Building up believers and the New Testament church
Women's Silence in the Church
Spiritual Authority
When we begin to speak about authority, we may have a very different view from God's. Jesus must be our example, and He exercised His authority as a servant. "So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, 'Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them'" (John 13:12-17).
Natural authority (that which originates in man) is often dictatorial and self-serving. Spiritual authority does not consider self but the good of the other. The flow of God's authority is the grace of God to serve and lift up. "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word..." (Eph. 5:25-26) A husband who is moving in the love and grace of God considers his wife as one with himself, and thus treats her as he would his own body. When this vision begins to control us, I think we will be on our way to understanding God's mind in the husband/wife relationship.
Looking at the question of authority from the wife's viewpoint, we have this instruction: "Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything" (Eph. 5:22-24). Again notice that Christ is the example. The spiritual truth demonstrated by Christ and His church is to be applied in the family. To do this, the wife must be moving in faith before God. If she is submitting "as unto the Lord," then spiritual grace and wisdom will be hers. The foundation of her submission is Christ as her Lord, and with this confidence she expresses that submission in her relationship with her husband. However, if only her husband is in view, her submission will likely be on a natural level, where personality, self-interest, and natural ability dominate rather than the grace of God and the vision of Christ and His church.
If a husband is laying down his life as Christ did, and his wife is submitting with God in view, then God's love will be governing and He will be glorified. But what if the husband is not moving in the love of God or the wife is not submitting as God designed? The challenges are real, but there is still a way. Each one (either husband or wife) can still move in their God-appointed place, believing in Him to make the difference. The love of God was victorious over the enemy at Calvary. Godly submission is powerful (see 1 Peter 3:1-6). No matter how difficult the situation seems, remember that God's grace is far beyond human power and comprehension. God is not limited by human reasoning and resources, nor does He change His design to fit personality or circumstances. His plan is fixed, and He will bless those who move within His order in faith before Him.
While many would agree on God's design for man and woman in the natural family, some have trouble applying that same truth to the family of God. Sometimes the justification for this is that the words for "woman" and "wife" are the same word in the New Testament and must be translated based on context. Thus, some see the instruction in 1 Corinthians 11 as applying only to the husband/wife relationship. But if we step back and look at the overall working of God, I believe we will see consistency from Genesis to Revelation, and harmony between the natural family and the spiritual family. Let us look at things from a higher point of view, and I think objections will disappear and we will see how God's design applies in both.