Wives Submit!

As a follow-up to Lauren Winner’s talk, I happened to go to a P31 talk at Northwestern the other night.  The Women’s Ministries’ Pastor at Bethlehem Baptist spoke on submission.  Since I’m still in a “list” mood I’ll do the same as I did with the Lauren Winner talk.  Here you go!

• Submission: stand in awe
• Reverence for God produces wisdom which produces virtue
• Submission is NOT: being a doormat, being passive, sinning under the authority of a husband, indicative of inferior
• Submission involves respect, joyfully placing under, trusting God
• Before the fall there was “joint-rulership”
• Women are not to submit to all men–the charge is about wives submitting to one husband
• Genesis 4:6-7 talks about the curse and how “her desire is to rule over him”
• 1 Cor. 11:3 makes a distinction of roles including that between God and Christ–there is role distinction, but in the same way one is not better than the other, they are equal.
• Submission is not about putting the husband in the place of Christ
• The Bible never tells *men* to make their wives submit–submission is the wife’s responsibility

Verses To Look Up/Mentioned: Proverbs 31, Psalm 110:1, Ephesians 5:22-24, Ephesians 5:33, Col. 3:18, Titus 2:3-5, 1 Cor. 7, 1 Peter 3:1-6, 1 Cor. 11, Genesis 4:6-7

Suggested Books: Intimate Issues by Linda Dillow, True Woman by Susan Hunt, Sex for Christians by Lewis Smedes (suggested by Lauren Winner)

Distortion and Deception

A few weeks ago I went to the Chapel where Lauren Winner spoke.  She has written Real Sex: The Naked Truth About Chastity and Girl Meets God.  I just noticed she had a book coming out today too! Mudhouse Sabbath: An Invitation to a Life of Spiritual Disciplines.  Now that I’ve fully publicized her books (which I haven’t read, but want to), we can move on to the actual talk.

Here are some of the key points/interesting quotes

• “I’m a writer mostly because I don’t know what I think until I write about it”–I agree with this wholeheartedly!  I can see my opinions and ideas SO much more clearly after I’ve written about them.
• The notion that if you have premarital sex or engage in sexual sin then you will wake up feeling awful is a LIE. This may be true for some, but not for everyone.
•  Our feelings and epistemologies are DISTORTED
• Feelings have to be refined and checked against scripture.
• Lie # 2: If you’ve had premarital sex or other sexual sin you will be scarred for life, you’ve committed an unforgivable sin, it will haunt you, ect.  Though, the lessons of sexual sin are long lasting and many find it hard to unlearn behavior.
• Jesus is the “master gardener”
• Be careful not to idolize marriage
• We can be quite prone to self-deception–especially in areas of sex, money and time.
• Repentance is not about pretending the sin did not happen–rather it is about turning and living faithfully

For me, the biggest part that hit close to home was the reminder that my feelings are distorted and that I am really good at deceiving myself.  Eventually in the “Confessional” blogs I will probably expand on these thoughts.