Introduction
“The fear of man bringeth
a snare: But whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe” (Prov. 29:25).
This is of course
true—being Scripture as it is. But it also needs to be pointed out that in
another sense the fear of woman bringeth two or three snares. I am writing on
this topic because I have been blocked from seeing Rachel Held Evans’ twitter
feed, and I wanted to make sure she never forgets why she did that
Necessary
Qualifications
I do not mean to say that
every form of “fear of the feminine” is wrong. Some expressions of it should be
considered healthy. I mean, Jael the wife of Heber wielded a mean tent peg. And
Abimelech should have been far more wary of that millstone lady on the top of
the tower. So be reasonable.
A godly woman who takes
her role as the oikodespotes seriously (1 Tim. 5:14) can be quite
formidable if you put paper plates into the dishwasher. And a son is carefully
taught to remember the law of his mother (Prov. 1:8).
And we cannot leave out a
woman’s erotic glory. “Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as
the moon, clear as the sun, And terrible as an army with banners?” (Song of Solomon 6:10).
These are truths that the
human race has known for millennia, and just because our generation has gotten
itself into a snarled knot of gender confusion does not undo any of these
settled truths. There are multiple ways in which every sensible man may have a
healthy fear of the feminine.
So
What Then?
I am addressing a problem
that has arisen—in both church and home—as a result of the unrelenting and very
fierce campaign being waged by the feminists. By “feminists” I mean both the
crazy ones and the respectable mainstreamed ones. And by respectable mainstreamed
ones, I am including the form of feminism that takes up the left wing of
complementarianism. Thus far it has been a most successful campaign. The upshot
of the campaign is that a woman, considered as such, cannot really be
admonished in any way by a man. He doesn’t really know. He hasn’t checked his
privilege. His thoughts are always suspect, and he is very much part of the
problem.
So you, if you are a
privileged male living in your little hetero-normative hellhole, and you
somehow expect that women will want to live in there with you, are a central
part of the problem. The dogma I am addressing is the one that says that in the
“give and take” between the sexes, the man should simply concentrate on taking and
not giving at all.
A
Little Bachelor Party Illustration
We are accustomed to
thinking of the feminists “out there,” and we are the conservative
Bible-believing evangelicals “in here.” We fail to recognize what deep inroads
all the public dogmas have made into our circles.
So imagine—as Nate
recently did in a conversation—a bachelor party where a bunch of evangelical
Christian men get together to fellowship, have a beer, and give some advice to
the soon-to-be husband. Suppose further one of the men, when it came his turn,
gave some advice like this:
“When you are wrong, when
you have sinned, no one should be more ready to admit fault and to confess sin
than you are. It goes without saying that you should conduct yourself in all
humility and grace. When you are in the wrong, you are to own it, promptly and
sincerely, all the way to the ground. But if you are not wrong, and
believe it or not, there will be times when you are not wrong, do not ever
apologize. You may not—in the name of Christ you may not—apologize simply
for the sake of making peace or patching things up. You may not admit fault
when you do not believe you were at fault. The reason you may not do this is
because it is a sin to lie to your wife.”
Sort of takes the breath
away, doesn’t it? Does a small throng of yes, buts rush to your mouth?
Must such advice, already soundly qualified, need a host of additional
qualifications? To ask the question is to answer it. Not only so, but the
chances are pretty good that the man who gave the, um, robust advice will
himself be privately admonished, and probably by more than one sincerely
offended brother.
And all the effeminate
brethren who are aghast at this bachelor party misbehavior are agreed in this
one thing. It is our Christian duty to lie to our wives. We must do so
all the time. We must make lying a central part of our pajama-boy worldview. We
must do it seventy times seven, just like Jesus taught.
Cowardice
in the Pulpit
And the reason we have
such cowardice in our homes is because the example has already been set in our
pulpits.
When Scripture comes to
the point of ethical exhortation, it delivers those exhortations with sex
differences in mind. Men—sons, husbands, and fathers—will be tempted in certain
predictable ways. Those temptations are addressed, and those temptations have
to do with a man’s frame, his responsibilities, and his weaknesses. Do not be
harsh (Col. 3:19).
Do not exasperate (Eph. 6:4).
Do not abuse your strength (1 Pet. 3:7). Do not treat
your wife like a hooker (1 Thess. 4:4).
We see the same thing
with wome . . . aaaaa! Greco-Roman milieu! First century expectations!
Culturally conditioned! You probably believe in head coverings! Shut up! Shut
up! Shut up!
But, for example, young
wives are told to be domestic (Tit. 2:4). Younger widows
are cautioned against idleness, going from house to house, or from Facebook
page to Facebook page (1 Tim. 5:13).
And women are encouraged not to be fearful, given over to anxiety (1 Pet. 3:6). They should
fight their fear and anxiety through reverent submission to their husbands,
imitating Sara who called her husband lord (1 Pet. 3:6). Ah, but what
few people recognize is that the Greek word rendered lord here by some
of our more traditional translations is actually talking about the kind of
servant leadership you might expect to find in a soaked paper table napkin.
A
Simple Question
One of the things I try
to do in sermon preparation is this. If over the course of a few months
of pastoral counseling, say, I encounter three instances of husbands and
fathers getting angry in the home, you can expect that problem to start showing
up in sermons—either in sermons on anger, or passing illustrations about anger
in sermons on something else. My assumption is that the instances I have found
out about are the tip of the iceberg.
Now suppose—just
suppose—the presenting problem in three marriages I am trying to help is the
problem of lazy and idle housewives. Is there any practical way, without
becoming a Pariah for the Ages, to preach on “Lazy Housewives”? I could get
myself into a fit of the giggles just thinking about it.
Anything said along these lines
will be immediately translated into an “attack on all women.” The violent
response will insist that what you said about a small subset of women is to be
understood by the entire world as an attack on all women, and the violent
response will be led by women who also insist that they are every bit as
rational as men, and should therefore be trusted to preach and teach and handle
the text of Scripture, and they will do this when they have just finished
parsing a statement that some mammals are marsupials into the clownish
doctrine that all mammals are marsupials, and how dare you say that all
mammals have pouches? Whales don’t have pouches, you maroon.
The reason for this
reaction is that Satan hates women, and does not want them to have any pastoral
care. He does not want them to have husbands who protect them. He wants them to
be surrounded by feckless cowards, who refuse to tell them the truth.
He wants them to have men
in their lives who would rather lie than lead.
