My wife Amy* has a very good friend, Faith*, who is a big fan of a particular female false teacher. Faith has excitedly invited Amy to attend a Christian women’s conference headlined by this false teacher. I’ve told my wife about how dangerous this false teacher is, but she’s refusing to tell Faith about it and feels obligated to go anyway. What should I do? (*Names changed)
I’d like to preface the answer to this question by saying that I don’t normally take counseling-type questions from men. I try to refer them back to their pastors, elders, or other trusted godly men for help, and if that’s not possible, I have a few godly male friends I turn to who can sometimes offer them counsel via e-mail. I do this in order to protect myself and the man from any temptation or appearance of impropriety that might arise from an exchange of e-mails/private messages, and because I think men do a better job of discipling men than women do, just like women do a better job of discipling women than men do (see Titus 2:2-6)
This time, though, my husband happened to be handy when I received this gentleman’s question, so I enlisted his services and we collaborated on the answer which follows.
Scott and Michelle Lesley
First, you need to decide a) what would be best for your wife, spiritually, and, secondarily, b) what might best help Faith understand the problems with the false teacher. For example:
Is Amy biblically knowledgeable enough and spiritually mature enough to attend the conference with Faith and then sit down with her when it’s over and point out where the false teacher strays from Scripture?
Is Amy biblically knowledgeable and spiritually mature enough that Faith respects and looks up to her, and it would make her stop and think (and be open to an explanation) if Amy refused to attend?
Is Amy a new believer or spiritually immature and might be in danger of being deceived if she attends?
You are the spiritual leader of your home. You’re responsible for the spiritual well being of your wife and children and the direction they go. Ultimately, the buck stops with you, so you will have to prayerfully decide what’s best, talk to Amy about it, and hope she sees things your way. If not, you’ll have to “gird up your loins” and have the spiritual fortitude to lovingly put your foot down. She may not like it or agree, but Scripture requires her to submit to your decision.
If you have a question about: a well known Christian author/leader, a Bible passage, an aspect of theology, a current issue in Christianity, or how to biblically handle a family, life, or church situation, comment below (I’ll hold all questions in queue {unpublished} for a future edition of The Mailbag) or send me an e-mail or private message. If your question is chosen for publication, your anonymity will be protected.
“I’m so tired of flowers,” sighed the elderly woman in the TV commercial as my jaw hit the floor. She had just described how her husband of fifty years, seated next to her, brought her flowers on their first date, and every year since had given her the same bouquet on that day.
And she was tired of flowers.
It wasn’t enough that she had a husband who stayed with her for fifty years. Or that he actually remembered the day of their first date every year. Or that he was caring enough to send her flowers on that date. Or that he was sentimental and romantic enough to send her the same flowers every year.
No. She was tired of flowers. She wanted the product the commercial was trying to sell.
I wanted a shoe to throw at the TV.
My husband brought me flowers today. I know, in the picture they look rather more like birthday candles than flowers. That’s because, technically, my flowers were birthday candles.
I was getting ready for our youngest son’s birthday party. I had already made a trip to the store and thought I had everything I needed. Until I discovered I was nearly out of baking powder. My husband was out running errands, so I sent him a text asking if he could pick some up for me. He did. No problem. Until I remembered I didn’t have any candles for the birthday cake. And he had already left the store. And it was raining.
“And it was raining.” I say that like it’s just so pedestrian, like it’s some normal, everyday thing, which, in south Louisiana in June, I assure you, it is not. Every day, yes. Normal, no. Remember that scene in one of those ’90’s “asteroid crashes into the earth” movies where the asteroid has just hit and the man and his daughter are standing on the beach watching the huge resulting tidal wave roll in to engulf them? Well if, instead of the beach, you can imagine yourself trying to navigate a WalMart parking lot with a buggy full of groceries and four kids in tow in the middle of that tidal wave, you’ll have some idea of what monsoon season is like down here.
And you know what my husband did when I asked him to go get birthday candles in that mess? He did it gladly. No complaints. No asking, “Why didn’t you think about this sooner?” He just walked in the house, soaked and smiling, and handed me the candles.
No bouquet could have been better.
Ladies, my husband has a lot of faults. I’ll bet yours does too. Because just like us, they’re sinful human beings. Often, like the lady in the commercial, we trample over a dozen roses to plant our feet in a briar patch. We overlook the ways our husbands are a blessing to us and focus only on our complaints.
Maybe he didn’t get you exactly what you wanted for your birthday, but does he work hard every day to support your family? So, he didn’t notice your new haircut right away. Does he give the kids their bath every night? Yes, his dirty socks are constantly on the floor in front of the hamper, but didn’t he change the oil in the car yesterday?
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 says:
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
The next time you’re tempted to complain about your husband’s shortcomings, why not praise God instead for a way that he has blessed you or done something admriable? And let’s make sure to thank our husbands for those little “flowers” they bring us every day.
“If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle.”
judges 14:18
I love this verse. It’s in the story of Samson, which I’m studying in depth right now, and it makes me giggle every time I come to it. Ripped from its context, it doesn’t make much sense (most Bible verses don’t), so go read Judges 14 really quickly. It’s only twenty verses. It shouldn’t take you more than ten minutes to read. I’ll just wait right here.
Done? Ok. Now you know the context, and you know Samson wasn’t talking about farming. He was talking about his wife. Now, ladies, before you get your bloomers in a ruffle, Samson wasn’t calling his wife a heifer, he was using a metaphor. He could just as easily have said, “If you hadn’t eaten sweet and sour shrimp with my chopsticks…” Well, if he were Chinese and if sweet and sour shrimp had been invented.
But anyway... it still wasn’t the most flattering metaphor a man could choose when referencing his wife, which got me thinking about Samson’s wife and their marriage. They messed some things up, big time. Things that they could have avoided messing up by being obedient to God’s commands about marriage. Maybe we could learn a few “noble,” or “no-bull,” if you prefer, things for our own marriages from Mr. and Mrs. Samson in Judges 14:
Maybe we could learn a few “noble,” or “no-bull,” if you prefer, things for our own marriages from Mr. and Mrs. Samson in Judges 14…
Although the Philistines were not one of the nations God specifically forbade Israel to intermarry with, God’s principle of not marrying foreigners would have been a good one for Samson to follow. Why? Because only Israel worshiped the one true God. All of the other nations were pagan. They will “turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods,” God told them. “But Samson said to his father, ‘Get her for me, for she is right in my eyes.’” (3) In my eyes. Not in God’s eyes. In Samson’s eyes. Samson wasn’t interested in what God wanted for his marriage. Samson was only interested in what Samson wanted.
As Believers, our hearts should long to obey Christ and to want what He wants for our lives. In 2 Corinthians 6:14-15, God tells us we are not to seek to bind ourselves together in any close relationship with unbelievers. That includes (but is not limited to) marriage. As God told the Israelites, an unbeliever will lead you away from the Lord. Husbands and wives should push each other towards Christ. A lost husband can’t lead you to greater godliness. If you are not yet married, do not marry someone who isn’t saved, whose life does not display the spiritual fruit of someone who has been genuinely born again.
2. Leave and cleave: plow with the bull you’re yoked to (v. 16-20)
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast [cleave] to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
Genesis 2:24
This doesn’t mean that we cut all ties with our parents when we get married. It means that we are now committed, first and foremost, to our spouses. We stand with them before, and sometimes against, everyone else.
Samson and his wife both had problems with this, as many newlyweds do. Samson’s wife, instead of standing with her husband by being honest with him about what his companions were up to and trusting him to protect her, ended up siding with “her people” (17) out of fear, by nagging Samson into telling her the answer to the riddle. Samson showed that he was loyal to his parents over his wife when he said in verse 16, “Behold, I have not told my father nor my mother [the answer to the riddle], and shall I tell you?” And when the whole fiasco was over, instead of going back and working things out with his wife, he abandoned her and went back home to live with his parents. (19-20)
Ladies, our husbands come first when it comes to loyalty, unity, bonding, and family decisions. Not our moms, our sisters, our best girlfriends, or even our children. And our husbands are to exhibit that same loyalty to us. Don’t hook yourself up to another plow.
Leave and cleave. Plow with the bull you’re yoked to.
Pack your bags, we’re going on a guilt trip. And Samson’s wife had a saddlebag full of every vixenish wile she could squeeze in: emotional manipulation, shame, blame, nagging, and relentless pressure. Samson’s wife provides us with the perfect example of how not to communicate with our husbands.
Samson’s wife provides us with the perfect example of how *not* to communicate with our husbands.
We can all be tempted to use underhanded methods of getting what we want, but the God who tells us not to lie, to speak the truth, and not to act in selfish ambition but to put others first, is not a God who is pleased by such behavior. God is honored when we treat our husbands with kindness, respect, and honesty, and trust God enough to leave the outcome to Him.
While Samson may have had understandable reasons for being angry at both his companions and his wife, and while God may have used a bad situation to take out some of the enemies of His people, God calls husbands and wives to forgive one another.
Again, Samson shows us what not to do. Consumed by his anger, he abandoned his wife and seems to have held a grudge against her for a good while. When he finally went back with a peace offering, it wasn’t a pretty scene.
Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.
Ephesians 4:26-27
When we’re angry, self control can go out the window, making it easier to give in to Satan’s temptations to sin. Instead, it is God’s will for us to “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”.
Over the last few months, there’s been a lot of talk about the possibility of future U.S. military drafts including young women in addition to young men. I’ve admired godly male friends who have spoken out vehemently against this and expressed concern about the government trying to press their daughters or wives into service. Some even vowed to lay their lives down protecting their women from having to face the horrors and dangers of war.
But I wonder if these men – husbands, fathers, pastors, elders – know that many of their wives, daughters, and sisters in Christ are already in the trenches fighting off the enemy with every ounce of our strength and every weapon at our disposal.
It’s not a war for territory or political control or freedom from dictatorial tyranny.
It’s a battle for the purity of the Bride. And the souls of our sisters.
Daily. Weekly. At church. On line. In our families. We strap on our Swords, march out to the front and engage in hand to hand combat with the Enemy.
His troops: false teachers.
His weapon of mass destruction: false doctrine.
Sometimes we stand as a shield between grenade-lobbing grunts and weak sisters who don’t know how to fight, or even that they’re in a war. Who want nothing more than to knock us down into the mud as they desert our King and join our foes.
Sometimes we infiltrate the enemy camp to bring back intelligence on his troops to our commanders and generals, only to be ignored, reprimanded, or dishonorably discharged from the unit.
Sometimes we stand as guards at the walls of our churches, watching the adversary advance, sounding the alarm, and standing in stunned disbelief as our commanding officers smilingly welcome the enemy troops through the gate.
Why? Why, in a field of pink, are there so few Green Berets? Why is it that so many women are out on the front lines battling this insidious rival while most of our brothers in arms seem to be AWOL?
And to that I respond with a hearty amen. But with much love and respect to Brother Steve, I would add:
Give us some men who will DEFEND the truth.
And the weak women the enemy seeks to capture.
And the strong women who should be protected, working safely away from the line of fire to support the troops and nurse the casualties back to health.
Give us men who will…
…thoroughly vet any curricula, books, or materials used by their church’s Bible study classes.
…train all of their church’s teachers to properly handle and exegete the word of God.
…take a close look at the authors of the books and blogs their wives or church members are reading and the speakers at the conferences and retreats they’re attending.
…examine the doctrine of the singers their daughters or youth listen to and the leaders of the youth camps they attend.
…speak out with godly boldness (not jerkiness- godly boldness) against false doctrine and false teachers on social media, in Sunday School, in the sanctuary, in their homes, and in every arena in which they have influence.
…join the few brave brothers who are already standing in the gap to present a united front to ward off the enemy.
Godly men on active duty in their churches, homes, and in the public square are out there. I’m privileged to know several. But they need a bigger band of brothers to join them in fighting the good fight.
We need men who will gird up, gear up, and stand up. Because some women in combat are wounded, battle fatigued, and in need of some R&R. And we can’t keep fighting this battle without a few more good men.
*At the time this article was originally written, Steve Lawson was a doctrinally sound, trustworthy pastor and theologian. He has since committed disqualifying sin and is no longer in ministry. This mention of his name should not be construed as a current endorsement of Steve Lawson.
