so many versions of terrible male leadership. We are desperately needing
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biblical men. What I'm saying is that it's inevitable that men will lead, but our objective
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as Christians is that we raise up men who are glorious, godly, righteous, ordered, loving men.
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the apostle speaks to the severity or extent of a wife's submission to her husband he says
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as to the lord he qualifies the submission he says as to the lord that is a wife's submission
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to her husband should match her submission to christ wow that's an intense passage of scripture
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this is the case because the relationship between a husband and wife is designed to emulate
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the relationship between Christ and the church.
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If a wife is not to express total submission to her husband,
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as the church may in its spiritual and pure state
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in the same way that a husband is going to fail
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We really need to see that a wife's submission to her husband is submission to Christ.
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I've mentioned in our men's and women's meetings that God is a God of order.
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If we look at 1 Corinthians 11, verse 3, it says,
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But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ.
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The head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.
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A husband should say, not my will be done, but your will be done to Christ.
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And a wife should say to her husband, not my will be done, but your will be done.
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I am here to fall in line with God's chain of order.
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I'm under submission to Christ as a husband.
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A wife is under submission to her husband.
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Now, I know that the most terrifying thing is for a wife to be in submission to Christ
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only if he is in perfect submission to Christ.
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regardless of the obedience of her husband.
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Likewise, wives, be subject or be in submission
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when they see your respectful and pure conduct.
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to what extent should a wife submit to her own husband?
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that is not a clear violation of God's moral law.
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in other words if your obedience to your husband causes you to be disobedient to christ
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you have grounds to appeal to a higher authority we're called to submit to the government and
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first corinthians sorry romans 13. now our submission to the government whenever that
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submission violates our obedience to god we are not called to submit to the government
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You see this in the apostles when the government says you cannot preach Christ anymore.
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It says, no, sorry, we have to obey God and not man.
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So there is a limit to that submission of the government regulation
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in the same way that there's a limit to a husband's authority over his wife.
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If a husband asks you to lie or to cheat or to steal or to commit adultery
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or to worship other gods, you do not have to submit to that reality.
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Having said that, if a husband says that, hey, honey, we are moving from Arizona to Texas,
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or that we're going to buy this house and not that house,
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or that our children are going to go to this school and not that school,
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Doesn't mean that you can't share your counsel in a loving and respectful way.
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It doesn't mean that a husband shouldn't be or shouldn't take that counsel into consideration
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But the reality is that when those decisions are made, a wife is not to be insubordinate
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to generally the vast majority of decisions that happen in life, especially as a Christian
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The late theologian Walter Chantry once wrote, quote,
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Okay, what I want to say and be very clear is that submission from a wife to a husband is serious.
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A submissive wife is incredibly influential in today's generation.
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As a wife, your behavior is to reflect to yourself, to your husband, to your children, to your family, to your community, the church's relationship to Christ.
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When a woman does not, when a wife does not obey her husband, she tells everybody a lie about the church.
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in the same way that when a husband does not love his wife,
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verse 23 it says for the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church
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his body and is himself its savior so the passage if you look down to verse 23 starts with the word
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for that's a causal clause you can actually translate that to because you could you could
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actually read it wives submit to your own husband as to the Lord because the husband is the head of
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the wife even as Christ is the head of the church so the reason a wife is to submit to her husband
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is because the husband is the head of the covenant.
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God has designed it so that the man is the covenant head.
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Men do not need to feel guilty for being the covenant head
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Women do not need to feel oppressed through submission
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because it is the divinely appointed order.
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it's a good thing we live in a world that hates it that'll lie to you it'll tell you every possible
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reality to conflict with god's order changing our affections and appetites and understanding
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of order and actually get into the place where you can say this is good submission is good
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This isn't about superiority or inferiority or value.
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In the same way that Christ is not inferior to the Father,
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yet Christ submits to the Father in his earthly ministry,
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The Trinity, we see this in the Trinity, the submission among equals.
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We see that the Father and the Son send the Helper,
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I want to make a point that station is reflected in being.
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station, your place, is reflected in your being. Now, this generation is terrified with unequal
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ranking between men and women. They just absolutely can't handle it. Egalitarianism is rampant.
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God has displayed the headship of man in the being of man. We talked about this earlier,
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but I'm going to say it again. This is the great Princeton theologian, Charles Hodge.
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He wrote this in 1856. He said, the ground of the obligation, therefore, as it exists in nature,
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is the eminency of the husband, his superiority in those attributes which enable and entitle him
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to command. He is larger, stronger, bolder, and has more of those mental and moral qualities
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Simple truths that every generation before us knew
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Charles Hodge is not a controversial preacher, by the way, okay? This guy was like right down the
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center, okay? He wasn't the Doug Wilson of his generation, okay? He was just straight
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shooting common knowledge, basic understanding of the rules. Ultimately, the rule and submission
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model are not just roles we play, but are characteristics that correspond with our
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very being men are made to rule and to lead now they need to do it well
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according to Christ women are made to help and to serve and to submit now they
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need to do it according to Christ and we live in a world that hates God's design
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for women feminists hate women and they have convinced millions of them that
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That is the work of our generation, is convincing women to become men.
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It's the church's job to restore the glory of women.
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We are the only institution on earth that can rightly define women and that can actually
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remind the world what a glorious woman is. If we won't do it, nobody else will. Don't
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rely on Christless conservatism. That's not going to be it. No, it's us. It's you women
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in this room. You will remind the next generation of women what it is to be glorious. Now, the
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The reason the apostle commanded the wife to submit to her own husband as to the Lord is because the husband's authority is as potent over the wife as Christ's authority is over the church.
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Now, we cannot over inflate the husband's authority, right?
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There's always going to be a dimension of Christ's righteousness and authority and rule and command over his church.
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But the general principle of station and authority,
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What we should see in husbands and wives is what we should see in Christ in the church.
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A loving, ruling authority and a joyfully submitting church.
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That should be what we see in our own marriages.
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Ultimately, verse 23 emphasizes the covenantal order between husbands and wives,
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showing how this order is not rooted in some sort of master and slave
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relationship it's not rooted in some strength and weakness relationship it's
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rooted in a Christ Church relationship that's what we're trying to model if you
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struggle with that then you struggle with the gospel if you struggle with
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modeling what the church is supposed to to do in its relationship to Christ you
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struggle with the gospel. And the world struggles with the
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gospel. They hate the gospel and that's why they hate wives
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submitting to husbands. Verse 24. It says, now as the church
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submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to
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their husbands. So the apostle confirms the extent to which a wife should emulate the church's
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relationship with Christ. The adjective, everything, can intimidate wives. I get it.
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But as I said earlier, a wife's submission is as to the Lord. It's as to the Lord,
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which means her husband's authority is not limitless, but it's bound by the revealed
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will of God. But again, a wife should find her common posture, a Christian woman should find
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her common posture toward her husband's direction as joyfully submissive, joyfully submissive.
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And this submission goes beyond the action and it goes straight into the heart.
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But do not think that you can get away with resentful submission.
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A wife who resentfully submits to her husband is not a submissive wife.
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Submission starts with a spirit surrendered to Christ.
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kids argue, and they fight with each other, and you tell a child to say, sorry, and they
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You can tell in them they're doing the right thing, but they don't mean it.
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And before the Lord who looks at the heart, there's nothing good there.
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Yes, the action was taking place, and it's better than the action not taking place.
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And so submission for a woman starts with a spirit surrendered to Christ.
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Understanding that obedience to your husband, even in situations that may appear unwise,
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that are contrary to your personal desires or discouraging, is ultimately obedience to God.
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Again, as long as it's not a violation of God's moral law, wives need to surrender themselves,
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obey. Let the Lord work out the details. If it was wrong, if it was foolish, if it was
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an incorrect path, the Lord loves your husband too, and we'll discipline him.
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It's rejecting the sinful desire to act as the covenant head. Remember Genesis 3.16,
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it's the God curses the woman. And what does he say? He says, your desire will be for your husband.
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Why do women struggle with this? Well, it's God cursed mankind, including men and women.
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And part of the curse is your desire will be to dominate your husband. But it says in the
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very next verse, but he will rule over you. The Hebrew term for desire, when used in that context,
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It actually stems from a root word that implies to command or to dominate or to rule over.
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So in the fall, sin became master over humanity.
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But through Christ, we can rule over sin, right?
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In the same way, the flesh of a woman desires to rule over her husband.
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But through Christ, she can joyfully be ruled by her husband.
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It's through Christ that true submission can occur.
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And ladies, you need to see how impactful submission really is.
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Again, it's not only is it a visualization of curse conquering through Christ.
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But it's a demonstration of walking in the Spirit before your children.
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If you have daughters, and the whole marriage witness that they had as children was mom
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dominating or not trusting or not submitting to dad, she is going to struggle.
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any sort of model or example to do that with her own husband.
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You know, there's a passage in 1 Corinthians chapter 14 that says that a wife, if she has
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questions about something that happened at church, that she should ask her own husband at home.
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It shows that a woman should be, or a wife should be a disciple of her own husband. She should learn,
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trust the intellectual theological leadership of her husband.
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a lot of women don't practice that they turn to somebody else they don't turn to their husbands
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they turn to the internet they turn to a podcast they turn to a friend they turn
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to the pastor before even asking their husband um so much is taught there when a wife
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for 18 years every time she has a question goes to her husband and asks the husband
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what does that communicate to her children? One is that dad has the answers or we should turn to
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dad for the answers. It elevates him as the covenant head. We trust dad's answers.
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What does it communicate to your boys? I need to become a man that has the answers.
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I need to find a husband who has the answers.
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Now, in a flip-flop, a wife that doesn't do that
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misses the opportunity to teach her children so many lessons throughout her lifetime.
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so there are many things that submission and covenant headship communicate to your own kids
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if you want to bless your child's marriage start by walking in a biblical marriage today
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I'll tell you what any one of you who's married knows that's true that you brought into your own
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marriage, the modeled marriage of your parents. You will not be able to go to a place that you've
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never seen. But if your parents modeled true biblical order, what a blessing it is for a
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woman to walk into a marriage and be an absolute glorious woman to her husband.
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What an amazing blessing it is to a wife to have a husband who has been raised to be a loving,
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ruling leader who takes responsibility for his home. What a blessing you can be to your own family.
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Joyful feminine submission communicates and so does resentful insubordination.
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Which one will you communicate to your family and to your community?
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And honestly, I see lots of subtle forms of this.
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You will either, again, bless your children with an example of faithfulness
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that leads to fruitful functionality and order in your home,
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or you will curse your children with an example of faithlessness and dysfunction.
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God may, in his grace and mercy, wipe away that memory of your terrible marriage
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We've seen children raised in terrible homes, drug addict parents,
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and all of a sudden this man, by the grace of God, is a great father.
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I've seen people that say, oh, I went to public school, therefore everybody should go to public
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school, as if it's like the normative reality of public school is you. No, you're the exception.
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It's like running across the street on a busy freeway. I didn't get hit by a car.
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It's like, well, yeah, but look at the blood in the street.
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again this isn't just about external submission or or saying the right thing as a woman it's about
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you know it's not about you know wearing a head covering that in reality is just a pretty piece
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of hypocrisy on your head i've seen that too it's about believing that god's order is actually good
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subtle frustration with God's order is actually sinful.
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Like resolving and resigning yourself to that reality.
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I have to conform my thoughts and affections to the word of God.
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I cannot let the world infiltrate my mind and my thinking process
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so that I actually hate this idea of submission.
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Because look, I know there are men who hate leadership
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We live in a generation of radically passive men.
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And what happens? This is Satan's plan, that men will be boys, and that when men
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are boys, women will be men, and as a result, children become irrelevant. You
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want to see a woman lead? Then just watch a man stop. And in reality, that man
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stopping is still leading. He's just leading his family to chaos. So generally
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speaking, there are only two commands to wives in all of the New Testament in relationship
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Now, I've obviously covered submission, but the end of the section of Scripture, if you
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look in Ephesians chapter 5, after the instruction to husbands, Paul offers this concluding verse
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it says, however, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she
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respects her husband. I want to talk about that just for a second. In scripture, there is only
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one command for wives to love their husbands. Okay. It's just, there's just one. I thought
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there'd be more. I actually looked all over trying to find another one, but there's only one. It's
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Titus 2, 3 through 4, which says, let the older women teach the younger women to love their
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husbands and love their children. That's it. Okay, the scarcity of instruction for a woman to love
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her husband is because love and affection is the natural disposition of the feminine being.
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I've seen women love husbands that are not worthy of being loved. You know why? Because women are
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good at loving. The natural disposition of the feminine being is to love men. They love
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men despite their failures. It's amazing. But to respect a husband requires much more
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from a woman. It requires her to restrain herself from offense, from discontentment,
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from ingratitude it requires her to take notice of the value her husband offers
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to her I see so many women today that are divorcing their husbands because of
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reasons like you know he just he's not emotionally available and you're like
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men aren't made to be emotionally available okay a man is made to provide
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and to protect. And he is to do it in a loving manner. But the church is a body and the emotional
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availability is to be carried out among the body. A woman is to have other relationships with other
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women. Older women should be teaching those younger women through relationship and how to be
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great homemakers and how to be loving those men and those children. We're not isolated. We're the
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only relationship that a woman has is her husband and he has to become absolutely everything to her.
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Oh, that's not what we do here. Same with husbands. If your wife is the only person that
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can bring you a correction in this world, then there's a problem. I have women reach out to me
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all the time asking me questions about their husband's failures. And I'm like, where are
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the men in your church? Are you even going to a good church? You don't want to be as a wife,
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the only person that has some sort of sound correction in your husband's life?
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You want men in your church to see the foolishness of your own husband
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and correct that man without you having to say a thing.
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It is better to live in a desert land than with a contentious and fretful woman.
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A disrespectful wife is like cancer to a husband.
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It'll kill him. It'll kill him. I've seen it.
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Women possess far more influence in their words than they realize.
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The wise woman builds her house, but the foolish pulls it down with her own hands.
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I can't tell you how many times I have seen a family been torn down by a disrespectful, insubordinate woman.
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We think that like there's this like weird myth on the internet that like we have this massive cultural problem with dominating men.
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Okay, as a pastor, I've been pastoring for full time for almost eight years.
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And I have probably had a few, handful of moments where there is a man truly dominating in an evil way his home.
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Anger, frustration, abuse, like I've had like one or two of those situations.
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we don't live in the 1880s where misogyny is the thing and the live dragon of the day
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that's the dead dragon now the live dragon is the fire-breathing woman that dominates her home
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not saying that that's the prevalent reality in this church but it is certainly the prevalent
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reality in the world and we are the ones to model you glorious women i'm so impressed with the women
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here. We have great women. Are the women to model that to those women that will come into our church
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and that will be seen in this community? A wife's respect is like water to her husband's roots.
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Without it, he feels unmotivated and views himself as a failure.
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last night I had a conversation with a family that is wanting to move here and they searched
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the internet and they said oh man Dale's a crazy person um they read articles of you know bad news
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about me and they wanted to have a conversation with me you know because they're level-headed
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people and they said hey I want to hear the other side of the story and by the time I was done with
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the conversation I was so defeated just like oh lord my past failures have checkered my reputation
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It was clear to Veronica, who was on the call with me,
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the value of a respectful response to a husband.
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Years ago, a small study involving around 200 couples were presenting the husbands with
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several phrases and asked which one, if said by a woman, would have the most impact on
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the man. And the phrase, you're amazing, was chosen as the most impactful statement.
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Do you want to see a woman steal a man from another woman? It happens every day. And it's
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from some devilish woman that goes up to a disrespected man and says, you're amazing.
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that's how that woman takes that man away from his wife
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when a man feels that a woman is impressed with him
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I mean this goes back down into the playground and recess as kids
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when a man feels this way he not only becomes more committed to expressing love
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but he actually excels in everything that he does and it's because he's motivated by knowing that
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the woman he works so hard for is genuinely impressed with his faithfulness it's powerful
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And so, to conclude, the curse in Genesis 3, it really communicates to us and implies that conflict will be the normative reality between men and women.
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Conflict. You're going to have conflict. That's what we see in the world.
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world. And this conflict not only is seen in divorce, but it's also why we have homosexuality
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and transgenderism and abortion and feminism and pornography.
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And so the world, as we know, is relationally in disarray. It is complete chaos.
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And we are desperately needing definitions, order, and fruitfulness.
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And Christian marriages, especially Christian wives, have an incredible opportunity to restoring society and the family
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more will be communicated to your children and to our community in your faithfulness in these two
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areas than probably most of the sermons that I'll ever deliver. A lifetime of a godly woman
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to her children is going to be far more powerful than my sermons. Yeah, the Lord may use a sermon
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to change a heart, but the consistent faithfulness of a wife and mother is powerful. It's powerful.
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A life of feminine order in a world of feminine chaos is extremely potent.
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And lastly, a submissive and respectful wife is still the responsibility of the husband.
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All of this, if you think that I was just talking to the women, you don't get it.
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Your wife's submission and respect is actually your responsibility.
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It's your responsibility as husbands to shepherd your wife and care for your wife and love
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your wife in such a manner that the result, the fruitfulness of your bride results in
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When the ship is off course, we go to the captain, not to the vessel.
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And when a wife is out of step with her biblical role, God looks to the husband as the head,
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the representative and responsible party for the state of his home.
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And so yes, women, you have a responsibility and a duty at the level of the heart.
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But men, you also have a responsibility and a duty.
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I often remind men, you cannot lead your wife
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We are the ones responsible to raising godly daughters
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and to leading and shepherding our wives to glory.
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Yes, a wife has an equal responsibility in the sense of her duty before the Lord to do such a thing as well.
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But next week, we are going to be discussing the immense responsibility and duties of Christian husbands to build faithful covenant homes.
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that you would help us to push our flesh away
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in this congregation that they would continue to be
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them and sanctify them in their service and submission to You. Lord, we pray for the husbands,
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Lord, that You would bless them with loving leadership and a heart that guides and takes
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responsibility for their home. Lord, we ask that all of this, not for our own purposes and for our
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own joy, but also for the glory of the gospel to go out, Lord, that people would see the beauty of
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the church and find curiosity in it. Lord, that you would draw your lost sheep to this community
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through the faithfulness of these people. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.