Journey to Surrender

Part 4 of “What I Believe About Marriage”

If you haven’t read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of my “What I Believe About Marriage” series, I encourage you to do so before reading this post. These definitely lay some important groundwork for the remainder of the series.

Today I’m jumping in with both feet. I fully expect some will be offended by what I have to say, though truthfully I expect that most of those who are easily offended stopped reading here long ago.

Let me state this clearly and without equivocation: I believe that God has ordained a specific order for marriage and families.

There, I said it. You still reading? I hope you’ll stay with me for the next few posts while I dig into this contentious and hotly debated topic, even if (maybe especially if) you disagree with my belief statement above.

Contrary to the way many imagine it, the martial order I speak of has rather little to do with who is the boss, who makes all the decisions, who has the power or a strict hierarchical structure.

Ordered Partnership

Though it is very difficult to describe my view of God’s ordained order for marriage in just a few words that cannot be quickly twisted and misconstrued, if I were forced to do so, I would describe it as an ordered partnership.

An ordered partnership in marriage is one in which husbands and wives have equal value and worth but differing roles. He loves, leads and serves her. She loves, honors and submits to him. Yeah I said submit. However, stay tuned for the Part 6 post to see more on what I think on the dreaded S-word. It’s probably not what you think.

Up front, however, let me be emphatically clear on this point, this is not about who is more and who is less, who is better or worse, smarter or dumber, stronger or weaker. It’s about having a God-ordained order in place in your marriage that reflects His design, as portrayed for us in the bridal paradigm picture of Jesus and the church.

The Authority Question

Now for sure, the “ordered” part does mean that I believe that God places unique authority and responsibility on husbands. However, the implications of the bridal paradigm for the authority question are vast and tend to stand in rather drastic contrast to what many understand about authority. I’ll be expounding more on what that is supposed to look like in my next post, a Man-Up Monday post aimed directly at husbands. Again, it’s probably not at all what you think, so check back, especially if you are skeptical about the concept of a husband’s authority.

What do you think of my description of the marital relationship as an ordered partnership?