When it comes to Christian marriage beliefs, the terms “complementarian” and “egalitarian” are problematic. They’re unclear, and they’ve become politicized.
Let’s be clear—let’s use “Jesus-centric marriage” or “husband-centric marriage.”
In a husband-centric marriage, a wife submits to her husband & follows him. She lets him make the final decisions, even if she disagrees with him or feels that God is telling her something else. She seeks 1st to please her husband, & she allows him to set the tone for the house.
She believes God calls wives to follow a husband’s will, & doing so means doing God’s will.
She believes that loving her husband is how she serves God. As she loves her husband and serves her husband, she shows her obedience to God, since her focus should be her husband.
However, that subordinates God’s will to a husband’s will. If a wife doing a husband’s will automatically=God’s will, then God is surrendering His will to the husband, which He would never do.
We are to pray "Thy will be done", not "husband's will be done."
In a Jesus-centric marriage, though, a wife pursues Jesus first, & loves & serves her husband through that lens. She believes she must listen to the Holy Spirit’s voice, and believes that she and her husband must obey God, not anyone else.
She endeavours to act as Jesus does, believing that loving her husband well means loving mercy, acting justly, and walking humbly before God, not just doing what her husband wants. She pursues her husband’s BEST, not necessarily her husband’s WANTS.
She is GOOD, not necessarily NICE, aiming to please God in all. She believes that her first calling is to listen to God and follow Him, and does not see her husband as her mediator between herself and God.
She knows that as she loves Jesus, she will also love her husband well.
We would do much better, and speak much more clearly, if we dropped the “academic” sounding labels and got to the point.
Should the wife follow the husband first and foremost, or Jesus?
Husband's will or God's will? Husband-centric or Jesus-centric?
The answer matters.
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