While the Bible tells men to “leave” their father and mother when they enter marriage it uses a different word for women when they enter marriage. In Psalm 45:10-11 we read “Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father’s house; so shall the king greatly desire thy beauty: for he is thy Lord; and worship thou him”.
Psalm 45:10-11 is widely recognized as a prophecy concerning Christ and his church. But it is also very practical and applicable to marriage between men and women. Ephesians 5:23 tells us “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body”.
I can’t tell you how many times I have had haters of the Bible’s teachings on gender roles say “You think men are gods and that is wrong!”. Each time I hear a variation of that statement I chuckle a bit to myself and remember 1 Corinthians 2:14 which states “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned”.
The Bible does not teach that men are gods. There is only one God. Men are not God, but God did create men to represent him in this world. This is the clear teaching of the Bible found in passages like Ephesians 5:22-33 and 1 Corinthians 11:1-16. So, when we understand this concept as Christians, we understand that women are not to worship their husbands or regard their husbands as their savior. We have one God and one savior whose name is Jesus Christ.
But after we set aside the last part from Psalm 45:10-11 concerning worship, what comes before that is very applicable to women in marriage.
The call to the young woman to regard her new husband as her lord is mirrored in 1 Peter 3:5-6 where the Bible states “For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands: even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement”.
Now we can zero on what is different in the call to women when they enter marriage. While men, in multiple Bible passages like Genesis 2:24, Matthew 19:5, Mark 10:7 and Ephesians 5:31, are commanded to “leave” their father and mother when they enter marriage women are told in Psalm 45:10-11 to “forget” their people and their father’s house.
A woman’s forgetting of her father’s house is a critical part of the process of her becoming one with her husband. Her father may have taught her differently and conducted his home differently than the way her husband will conduct his home. And if she clings to the way her father conducted his home and constantly compares that to her how her husband leads his home there will be problems in the marriage.
How many women today refuse to follow this Scriptural admonition to forget their father’s house? How many women today even refuse to give up their father’s last name or hyphenate their last name? How many women respect their fathers more than their husbands? A woman who refuses to forget her father’s house, to clear the slate and let her husband redefine for her how their home will be conducted will never have the kind of unity in marriage that God calls for.
A final note to fathers. As Christian fathers, we should want our daughters to marry godly men and it is our God given right according to Exodus 22:17, to “utterly refuse to give” our daughters in marriage to men whom we do not approve of. But our culture no longer respects the rights of fathers and has given young women freedom to ignore the spiritual authority of their fathers in this regard. This is why it is so important for us as Christian fathers in this post-feminist culture to cultivate close spiritual relationships with our daughters to the point that they would never want to disappoint us.
My daughter is within 2 years of the time we have agreed she will begin courting, not long after she graduates high school. I am excited to see what God will do in her life. She is not perfect and has her flaws like we all do, but I am happy that God has blessed her with a meek and submissive spirit when it comes to the men in her life whether it be me or her grandfathers. But when it comes to other women, she is a warrior for God and stands on the front lines fighting against abortion and feminism.
I would never bless her marriage to a man who was not a Christian, a Biblicist and a firm believer in Biblical gender roles. However, I realize the man she marries may have many differences with me outside of these areas. And I have told her as much throughout the years. I have told her when she marries, she needs to forget my interpretations and applications of the Bible and how I conducted our house and instead fully embrace her husband’s leading in these areas.
Biblical Gender Roles 
I dont think your daughter has to fully forget your biblical approach when it comes to her future husband taking the head role; should her husband lack some of the strengths of godly leadership, your daughter can provide wisdom and perspective for example, and thus she can be a useful vessel without usurping her husband’s role in case her husband is lacking. Blessings….
“This is why it is so important for us as Christian fathers in this post-feminist culture to cultivate close spiritual relationships with our daughters to the point that they would never want to disappoint us.”
I think that this is an area where fathers need to cultivate a balance too. You made a good case for fathers needing strong spiritual relationships with their daughters. However, if a daughter fears disappointing her father too much and he becomes an idol, this could very easily continue into her marriage. There’s an exceptionally high risk of this happening if the father is the kind of Christian who keeps his wife and children from hearing the opinions and interpretations of other Christians, even to the point where he holds Church in the home instead of having them go to another pastor’s church.
Alex,
I agree with you that there is the possibility of fathers becoming idols to their daughters. But I think if we properly train them that will not be the case. I have made my daughter well aware of the fact that I am not God and my interpretations and applications of the Scriptures on various subjects could be wrong. But what I have told her is that God has placed me, a flawed human man, over her as her head right now. And later she will have another flawed human head in the form of her husband who will be her head for the rest of her life. I believe that if we as fathers show this humility to our daughters and simply explain to them that God has an authority order but no human beings in that order are perfect then they will be guarded from turning their fathers or future husbands into idols.
I will address this more in a Biblical parenting series on I am working on. But I will just say this. I do not believe as many of my fellow traditionalists and biblical gender roles believers believe, in the sheltering my children from hearing any other points of view on theology or life in general. But rather I believe in consistently framing and giving answers to those points of view. I do not agree with my pastor on all his standards. Yet I believe he is a good man of God. And I have taught my children that spiritual maturity means taking the good from something while leaving the bad.
Whether it is shows they watch on TV, things they read or see on the internet, or us listening to talk radio or christian radio my children hear all points of view. They have been raised watching the news. And not just Fox News…LOL. We watch CNN and MSNBC sometimes as well. And everything thing we watch, whether it was the news, a tv drama or action show, or a movie I have taken as a teaching opportunity for my kids. I help sort the good from the bad. To recongize those life principles which are founded in humanism vs those life principles which are founded in God’s Word.
Trust me – I was raised in very very conservative Baptist churches and went to a very conservative baptist Christian school, and I saw first hand too often how the sheltered kids went off the rails as soon as they graduated high school and were on their own. And I was determined not to do that with my kids.
Larry
Alex,
And let me just add on another thing. There are two extremes in my view. There are the parents or husbands who so tightly control everything their wives and children watch or hear on various media in a futile effort to try and stop them from hearing alternative points of view. But then there are the parents and husbands who act as if all points of view are equally valid and they take the ammoral approach to life. Every person must decide for themselves and it is not their job to frame the issues or tell their wives or children what is wrong. I disagree with both. We can let our wives children hear other points of view, but I believe as the spiritual leaders of our homes it is our God given duty always frame whatever they hear into the proper moral context. In other words we all called as husbands to make moral judgments for our families as to what is right and what is wrong.
Now with sons I believe as they approach manhood in their middle to late teens we need to start letting them make “some” and I mean “some” decisions on their own. But nothing that would violate the spiritual leadership of the father over his home. But God has called men to be the moral interpreter and the one who applies the Scriptures for the women whether it be his wife or his daughters. So yes they can be exposed to other opinions, but it is the father and husband’s job to always frame it for them.
Larry
Alex,
And yet one more thing – see you really opened the box on this one. While I don’t think we can completely shelter our wives and children from all the different opinions on life out there, I absolutely believe that if a person, or radio program, or pastor is having a negative influence on them causing them to rebel against our authority or doing other wrong things we can absolutely do what we can to cut them off from that bad influence in their life.
Larry
A wife can never really give herself to her husband while she is holding back. If she holds back her submission to his authority she will necessarily be wasting time energy and goodwill managing contentiousness in the home or emasculate her head. If she has one foot in her husband’s home and one foot in her father’s home she is not really his. If she looks to the media and romance culture to determine her submission, she will be in rebellion not just to her husband, but to Christ; contending against both her lord and her Lord. If she refuses his name, she is refusing to publicly proclaim his headship and his claim on her. If she is refusing him her passion, her body and her vulnerability, then she is refusing to live as one flesh. If she will not give up her inhibitions she is fortifying obstacles his truly knowing her and carding for her deeply. If she live out of the fear of being a “doormat” she is refusing to take up her cross and where there is no cross – there is no resurrection.
Just as the Christian must give up his life to find it, so also a wife will not experience the joy of being a submitted wife while she contends against her husband. Only when she truly respects and trusts her husband enough to fully submit to him will she experience the comfort, protection and cherishing from her husband. Losing herself she finds her self. By fulfilling her created role she will know and increase her power and strength in herself, the household and in the Kingdom. Independence is sacrificed for union, pride for humility and contention for peace. If she arms herself to resist her husband’s authority she is resisting the comfort of being in his arms. If she will find her life, she must lose it.
As a father of two lovely daughters both close to marrying age, I know my time as their head is drawing to a close. I hope that the decades and years of discipling will equip them to honor me as they become wives living daily fully devoted to their future husbands. They were never mine to keep, only to prepare and disciple for a season. I will always cherish them, but I also love them enough to give them away fully to their new head and lord. They honor their father by submitting to their new head, a man to whom I have given to them. This is the blueprint for marriage from God. A strong enduring home that is pleasing to the Lord will be built according to that blueprint and no other.
The Bible does not teach that men are gods.
Correction: The Bible does teach that men are gods, images of God, to be submitted to by their wives “as unto the Lord”, and she is to “see that she reverence her husband.” Those are God’s inspired ideas not just mine.
Psalm 82:6 I said, “Ye are gods, And all of you sons of the Most High. 7 Nevertheless ye shall die like men, And fall like one of the princes.”
Notice that the gods die as men and fall as princes, not like princesses.
Jesus, Himself, testifies that this is speaking of men including himself when He reiterates it.
John 10:32 Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me? 33 The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. 34 Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? 35 If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; 36 Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?
This is a tough teaching for those too steeped in female-supremacy to accept, because as you quoted above:
“But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned”.
Don’t hearken unto the voice of the woman and give her the worth-ship to be obeyed, like Adam did. Men, hearken unto God, and wives hearken unto the head God has set over you as a god, or likeness of God. You shall have no other graven images of God, other than those God, Himself, formed with his own hands out of the dust of the earth, and breathed His essence into. When men are reverenced as gods, the only allowed images of God Most High, then society’s puzzle pieces will naturally start fitting into order, God’s divine order.
Sharkly,
Anyone who has read my blog for any length of time knows I am very much against woman worship or the humanist effort to make women equal with men. If I had a dime for every time I have quoted 1 Corinthians 11:7 “For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man”, I would be a rich man. But 1 Corinthians 11:7 is very clear in its wording and the context around it makes it very clear what it is saying. That man is the image and glory of God and woman is neither of these things. She is the instead the glory of man.
But Psalm 82:6 and John 10:32 are not as clear as to what they mean and they are hotly debated. There are two main schools of thought on them. One is that “gods” in those passages are referring to fallen angels as angels are sons of God as well as men. And that Jesus speaking to the Jewish leaders was saying that there were other beings that God referred to as gods and it was the angels he was referring to.
The other school of thought on those passages is that they are referring to men, but not males in general, but the judges and leaders of Israel in particular. So Jesus was telling the Jewish leaders that accused him of blasphemy that God had referred to their former leaders as gods, those put in authority by God over the people so why would they be offended that he called himself the Son of God. Trust me if you look online you can read a ton and I mean a ton of commentaries on these two passages.
But while I see clearly that wives are to submit to their husbands as unto the Lord, and to reverence their husbands, to see their husbands as the image of God in their life, I am would not use your language that men are to be reverenced as gods. If you said men are to be reverenced as the image bearers of God by women and as I often say women should be deferential to men because of this, I would agree. But I don’t agree with the way you have it worded.
The Jews thought Jesus was just a man and claiming to be God. Jesus pointed out that the law says men are gods, and therefore he should not be killed for calling himself a son of God. The Bible says all men are sons of God via genealogy:
Luke 3:38 Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.
If Adam is the son of God, that makes him a god, and his sons gods.
Genesis 5:3 And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image; and called his name Seth:
So, Adam was created in the image of God, and passed that image down to his son.
The “last-Adam” was pointing out to the Jews that they had received the law telling them that “Ye are gods, And all of you sons of the Most High.” So even though the Jews only believed Jesus to be a man from Galilee, Jesus corrected them that it is no blasphemy for any man to call himself a god, or a son of God.
I wouldn’t hide the image of God under a bushel basket. Don’t get queasy about telling this Feminist society that men are gods and women were created as a second and weaker class of human, by God, even the Father, expressly for men, and that women’s stated earthly purpose is to serve and reverence their own husbands, submitting to them, as unto the Lord. We, men, are sons of Adam, tangible likenesses, made to image our intangible Father, just as Jesus Christ also did, in whom all the fullness of deity dwelt bodily. And we men image Jesus Christ, even while our wives image the wayward church. Like Eve, women are natural defilers(Revelation 14:4) and should remain shamefaced considering their lawless nature. Nor should women pretend equality with men, and anger God and His holy angels. Wives should not presume to seek to commune with God unveiled like a man. Wives should wear a symbolic token of their holy subjection to God’s designated head who is placed over them for the sake of righteousness. Adam was divinely granted dominion over every living thing upon the earth, including the woman whom God gave to him. Don’t fall into the sin of Adam by letting your dominion be usurped, and God’s order be upended, by hearkening to the wicked bleating of the defilers. If women object to hearing that “men are gods” that’s all the more proof they need to be daily reassured of fathers’ and husbands’ righteous and divinely ordained dominion over them, for their own good, as designed by their loving Heavenly Father. As gods, repressing lawless women’s foolish independence is part of how we must keep the silly creatures from going astray and leading all of society down into their defilement. We must take back their ill-advised votes, to prevent them from voting to slaughter the innocents in their wombs, to divorce their husbands for no-fault, and every other family-destroying Feminist abomination enacted in last hundred years. Women need to be reigned back in and put back under subjection to their rightful heads, for the glory of God, for the preservation of families, and for the peace and prosperity of our land.
Jonadab, I have said my peace on the “men are gods” sub discussion. But I am extremely curious as to your take.
I understand the “man is the lord of his house” narrative, but likening men to gods seems extreme. While a wife should submit to her husband as her head, as the Bible explains, she isn’t obligated to submit to another man simply because he is male. Correct?
While a wife should submit to her husband as her head, as the Bible explains, she isn’t obligated to submit to another man simply because he is male. Correct?
Tom Barb, you are correct. Women should be respectful of all men because they are the image and glory of God. Some men are due greater respect because they are godly, and some less because they are reprobate. There is also the respect and some submission generally due to those placed in authority over us, like police, and judges. A woman is to submit to her father until she marries, and then submit to her husband. If a woman’s father dies before she is married, she becomes fatherless, and men of God should act fatherly towards her so that she is less inclined to wander astray.
@ BGR. I think we are playing fast and lose with the term “god”. There is only one true God, there is none like Him. While He posses several communicable traits some of His traits are incommunicable, found in Him alone. There are many counterfeit gods including idols, imaginary gods some called with the same names as the trinity. For instance the god of LDS is not the God I worship no matter what they name him. Their Jesus is not the Jesus of the Bible and their gospel is not the gospel of Christ. The LDS teaches men become gods, Christian’s teach God became man to save men from the justice and wrath of God.
Husband’s image God in their role, but even in their image bearing they severely limited; unable to create ex nihilo or provide propitiation for sin. They are to image the second person of the trinity, that is Christ in their relationship with their wife. Christ honors and obeys The Father, so also husbands must honor and obey. Christ rules His bride, The church, so also a husband rule his wife. Christ disciplines His church, so also a husband ought discipline his wife. Christ taught spiritual truth, so also a husband should be a teacher in his home. Christ suffered and died while His bride scorned Him, so also a husband must be willing to give up his life and suffer the scorn to fulfill his obedience and offer up himself for his own. Yet in all that, he desperately needs Christ to save him, his image bearing is marred by sin, and sin has a death grip upon him that can only be released by Christ. True humility is understanding not that God’s image is upon us, but that we have perverted that image so badly that we more often image Satan in our lives than Christ.
(Note their is a concomitant response required in wives to image Christ and the gospel, but that is not the current focus)
Through the instrument of faith one is a son of god, but not the Son of God, he is adopted not monogenes. As a son of God he has the right and privilege of being part of the household of God and a place at the table. Yet in all these signal graces he is not God. He is not, even in the resurrection, omnipotent, omnipresent, nor omniscient. He is like Christ sent to do his Father’s will.
To the grasshopper we may appear as a god, but we did not create the grasshopper nor did we create his field of grass. No we are not gods in any real sense of the word. I think that any desire or claim of being some kind of god is precisely what lead to Lucifer’s great revolt and Eve’s temptation. The essence of Christianity begins with the creature creator distinction. To quote the movie Rudy “there are two things I know for sure; there is a God, and I’m not him”.
Finally God is orderly in His being and in creation. Part of that order is in the social structures that are held together by authority. Authority flows from God, even within the godhead. It is not simply might, but position, structure and purpose. In the jurisdictional sphere of the household the husband has authority. He is personally under authority in God and to His law, also in other spheres he is under authority to other men. In that sense he bears the title “Lord”. The husband is the lord of the home because he rules it, makes the rules under God to order it, he protects it and provides for its good. The home is his castle and those in his castle are his subjects, not to exploit for his his own pleasure but to prosper and lead in holiness. The wife is not Lord Of the castle, she is the mistress of the castle and as such has authority only second to her Lord-husband. But while he is her Lord he is not the Lord of all creation. There is only one Lord sovereign over all, even sovereign over her husband-lor, one who rules the wind and the sea, whose blood washes away the guilt of sin and who is exhaustively truth, just and love. Her earthly lord brings her to that Heavenly Lord with And through his authority not sepreate from or around it. Together they are heirs of the almighty.
Jonadab,
I agree with you very much that we are not God. I believe Sharkly would also agree with we are not God. But he would say we are little ‘g’ ‘gods’ based on Psalm 82:6 and John 10:32. I would not even feel right ever calling men little ‘g’ ‘gods’ either. So what is your take on Psalm 82:6 and John 10:32 specifically? When Christ used Psalm 82:6’s phrase “ye are gods” to whom was he referring to? Was he referring to the leaders of Israel in their capacity as judges over the people? Was he referring to fallen angels as Piper and others have claimed showing there are spiritual beings between the God and men? I was curious as to your take on this a well.
I humbly appeal to more learned minds like John Calvin. He wrote concerning psalm 82 and it’s relation to Jn 4
Ok so you are agreeing with Calvin and many others that believe it is addressed to earthly rulers and judges and God granting them some of his authority. I tend to lean toward this interpretation as well and not Pipers that the gods referred to are fallen angels. The context of Psalm 82 seems to be a warning to against rulers and judges being unjust and unfair in ther governing.
Yes, I think we men are gods with a lower case “g”, not false idols, but, true idols to be reverenced, bearing the image and glory of God, graven by God’s own hands from the ruddy clay of our earth. We were selected to emulate Jesus Christ in this life, and predestined to later be conformed to the image of God’s Son throughout eternity in glory. Lucifer and Eve both wanted to be like the Most High God, now. Serpents now slither on their bellies and the daughters of Eve are to be adorned with shamefacedness.
But we, the sons of Adam, are the only earthly creatures made after the likeness of God. We redeemed are vessels of mercy, which He had afore prepared unto glory. And we will proceed from this muted earthly glory on to far greater heavenly splendor.
2 Corinthians 4:6 For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. 7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves;
2 Corinthians 3:18 And we all, with unveiled face, the glory of the Lord beholding in a mirror, to the same image are being transformed, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
I am an earthen idol, a besmirched god for today, but make no mistake, I already bear the image and glory of God, and God’s essence was breathed into my forefather Adam making him a living son of God, and I was born after Adam’s likeness, and am already being anointed with God’s Spirit, I am assured of far greater glories to come, and the power that is within me has already defeated Satan, overcome the world, conquered death and hell, and I will reign with Christ, and judge the angels, because, like the captain of my salvation, I am being made perfect through suffering and I am being cleansed to overcome sin with the perfect blood of Jesus Christ, I will be raised up blameless, incorruptible, immortal, eternal, I will know God like how He knows me now, and I will enter into His rest into a place prepared before me, I am a son of glory, I will be given a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to God, I will be a friend and brother to God’s Son. Can you not see the glory, the family resemblance, of your brother in Christ, your fellow son of God? Can you not see the god in your fellow man? Pray for the vision to see things as God sees them.
It was once said:
For God loved men for whose sake He made the world, to whom He subjected all things that are in the
earth … Or, how will you love Him who has first so loved you? And if you love Him, you will be an imitator of His kindness. And do not wonder that a man may become an imitator of God. He can, if he is willing. For it is not by ruling over his neighbors, or by seeking to hold the supremacy over those that are weaker, or by being rich, and showing violence towards those that are inferior, that happiness is found; nor can anyone, by these things, become an imitator of God. Nay, these things do not at all constitute His majesty. On the contrary he who takes upon himself the burden of his neighbor; he who, in whatsoever respect he may be superior, is ready to benefit another who is deficient; he who, whatsoever things he has received from God, by distributing these to the needy, becomes a god to those who receive [his benefits]: he is an imitator of God.
BGR, what do you make of Sharkly’s last response? Is it biblical?
The Wanderer,
Let me see if I can answer your question with this image below that I made a while back and then a little explanation:
As you can see neither man nor woman have all the attributes of God. In 1 Corinthians 11:9 the Bible says of the male human being that “he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man”. Man images God in not only his human attributes, but also his masculine attributes. While the common human attributes in women also image God, those attributes were not give to women for imaging God, but rather for making women suitable companions for men who are called God’s image bearers. But men even in their image bearing role, do not image God in the same way that Jesus Christ did who the Bible say was “the express image of his person”(Hebrews 1:3).
In other words men in their masculine human natures are much closer to God’s image than women are in their feminine human natures, but there is still very much a distance between us as men and Jesus Christ who is the express image of his person.
There is nothing in Psalm 82:6 or John 10:32 which teach that male human beings are to be referenced as ‘gods’, even with a little ‘g’. The allusion to ‘gods’ is referring to judges, rulers and kings having authority from God. Should they be reverenced as God ordained authorities? Yes. Reverenced as literal gods? No.
The Bible says male human beings are God’s image bearers and that God has imparted part his authority to men to be over other men and women. But it never once says male human beings should be reverenced as gods.