Carmen J. Bryant, August, 2002
5
How much more relevant is the biblical picture of the believing husband and wife
as joint-heirs of Christ,
7
running the race together toward the heavenly city! Both are to
fix their eyes on Jesus.
8
The total submissionist, however, would have the wife fix her
eyes instead on her husband. In this system, the wife who resists such complete control is
labeled as unspiritual and unsubmissive. Forced between the natural desire to please her
husband and the greater desire to please God, she must decide: Will she obey her husband
in order to gain some temporary peace at home, or will she obey God and take an
emotional pounding from the man who batters her with the Bible in order to get her to
submit?
Or is she perhaps wrong and her husband right? Does she indeed need to be more
submissive? Many women live from day to day hearing the conflicting messages that
demand answers, but where do they go for help? If a woman is fortunate, she will find
assistance from a pastor or counselor who is wise enough to know that submission must
have limits, and that increasing submission in a spiritually abusive situation only creates
more difficulties.
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Not many are that fortunate, however. Instead of receiving help that will stop the
abuse, they only hear that their difficulties would disappear if they would submit more
wholeheartedly.
When she musters up the courage to go public with "her" problem (very likely
to her pastor or a church member), what little human dignity she has retained
can soon be "trampled underfoot" with comments like: "What have you done
to provoke him?" "Well, you've got to understand that your husband is under
7
1 Pet. 3:7; Rom. 8:16-17.
8
Heb. 12:1-2, a command given to all Christians.
9
Statistics show that husbands who demand submission from their wives tend to become more abusive
when that submission is actually given.