Intellectuelle

So the one flesh is the woman being "put back into" the man.

This is giving me PTSS. Being put back into man, means the utter stripping off of one's own personality, which then borders on mental illness. "Completing" someone else sounds like being their hand, and extension of their body. The wife as a physical extension of the husband must parrot every word, (rehearsed before hand) must respond to every command and request, and is at the disposal and I do mean *disposal* of the man.

I would like to see the word "obey" removed from the marriage ceremony by law, and a little more on boundaries, on training women to say "NO" before they enter marriage. Train a woman to retain her sanity because it is at stake.

I wonder if complementarians make donations to mental health services.

Whoa, Sue. The context of my saying that the one-fleshness of marriage is the woman being “put back into” the man is that this follows from her being “taken out of” him in being created, as per Gen. 2:23. Perhaps, though, I am in error to say that the wife completes the husband. (Although, to speak of completion does not imply extension; the two terms have different meanings. There is no stripping off, either; there is no removal of anything that the woman is, but a giving of these things to the man.)

But I am rethinking the “completing” idea, and I think it’s more accurate to say that woman is taken out of man to be put together with him; he cleaves to her, rather than taking her into himself. As per Ephesians, Christ does not need the church to complete Him. The church is Him in that it is His body. Paul says that the wife’s body is the husband’s as the church is Christ’s body.

Thanks for helping me correct this!

There is no stripping off, either; there is no removal of anything that the woman is, but a giving of these things to the man.)

And what if you give yourself to a man who disposes of you. Maybe you should just give tiny piece at a time. Men are human, and so are women. You can't just give yourself up to someone else's power without safeguards. In some cases, quite a few safeguards.

A wife should respect her husband and consider him and be in a relationship of mutual beneficence. There should be no talk of a person being only part of a human being. The man is not incomplete without a woman and the woman does not exist to be given up to a man. Each one is a whole person and ought to remain so until they die. But as fellow Christians give themselves for others, so a husband and wife ought to willingly give of themselves for the other.

I have written a few beginning thoughts on my blog, the post with the atrocious title. :-)

Sincerely

Suzanne

Suzanne,

The giving must be appropriate: not giving yourself up to someone else’s power, but giving yourself up for them, or giving yourself to them in whatever way is appropriate to your relationship with them and the specifics of what is going on at the moment.

My statements about completeness and giving have to do with marriage. My intent in this post was to flesh out something I’d written earlier in an effort to point out the insufficiency of Piper’s view of marriage, including his insufficient treatment of the words on marriage in Genesis.

A marriage is a one-flesh union. If there are problems, then there is a breach in this one-flesh-ness, although still, because of the covenant of marriage, the one-flesh-ness cannot be denied. It may be seriously injured and malfunctioning, but it still is a one-flesh union. Spouses are two parts of one whole marriage. Not parts of one another. A husband is primarily for his wife, and a wife is primarily for her husband.

Because I am married, my main purpose is to be a wife. Were I to become a widow (heaven forbid, at least for the next 30+ years), I would cease to be a wife, and much of my earthly purpose and priorities would change. I would no longer be “cleaved to.” I would no longer be “one flesh” with a man. In both cases, I would be a “whole person,” but in the one, I would be a whole married person, and, in the other, a whole single person.

That makes sense. I just want to clarify so many things that can be taken wrongly and hurt people if they are not put in context.

It could be understood that the two have only one will for example, and that would be the will of the husband. It is deeply destructive to try to destroy the will of someone else. Since marriage is not a time limited relationship like an employment assignment, the person whose will is to be broken is somewhat like a prisoner of war. Really I can't even think of how to describe how terrible it is. I read the gender blog and believe me, it sends shivers down my spine, but they aren't nice ones.

Sue, I am deeply concerned about things being taken wrongly as well. That is the reason I am writing this series. I have the same ostensible goal as CBMW, that is, to see a proper understanding of gender be understood for the good of all people and the glory of God, but am greatly dismayed by a great deal of the material at their site. They are creating an insular, almost gender cult, as I see it. There's nothing that can be done about that, probably, except to just offer one's voice as well.

I am dismayed by attempts to essentially change the meaning of Scripture that I see made by people on both "sides" of the gender debates. I don't have the definitive "answers" by any stretch, but, what little I do and may have to offer, in the way of analysis, i.e., pointing out error or offering explanation and interpretation, I plan to offer in this series. Heaven forbid that I misrepresent Scripture as well; I am proceeding very carefully and welcome correction.

Sue said: "And what if you give yourself to a man who disposes of you. Maybe you should just give tiny piece at a time. Men are human, and so are women. You can't just give yourself up to someone else's power without safeguards."

Bonnie talks about the woman being put back into the man, so that in some mystical sense they become "one flesh."

Sue echoes the worries of many women that they will disappear, or be hurt if they give "all" of themselves.

"Maybe you should just give a tiny piece at a time. Men are human," she says. Women should hold something back, just in case things go bad.

This made me think of Jesus' prayer in John 17:21 that the disciples would be "one". Look at what he says:

"...that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are *in* me, and I *in* you, that they also may be *in* us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me."

In other words, Christ prays that we would be "one" in the same way that Christ and the Father are "one", which means that we are "in" Christ and the Father.

We wouldn't say that we can give God tiny pieces of ourselves. We know that we must give God our whole being, body and soul. Doing that doesn't diminish us, but makes us what we were designed to be.

It seems to me that the "one flesh" of Genesis is a promise of a similar unity for husbands and wives, if they give themselves totally to each other. They won't disappear; they'll become what God intended them to become all along.

And in that way, marriage is a mirror, as Bonnie has said, of the relationship God wants us to have with him, and with each other in the church. When we give ourselves to God without holding back, we become who we were meant to be.

I know the objection is going to be that men can hurt women and God will not. But it seems to me that's fear speaking. What would a marriage look like if both husband and wife gave themselves to each other as we give ourselves to God?

Bonnie,

I am really trying to work with you on this. I appreciate what you are doing here.

You write,

The giving must be appropriate: not giving yourself up to someone else’s power, but giving yourself up for them, or giving yourself to them in whatever way is appropriate to your relationship with them and the specifics of what is going on at the moment.

I would like to point out that there is no difference in Greek in the words power and authority. If the husband has authority, then he has power over the wife. There is not one scripture in the Bible which gives a Christian authority/power over another human being except in 1 Cor. 7. See if you can find one.

That is why I insist that Eph. 5 is talking about a sacrifice - submission relationship and not an authority - submission relationship. Even with slavery, the master was to treat the slave properly, that was the command. The power that the master/owner had was not from God. And so the power that husbands have had over wives is also not from God. The power was there in that culture and the command was to sacrifice.

Charlie,

I don't think that women are less abusive that men. The facts are that men and women can be terribly abusive physically and emotionally. Since one in five women are physically hurt and some of those very badly, let me say that this is not an irrational kind of fear, this is the kind of fear that says, don't go into grizzly country without a rifle.

All men sin. When the wife is subordinate to sin, the effects of the sin is magnified. All women sin. I do not recommend the subordination of men either.

When you say that it is fear speaking, that is a real insult to women who have, through subordination, not been able to work, further their education, pursue interests and exercize, friendships and family. This is a further insult to women who have been beaten up.

I hear what you're saying, Sue. Fear plays a huge part in the boundaries we erect. Fear keeps us from intimacy with God perhaps even more than with other men and women. Yes, women are beaten. Yes, we all sin. The question is whether that fact justifies our going through life with shields up. When Jesus said turn the other cheek, I don't believe he was being rhetorical. He was showing us how very hard real love can be, and how much it will require of us. If love required Christ to submit to the cross, it might also require me to take serious risks in my relationship with my wife.

Don't misunderstand me. I would not counsel a woman who has been beaten by her husband to stay with him. But the language you have used -- prisoner of war, wives parroting the words of their husbands, wives giving only tiny pieces of themselves -- none of these things represents the sort of surrender that Christ showed on the cross for us. I may be misunderstanding, but it sounds like you would counsel a woman to go into a marriage ready to run, instead of ready to empty herself in love. When both the husband and the wife practice that self-emptying love, they are each filled by the other.

The question is whether that fact justifies our going through life with shields up.

Yes, it does. You seem to be completely, and I might add blissfully, ignorant of what spousal abuse can entail. Yes, being beaten means going through life with the shield up. Too bad it wasn't put up earlier, don't you think. Too bad statistics tell us that 70% of abused women stay a lifetime and live with frequent violence. Too bad not enough work is done in this area in the churches.

Unfortunately submitting to abuse can and in most cases does cause it the violence to escalate. After all it was successful wasn't it? It gained the sought after submission. It is an extremely dangerous thing to ever advise anyone to submit to any kind of abuse, verbal, emotional or physical, One kind can become another.

I sincerely hope you are not in a position to give people advice on how to deal with abuse.

People, both men and women, need to be taught first and foremost how to say know when someone crosses the line. If the shield is up, then that should happen well before the first punch is thrown. No, I don't think you, as a man, should just sit and let the frying pan land on your head either. Would you allow yourself to be treated that way. Is that what you mean?

I am so tired of men thinking that it is okay to deprive women of the things they claim for themselves, I don't know what to think.

All I can say, Charlie, is that you sound like a nice guy and I think you haven't really thought through what you just said.

Women need to be trained to identify and run from abuse. And when it intrudes into a marriage, like the first time the wife is "ordered" to do anything at all, then she needs to pack. The relationship ought to be mutual. We are to love our next one as ourself. We are to treat others as we want to be treated. Men do not "tell their wives what to do."

I am not sure if I lost a post here.

Charlie, listen to what you are saying,

Yes, women are beaten. Yes, we all sin. The question is whether that fact justifies our going through life with shields up. When Jesus said turn the other cheek,

Being beaten and staying means the violence will escalate. Is this really what you are advising? Or maybe you think that once a woman is beaten then she can leave. What about all the build up? What about only being yelled at, lied to, etc. What do you really think? This is one in five marriages. It isn't only women, of course, but no one is advising men to be under their wives authority.

You express your point of view well, Sue, and you know how difficult it is to make nuanced comments in this medium. I don't argue with the problem of domestic violence, nor its seriousness. Your statistics are inflated, as all advocacy numbers tend to be, but it's a terrible crime if even 1 husband beats his wife, so I'm not excusing it.

What you're advocating, if I understand you -- the fearful and defensive posture of women towards men -- is the equivalent of saying that we should all carry concealed weapons because there are bad people out there, or we should never let our children get close to adult men because there are some who are predators.

Are you really advocating a society built on a foundation of fear? How sad that would be. Christ turned many, many things upside down. The Roman world (for 1st century Jews) was a very fearful place, with no civil rights for Jews, no due process, no legal protections. Yet Jesus said, "love your neighbor in the same way that you love yourself," and "if you really love someone, you'll lay down your own life for him/her."

I'm suggesting that the world might look very different if we each went into our various relationships, marriage included, living by those sort of ideals of love.

I'm also saying that Christ did just that, and he was tortured and murdered in response. So we can expect that the response to our love will sometimes be a fist in the mouth. That is the nature of the sinful world we live in. So how do we respond?

Charlie,

I am being more practical. You cannot love an abusive partner into not abusing. Surely you know that. No amount of accepting a beating is going to do anyone any good.

I can only say as I said before "please don't offer advice to anyone in an abusive situation, or to anyone who might be - which is most people."

And I am not singling out men as abusers, although my statistics are not inflated. Not that that matters to the one who is abused. But men AND women can be abusive, so neither one can give themselves to each other. They must both remain adult participants and retain their own authority and power over themselves. You can really only love out of strength not weakness.

I am really not counseling a life of fear but a life of setting normal boundaries, just simply advising women that it is dangerous to consider themselves "bound to obey," or "under their husband's authority."

"You cannot love an abusive partner into not abusing. Surely you know that. No amount of accepting a beating is going to do anyone any good."

Actually, I have done exactly that -- loved an abusive partner into not abusing. Love is quite a bit more powerful than you are giving it credit for. But the modern psychological dogma is as you've said it -- an abuser will always be an abuser. Christ's love is far greater than the conventional wisdom wants to believe, Sue.

Thanks for sharing Charlie. I hope you don't mind my asking if this was a violent relationship and how much physical damage was suffered? Do you have a line in the sand or is this commitment to live with abuse unlimited?

I think what's missing is the understanding that marriage is an avenue of peace, hope, justice and love. This is what being a covenant actually is- a peace treaty with conditions and markers for maintenance. It is an active relationship that must exalt the humble and humble the privileged, sharing power, honor and glory. Both parties become more disciplined and focused for excellence. This is true whether it's between God and us or between human beings.

Christ makes God's covenant more intimate while still being mysterious. This is because Christ was human as well as God. He made peace, hope, love and justice available so we can participate in the covenant of God with each other. Through faith (by grace), we reflect Christ's image and likeness across gender, status and peoples. Becoming like Christ we become like the Church, and vice versa.

Marriage is a prime example of that. It is a personal and mystical covenant between two parties that must exemplify peace, justice, hope and love for women and men. It is an active relationship that shares power, honor and glory. Anything that obstructs this reality (including abuse) overpowers, dishonors and discounts both members of the covenant and ultimately Christ, whom we must reflect. Christ might bring people together, but we can certainly bring people apart.

Thanks Jadon.

For now, I am just going to assume that there has been some miscommunication in the previous comments and I haven't contributed to unraveling it. I'll just hang out now be see how Bonnie continues.

I don't mind your questions, Sue, but I don't believe this discussion is moving us forward. Like you, I'm going to wait for Bonnie's next installment.