Question:
I have read your Bible Study on marriage and was indeed enlightened. However, I still have a question. I will be as brief as possible and hope that you will understand what I am trying to ask. The Bible states that the head of every man is Christ and the head of the woman is the man. Does this statement also include men who are unsaved?
For an example, the wife is saved, the husband is unsaved. The husband provides all the necessary basics for his wife, but does not attend church and seems to get an attitude when ever his wife attends. Can this man who is outside of Christ still be considered as the head of his wife? This issue caused a division in our Sunday School class, the men seemed to think that regardless of the man being unsaved, he was still considered the head. The women felt that without Christ being the head of this man there was no way that he could be the head of his wife. Please help, I really want to understand this.
Thank you.
Answer:
I Corinthians 11:2,3 says, “Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you. But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.” Ephesians 5:22-24 says, “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. 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. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.” There is no exception because a man is not saved (that is, unless the man asks his wife to do something unscriptural, then she must humbly obey the Lord).
Read I Samuel chapter 25, where Nabal refuses to feed David, but when his wife Abigail hears about it, she does feed him. The right thing to do was to feed God’s man who was hungry, even though that was not the will of her husband. You spoke of attitudes. Please carefully consider Abigail’s attitude after she did what she had to do. I Samuel 25:36-38 says, “And Abigail came to Nabal; and, behold, he held a feast in his house, like the feast of a king; and Nabal’s heart was merry within him, for he was very drunken: wherefore she told him nothing, less or more, until the morning light. But it came to pass in the morning, when the wine was gone out of Nabal, and his wife had told him these things, that his heart died within him, and he became as a stone. And it came to pass about ten days after, that the LORD smote Nabal, that he died.”
Abigail had gone against her husband’s wishes, because she believed that it would have been sinning against God to ignore the needs of His servant. But when she got back home, she did not try to hide what she had done. The only reason that she did not tell him immediately when she got back home, was because he was drunk (that is not a good time to tell a husband that you have gone against his wishes). But notice that she did tell him in the morning. I am sure that she expected to get beaten by her husband for doing what she had done, but she was still going to submit to this man, because she was his wife.
The reason that many women do not find God doing a work in their husband’s hearts, is because they have a poor and rebellious attitude toward their husbands. We all must submit ourselves to God, and obey what He says. It is then that miracles can happen in the home. I Peter 3:1-4 says, “Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.”