Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: "Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all."-Proverbs 31:28-29
Legacy is not just for dudes, it's also for the ladies. We are predominantly a young church. That brings with it a lot of opportunity and a lot of work too, sometimes Legacy feels like a masculine topic and we don't translate into the world of femininity well. But we are just starting out and I realize that we can get it right, right out of the gate...but again it's gonna take work. Most forms that we fill out give us some simple questions to fill out like Gender: Female, Marital status: Single, Married, Married with children...and sometimes I personally don't connect all those possibilities for the ladies. Guys I get. I yell at the guys, because I know how I need to get yelled at. I understand the need for Men to rise up and lead their culture, community, church, workplace, home, wife, and family well. To walk them towards their relationship with Jesus and see their lives poured out like Jesus' on the cross, and the ladies sit back and say uh-huh, thats right, get em...But since God's Word is an equal opportunity offender when it comes to our selfish desires, Ladies I wanted to take some very specific steps so you can understand that you need to get Legacy, your Legacy depends on it.
Look ladies, it's going to come up, so lets get this submission thing out of the way early. Ladies, Jesus submitted. He submitted to His Father, and He willingly went the way of humanity and the Cross. Jesus knew that His Father knew what was best for Him and His glory, so he willingly followed, submitted to Him. The Scripture asks ladies to follow in the same way to be submissive to their husbands. Not blindly or blanketly, but in faith wisely helping, questioning, communicating, and submitting. Now I know some of you are thinking "I have no faith in men, my husband, my boyfriend, my father, etc... they are certainly not Jesus." The Bible does not leave opportunity for such a simple cop out, it's true intention is to question whether or not you have faith in the God who asks you to submit, not in the messed up man standing before you. One very clear caveat, please do not see this as a place to allow abuse and neglect to be swept under the rug of "submission", God is not ok with His daughters being abused and mis-treated by a dominant, smug, and foolish man. He has put Godly men in His church to help you in such cases, He has also given you the police and other agencies to help step in where there is help needed to ensure the safety of you and the community as well as the correction of the man foolish enough to pursue such cowardice. I hope this is sufficient enough for us to move forward in the submission conversation.
All that ground work, now lets crack a Bible. 1 Peter 3:1-6 is my favorite place to see how this should play out...It starts out with this very awesome statment which says that a wife should be subject to their husbands even if their husbands don't know the Word, so that with out a word their wives would win them over by their Godly conduct. I love the call to women here, Peter actually assumes that a wife may be called first to Jesus, and need to live and love a man that does not know God or His love. Peter does not assume that ladies will meet a Jesus loving dude that will redeem them, nor does he assume that they will be called to salvation while single. In fact he assumes the most difficult of the 3 scenarios, mainly that a wife would be called first to the Lord and after need to live with a non-believing husband. This is incredibly hopeful because rather than starting with simple issues the passsage dives right into life; real, hard, messy life.
Godly conduct, or mode of life (I like the mode of life definition, it really captures the idea of an all encompassing modus operandum) is the living out of the Gospel in the absolutely enormous, yet very minute, hum, drum of everyday life. Paul Tripp rightly asserts that the giant moments of life are actually the everyday choices we make, rather than those seemingly big "life decisions". For example, my wife Becka moving all the stuff that I unwittingly just leave by the front door, and putting them away, choosing a later, more restful and peaceful moment (a rare moment in our house indeed) to communicate and ask me to help her by putting my stuff away instead of blocking the main entrance to our home, is a way that the gospel flows through her conduct and calls me towards Jesus. In the same way the wife of an unbelieving husband will point towards her Saviour as she lives out this lifestyle, and worships God through prayer, teaching in the home, time spent with her Family of New Birth, and Bible study. Oh and coincidentally ladies that are married to believers should conduct themselves the same way, it sanctifies their husband towards Christ. Oh, and single ladies should conduct themselves in the same way, it redeems the world around you back to the cross and will help you to be content in Christ (and will have the side affect of showing the dudes around you that you are God's daughter and need to be treated as such cause you aint gonna just roll over to some dumb boy that doesn't got his stuff together...but I digress).
How bout modesty? vs. 2-4 says that God's ladies should be known by their gentle and quiet spirit and not by their flaunting of their appareal. BUT is that all? I have a slight observation...Ladies that don't care that much about modesty also don't care that much about how much, or how loudly, or how harshly they act or treat others including their husband. God's word is not subscribing to some shut up and sit down mentality here, instead it is simply continuing it's counter cultural push and highlighting what God desires His daughters do, as opposed to what the cultural norm might suggest.
Our culture has empowered women to take hold of their equality, yes, you can be like men...you can get trashed at the bar and snag some dude for a one night stand and then wake up and take the morning after pill with a gallon of water, and give half the day away to last night just to do it all again.
It will be really easy especially if you wear that certain V-neck that is so low it reaches your belly button and your skirt couldn't get any shorter if it was made for a smurf. Tight/Short clothes tend to indicate loose woman...if you are God's daughter don't let someone mistake the former for the later, dress in a way that the most visible attribute about yourself is your spirit, or more specifically The Spirit.
Our last (I promise really our last) thing to talk about is the reference to Sarah in verses 5-6. The short of it is that even in a seeming moment of extreme emotion (this quote in 1 Peter refers back to Genesis 18:12) she still refers to Abraham with respect. The long of it is a bit more interesting. Verse 6 tells us that the major thing here is not calling your husband by a particular respect term, but rather not letting fear control you. No seriously that is the big communication. See, if you have faith in God you move towards Him in love and life, and you make your decisions based more and more upon His leading. And He desires good for you, He will bring about His glory in your actions. So by putting your faith in God, there is little to fear from a mere mortal man or temporal situation, because God is Lord over them. AGAIN, don't however let this concept of fear push you to allowing sin go unchecked and unaccounted for. There is no room in God's kingdom for his daughters being abused by foolish men, do not let some sense of blind and foolish faith allow you kingdom ladies to trust God and let a man be abusive and sinful thinking that that must be what God wants for you...it's not. He desires you to live boldly and fearlessly for Him. For additional reading check out 1 Tim 2:9-15 and Prov. 31:10-31, write down questions and grab a good commentary, especially for 1 Tim...and discuss it :-)
-Justin Gruber
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