Husband as Master?

The Bible is pretty clear that in a Christian marriage, men should lead the household. (See Ephesians 5 or 1 Peter 3 for the most popular verses.) In 1 Peter 3:1-6, Peter discusses Sarah as a model of a submissive wife, saying she called Abraham her "master." This is sometimes used to support a Master/slave (M/s) relationship for those in the BDSM lifestyle, but most Christians take it to simply mean the man should be in charge. Here is the verse:

Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear. -1 Peter 3:1-6

But where in the Old Testament is there a record of Sarah calling her husband "Master"? It's in Genesis 18:12, after Sarah is told she will bear a son. Here is the verse in different translations:

So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, "After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?" -NIV

So she laughed silently to herself and said, "How could a worn-out woman like me enjoy such pleasure, especially when my master--my husband--is also so old?" -NLT

So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I am worn out, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?” -ESV

The Blue Letter Bible says the Hewbrew word used here is adon, a singular masculine noun from a root word meaning "to rule." Interestingly, adon (also spelled 'adown) is the singular form of Adonai, a popular name for God. Originally, Adon or Adonis was the name of a Phonecian/Canaanite god of fertility, whose mother was Venus to the Romans, Aphrodite to the Greeks, and Astarte to the Phonecians. (Off topic, but also interesting: the generic name for a god in Phonecian was el, and the Phonecian god El was the creator and Lord of Earth. He was also called Baal. The root "el-" became the basis for the Hebrew words Elohim, Eli, and for the Arabic word Allah.)

In the Old Testament, the use of adon was used in the sense of master, lord, or owner. The word comes from a root word meaning "to rule" and implies a sense of ownership and was used to refer to those in a position of authority, usually husbands, kings, or other people in authority. Of course, Adon is also used to refer to God.

Here are some other uses for the word adon in the Bible:

1. firm, strong, lord, master


2. lord, master


3. superintendent of household, of affairs


4. master


5. king


6. lords, kings


7. proprietor of hill of Samaria


8. husband


9. prophet


10. governor


11. prince


12. king


13. prince


14. prophet


15. father


16. Moses


17. priest


18. captain


19. general recognition of superiority

These are all examples of the word adon in the Old Testament when they refer to men (and not God). I cannot stress enough that this word means "to rule" and implies ownership or a position of authority.

In the New Testament example of 1 Peter 3:6, the word used is the Greek kyrios.

They were submissive to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master [kyrios].

This word best translates as "lord, master, or sir". It can also be applied to Jesus or God when it is capitalized in English, such as Lord. It is related to the Greek word kyrieou, meaning "to have dominion over" or "to exercise control of" or "be lord/Lord of."

On the other hand, commentaries warn us that this doesn't mean women should never have a say in marital decisions. The words kyrios and adon seem to refer more to a general sense of respect and lordship; they refer to someone in authority, but that doesn't mean a slave driver. Matthew Henry's commentary on these verses concludes:

Christians ought to do their duty to one another, from a willing mind, and in obedience to the command of God. Wives should be subject to their husbands, not from dread and amazement, but from desire to do well, and please God. The husband's duty to the wife implies giving due respect unto her, and maintaining her authority, protecting her, and placing trust in her.

Another commentary by Coffman says:

As Sarah obeyed Abraham...
It should not be thought that Sarah's obedience to Abraham was in any sense Servility. On one occasion she ordered Abraham to "Cast out the bondwoman and her son," a "request" that sorely grieved and distressed Abraham; but he obeyed her, God himself commanding Abraham to do it (Genesis 20:10-12). Nevertheless, there was the utmost respect and honor accorded her husband by the noble Sarah.
Calling him lord ...
The significance of Sarah's doing this lies in the fact that this is what she called him in her own heart, not merely when others might hear her. The real test of what one is, or what one thinks, lies in the content of what they say to themselves, not in what they might say to others.

In other words, submission is more about giving respect and honor to your husband in your heart than in being forced to only in your actions. Sure, he could force you to be obedient, but God wants a willing heart, not grudging respect. Let me be clear that this is not something I have mastered! I know in my head what I should do, but I'm not sure how to apply that to my actions. How do I submit when he doesn't require it or make it clear which situations he even wants me to submit in? How do I submit without clear direction or leadership from him in what areas he wants me to submit? How do I force myself to feel submissive "in my heart" instead of just "in my actions"? These are things I'm not sure about, and I need to talk more with my husband about.

Yet the key words here, kyrios and adon, imply leadership and authority. If you're a man, what does that mean for you?

And how many Christian marriages today actually are true to this original meaning?

Not many.

Please don't think I am blaming the women here for "not being submissive enough." It is both partners' fault if their marriage does not live up to 1 Peter 3:6. In today's Western society, equality and "equal partnerships" are the norm. Conventional wisdom says that if one partner is better at leading in a certain area, it will be simpler and easier for everyone to let her. Women today have to deal with weak men who make bad, selfish decisions motivated by self-gratification instead of a Godly leadership style. Many men would rather not make decisions or have the hassle of leading, so nothing gets done if the woman doesn't step in. On the other hand, men today have to handle powerhouse women in the workplace who can file a sexual harrassment suit over imagined slights. Some of their wives are control freaks who treat them like children instead of like warriors. The problem is in both sexes. Men won't lead, and women won't let them. It's a cycle our society says is normal and even P.C., but it's not what the Bible tells us to do.

Undoubtedly, the idea of a submissive Christian wife will be unpopular with your friends and family members. Likewise, the idea of a dominating Christian husband will fly in the face of many of your loved ones' beliefs.Don't believe me? Check out this alarming thread, "When will men kneel down before women in public?" But in the end, you must do what you believe is right. It is the husband's responsibility to initiate and maintain and Bible-based relationship. It is the wife's responsibility to submit and obey to his leading. Popular? No. Easy? Certainly not. But rewarding? I have to rest on the promises of God and think so.

There is no right or wrong model of submission. The two of you simply need to communicate and decide what works for the two of you, within Biblical grounds. Think: is your husband the master? the leader? the lord? Do you obey him? And husbands, do you act like a master, a prophet, a priest, a prince, a king? Do you pray to your Priest and King for guidance on how to follow in His footsteps?

Ask Jesus what he wants for your marriage. He will guide you. He is the ultimate Kyrios, the ultimate Adon, the leader and master and owner and ruler of our lives. He will show you the way.

Helping Her Heal After Abuse

If someone you love has been abused, you can help. But you can't heal them. For total healing, it will take three people: you, the victim, and Jesus.

Jesus heals. Please note the following verses:

LORD my God, I cried out to You, and You healed me. -Psalm 20:2-3

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. -Psalm 147:3

Behold, I will bring it health and healing; I will heal them and reveal to them the abundance of peace and truth. -Jeremiah 33:6

Healing comes from God, but we can also help. How many times in the Bible does God miraculously heal or help His people by using other humans? If we are the body of Christ, we can reach out and bring God's help and healing to others.

The first thing you need to understand is that there are many stages to healing. You cannot expect someone to just magically heal on their own. They probably have no idea to go about it, or they'd have done it already. No one wants to be an abuse victim, but many of us find ourselves there. It can help to understand the three stages of healing. Victims must go through all three stages, not be expected to skip right to the final stage. You can help them work through each of them by listening, providing support and Godly counsel, and praying for them.

1. Stage One: Victim. The person in this stage still identifies as a victim and processes life through the lens of the past trauma. This person probably has trouble functioning healthily in her daily life. This person still needs to talk and re-hash the details of the trauma and go through the greiving process for what happened to her. Perhaps she has not let herself grieve, or has not allowed her grieiving to completely unfold. You can help by asking questions about the details and listening as often as she needs to talk. You can help her identify "triggers" and what causes those triggers, and perhaps how to cope with those triggers in a more productive way in the future. Together you can brainstorm solutions to react differently than the negative, destructive way she has previously been coping. You can help her find themes about how her abuse has affected her life today.
2. Stage Two: Survivor. This person functions better and sees the trauma as in the past, but still identifies mostly a (past) victim. Perhaps she still relates to events in her life through the old lens of the trauma. You can help her process her negative feelings about the abuse, some which she may not even be aware she had, such as anger, shame, guilt, or betrayal. Perhaps you could encourage her to start a journal of self-discovery. You can help her see which relationships in her life are unhealthy (in whole or in part) and together brainstorm ways she could handle these relationships more productively. Support her as she tries to do this.
3. Stage Three: Thriver. This person functions healthily and no longer identifies primarily as an abuse victim. She develops healthy, productive ways of dealing with people and events, and is prepared with positive ways to deal with occasional flare-ups from her past trauma. You can help her turn to God for healing and power and encourage her to forgive her abusers and let go of the past. The past will always affect her, and you can help by being supportive and understanding and by being watchful for regressions to past unhealthy behavior and helping her become aware in a loving, supportive manner.

For more information on these three stages and how to recognize them, go to The Three Stages of Healing.

If you're not sure what coping mechanisms--both healthy and unhealthy--your loved one tends to employ to deal with the past trauma, check out some of these great resources. The Trauma Coping Inventory can be used to identify which coping mechanisms the victim uses and how often. You can discuss her answers together--but be sure you then remember and act off of this information! It doesn't do any good for you to show an initial interest in her healing and, once you've discussed it, go back to the way things have always been. Use this tool as the beginning of your journey to understand her, not as the journey itself. Once you understand her, you need to use that information to be aware of she she uses those again and to help her plan ways to deal with the trauma more productively and healthily. Perhaps the two of you together can come up with a list of positive coping mechanisms that you can gently remind her of when she gets off-track.

Another great resource for your own information is Common Coping Mechanisms Used by Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse. This list can describe any victims of abuse, not just sexual. Study it and commit to memory the coping devices used by your loved one; it can help you better understand her and know what to look for to help her along the road to healing. In addition, the Coping Skills website will give you some ideas for more positive ways to help your loved one deal with negative thoughts and emotions.

You can't push someone to be healed, but you can help make the journey easier. You can encourage, support, guide, and instruct. This is a big responsibility and should not be taken lightly. If you begin to show you care enough to lead her along this road, then forget or slack off, it will seem to her like you abandoned her... just like her abuser.

Coping Mechanisms for Victims of Abuse

If you or your partner has suffered from physical, emotional, or sexual abuse as a child, teen, or adult, you can bet that past trauma will affect your relationship now. Both children and adults have coping mechanisms to deal with stress. Some are positive coping mechanisms, such as exercise, meditation, or talking about conflict. Others are negative coping mechanisms, like drugs, alcohol, depression, or self-harm.

What are some of the symptoms of past abuse? These are also the coping mechanisms the victim has learned to rely on to deal with the stress. They may be (and often are!) unhealthy for that person and/or for the people around that person, but they are the only way the victim knows how to cope with the huge amounts of stress caused by abuse, and so the victim keeps doing it. Sometimes they may even become an abuser themselves.

Here are some of the coping mechanisms commonly used by abuse victims. See if any sound like you or your partner.

• Mental illnesses. Past victims of abuse may learn to direct all that negative energy inward (depression, anxiety, panic, self-harm) or outward (violent temper, bi-polar, borderline personality disorder). They may also simply separate themselves from reality (social anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, psychosis).
• Addictions. Abuse victims may turn to outside sources to deal with negative feelings and anxiety. The most obvious ones are drug and alcohol abuse, but they may also develop more "socially acceptable" addictions, such as addictions to relationships, shopping, food, smoking, workaholics, gambling, etc. When victims start relying on one of these to alleviate their stress, it is often a coping mechanism.
• Exaggerated Fight/Flight Response. It's a normal reaction to stress to have a burst of adrenaline that tells your body either to flee or fight. However, abuse victims develop an overactive fight/flight response. They are so prepared for something traumatic to happen that they overreact to everyday stressors or conflict. If your partner consistently overreacts to stress (yelling, screaming, fighting, loss of temper) or underreacts (becoming motionless, having panic attacks, abandoning a conversation at the first sign of conflict), their body is telling them that a small problem is really a Very Big Problem.
• Distorted Reactions to the World. Abuse victims often learn to cope with abuse by reacting against the abuse. Perhaps they will become distrustful and suspicious, paranoid, or afraid of being alone. Perhaps they fear any conflict or sense abandonment when there is none present. They may worry too much about what other's think of them or obsess over small details. These are all ways victims have developed to try to keep themselves safe from more abuse.
• Denial. Pretending the abuse didn't happen or was not serious, or denying their own strong negative feelings (like anger, rage, neediness, insecurity, or jealousy). The victim does not know how to deal with such strong negative emotions in a productive way because that was never modeled, and they simply try to pretend they don't occur.
• Splitting. This is a tendency to "polarize" others. They cannot be both good and bad at the same time, so a person is seen as either 100% good or 100% bad, depending on how the person acts and how the victim feels about the person.
• Passive-Aggression. Some victims get very aggressive, but others learn to show resentment and anger without appearing to show it. For instance, sulking, refusing to do something, or doing things to anger your partner but pretending you didn't know are all examples of this.
• Impulsiveness. Some victims become very impulsive, making spur-of-the-moment decisions without thought for the future. This can lead to promiscuity or dangerous decision making.
• Avoidance. If the victim can't deal with a problem or conflict, they will just ignore or avoid it. They may physically leave or avoid going home to see their parents for months, or they may pretend nothing is wrong to "cover up" the conflict.
• Rationalizing. This occurs when the victim intellectualizes or rationalizes the abuse. It wasn't so bad, or it only occurred because (insert reason here) occurred.
• Minimizing. The victim attempts to make the abuse seem less serious than it was, either through words or actions (such as smiling when talking about abuse).
• Control. Coming from an environment where the victim felt so completely out of control, the victim will often engage in a lifelong struggle to control everything! They hope this will make them safer. They want to control their environment (no surprises!) and the people around them and their own emotions. They want everything to be structured, controlled, and manageable. Strong emotions, either positive or negative, can be frightening to abuse victims.
• Low Self-Esteem. This one may seem obvious, but if someone else thought you were so worthless that they could abuse you for their own benefit, of course you might feel worthless as well. Many victims suffer from low self-esteem and worry a lot about what other people think of them, taking it very personally if one person dislikes them.
• Compliance. Some victims try to avoid conflict or being abandoned by giving in to everyone around them. These people are people pleasers to the extreme! They give in to their loved ones just so they will feel happy and not abuse or abandon the victim.
• Forgetting. Some abuse victims will temporarily forget the abuse even happened. When they remember, that can be very traumatic.
• Super-alertness. This symptom means the abuse victim is on high alert, all the time, waiting for something bad to happen! Their stress "fight or flight" syndrome is always going, ready for something bad to happen. This added stress can make them prone to being sick and tired from a lowered immune system.
• Busyness. Some victims keep themselves constantly busy so they don't have to deal with negative feelings. They lose themselves in their work or hobbies. This is also similar to workaholics, people who become addicted to their work.
• Manipulation. This is related to control. Abuse victims will sometimes attempt to manipulate or control those around them. They are trying to keep themselves "safe" by controlling the actions of those close to them.
• Lying. Some abuse victims become compulsive liars, especially if they were required to lie about the abuse during their childhood.
• Isolation from others. While some victims do to the other extreme, bouncing from relationship to relationship, others keep themselves "safe" by remaining isolated. They don't get very close to anyone and they may prefer to be alone where they know they can't be hurt.
• Nightmares or Lack of Sleep: Some people become so good at controlling their negative emotions when they are awake that they suffer from them coming out at night.
• Spacing Out. Some victims will actually have an "out of body" experience where they disconnect from their bodies during abuse (or perceived danger of abuse). They may feel like they're floating above their body, even watching the abuse happen to another person.
• Self-harm: People who attempt to self-harm may not be trying to hurt themselves, but just find a physical release for pent-up emotional baggage. This self-destructive behavior is, of course, not healthy, but some victims will feel so numb or negative that physical pain gives them release.
• Suicide. Suicide attempts are the final "coping mechanism" when all others fail and the victim sees no hope.

Of course, there are other coping mechanisms that victims can use to channel these negative emotions in a more positive way. For instance, meditation, calm breathing exercises, relaxation exercises, exercise, support groups, counseling, talking through problems, positive religion, and others can all be good ways victims can learn to handle their past abuse in a constructive and self-helping way.

Resouces:

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-coping-mechanisms.htm
http://www.power2u.org/articles/trauma/ment_cope.html
http://www.aaets.org/article184.htm
http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?id=9791&cn=353
http://www.csom.org/train/victim/2/material/Sect%202%20Handout%20-%20Coping%20Mechanisms.pdf
http://www.theawarenesscenter.org/CommonCoping.pdf
http://www.alcohol-addiction-info.com/Coping_Mechanisms_of_Codependents_of_Alcohol_Addiction.html

Being a Man: Taking the Initiative

Recently, my husband read two books about relationships, sex, and Christian marriage. Two. And even better, they were books I hadn't read yet.

It's no secret that the majority of self-help and Christian relationship books are purchased and read by women. But that's too bad, since half of the people in Christian relationships are men. Sometimes my husband will read a book after I've read it, but usually only because he's heard me talking about it and I'm nagging him to read it, too. And often, he starts it and doesn't finish it.

What does that tell me? Whether or not it's true, it makes me feel like I care more about the health of our relationship than he does (since I'm the one reading books to help us), that he doesn't show initiative (I was the one who got and read the book and encouraged him to follow) and that he doesn't have follow through (he starts a book, but doesn't finish it). That makes me sad and feel unimportant, not to mention that it makes me wonder if I can trust him to lead us in a Godly direction without follow-through or iniative. Maybe he has follow-through and initiative with his job, but why not with me?

So it was special to me that he read them. The first one, Sex and the Soul of a Woman by Paula Rinehart, was one I bought about five years ago and couldn't finish because I felt too depressed and guilty. He started it hoping to better understand me and how past sexual abuse has affected me, and he finished it in a few days. He even said it helped him understand how my past has affected me and our sex life together.

The second one, Love and War by the great couple John and Stasi Eldredge, was one we picked up at the grocery store and he read. We loved their earlier books, so he read through it and suddenly he was a lot more patient and understanding. We fought less for a few days. He made efforts to validate and understand me more often. It definitely brought about a nice change!

Being a man doesn't mean you have to read books, especially if that's not your thing, but it does mean taking the initiative. And sometimes it means taking the initiative in areas that maybe aren't your cup of tea. Like reading self-help books, or couple prayer time and Bible study, or starting a new volunteer ministry together as a couple in your community. Maybe you'd rather be watching the game or cleaning the car, but that's why leadership in a Christian relationship is a sacrifice. Because you do things that are important to her, or that help your relationship. Maybe reading books or spending time listening to some online sermons, or even just browsing Christian relationship websites or Bible commentaries online, is something you should consider.

It may not seem like fun to you, but your wife will be impressed you showed the self-initiative to try to improve your relationship, all on your own. She'll feel loved you spent time doing something that maybe you didn't really want to. And the information you find can only help the two of your relationship as you grow together toward Christ.