If you are a man, do you find yourself blushing at the realization that you, well, sometimes resemble that scenario?
Wives, do you, sadly, recognize your husband? :evil:
Is such a man functioning as the head or the block-head of his family?
I just listened to a wonderful sermon by a very, very wise and effective pastor, Glen Coon. At the time of the sermon (and he lived for some time afterward,) he'd been happily married for 56 or so years. Was he hen-pecked? No way! A strong leader. Happy marriage. Effective marriage counselor (tho that wasn't his primary focus).
But he rather shocked me when he said, "If you are running around telling your wife what to do on the basis of being the head of the family, you aren't a head, you're a block-head! No man has the right to tell his wife what to do."
Now, as y'all might imagine, that opened my eyes rather wide!
:shock: After all, I believe in Patriarchy, etc. But because of my astronomical level of respect for this man, bolstered by his 56 years of happy marriage, I listened on. Glad I did.Turned out that what he was referring to was high-handed, dictatorial, controlling, dominating behavior. And with that understanding, I had to agree.
How do effective managers manage? After discussion when needed, they set the goal to be attained, then get out of the way and let their staff have at it.
Getting Biblical, the Proverbs 31 woman sure doesn't seem to have a controlling, dominating husband. He's off at the city gates discussing, a-HEM, weighty matters with the other wise men over cups of espresso.
Maybe, just maybe, turning his wife loose to do her thing without being controlling is the very proof of his wisdom? :roll: Hmmm... anyway ...
The thing that got me, however, in Pastor Coon's statement, was the bit about no man having a RIGHT to tell his wife what to do. I mean, sure! High handed use of authority is never wise in a relationship. I try pretty hard to avoid it myself. (You'll have to ask someone else about my success or failure.) But no right?
Did he mean no right to put one's foot down and say, "These are the rules / standards of this family? This is the direction I am taking us? This is what we need to do within that time frame?" I don't think so. He was too clearly a wise but definite leader in his own church and home. Rather, I think that he had grasped the exception left unlisted in the purpose for man's creation.
Hunh? Oh, it's right there. Genesis 1:26. We like to get all warm and fuzzy and say stuff like, "God created us for companionship and relatinship with Himself." Aaawwwww! May even be true! But what He/They (Elohim being a plural word) SAID was, "Let Us make man(kind) in Our image, after Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every living thing that creeps on the earth."
So God made us humans for the purpose of us exercising DOMINION. We're supposed to dominate nature in a benevolent manner. In fact, that spectrum given pretty well covers what was created during creation week, right? :roll: ... with one notable exception.
It neither instructed nor allowed for humans taking dominion over each other!
There ya go. There's the exception. So in Gen 3:16, when God warns Adam that one of the effects of sin was that the woman would crave to dominate him (the Hebrew helps. Same language as Gen 4:7), He was warning against this God-given urge, perhaps even compulsion, to exercise Godly dominion being twisted into a demonic urge to dominate. Huh.Listened to another, current pastor today, Curry Blake, who addressed the same topic after a fashion. He offered the observation that all wars, and divorces (Now, just WHAT is the difference? :lol: ) have at their core someone who is trying to exercise dominion over other humans, instead of over the things that we should -- the critters, the weather, and demons / illness.
He pointed out that Jesus specifically addressed this with the disciples, saying (slightly paraphrased), "It shall not be among you as among the heathens. For they struggle for position to Lord it over each other. But you! If you wanna be great," (note that He does NOT say, "Shame on you!" Rather, He proceeds to tell them HOW to achieve greatness!) "you achieve it by being the servant of all. Lay down your life for your family. Servanthood is the path to greatness!"
So I guess old Pastor Coon was right after all. Wanna be the head? Practice servanthood leadership. Wanna be the block-head? Throw your positional weight around and see where it gets ya?
Ok ... I'm off to chip away at my sharp corners and edges ... :ugeek:
