Working on a Sunday School lesson on Ephesians Ch 5..anyone want to weigh in?

SteveDallas

Hi Folks,
I teach a young married couples Sunday School class at my church. We're going to be talking about Ephesians Ch 5 this week. This is the infamous "wives submit to your husbands...husband is the head of the wife" versus.

I've been looking for ways to incorporate some red pill thinking into our lessons on marriage because this is a very beta group of young men and women.

Anyway, rather than getting all theological on them, I've decided to keep it simple. Paul's command for the wives basically comes down to this, "Wive's, make your husband look good" and his command to husbands comes down to, "Husband's give freely of yourself for the betterment of your wives."  (I'll defend my interpretation if needed, but no need to waste time on it of not necessary)

We will also talk about two things that corrupt this process; men who expect respect without being respectable, and women who expect husbands to give freely of themselves for her happiness rather than her betterment.

I've gained several examples of both the positive and negative applications from this forum, but
if anyone has specific thoughts to share, I'd love to incorporate them into the lesson.

Thanks,

TPoke

I have always thought the realization that being head of household (captain) is hard work and most men are too lazy to provide leadership that makes a family /relationship run smoothly. This leaves women to have to take over and this seems to make them tired and angry.

I also love the analogy of planes having two yokes, and two capable pilots but only one captain who is burdened with the responsibility to make the big decisions (with the advice of his crew), and be blamed if those decisions don't work out.

RPPanda

I think one good thing to point out in the area of submissive wives is that they should only carry out the husbands will if it's reasonable and that it should not go against Gods word/will.

george

Good for you @SteveDallas for helping young couples. I don't have much to add. I all sounds reasonable. Except that it would be interesting to hear the wives discuss the importance of strength - in all its various meanings - in their husbands. What does it mean to them, when is it important? It would be a good thing for their husbands to hear, I think.

Serenity

Glad to see you spreading the Red Pill.    Moving this to 'Faith & Spirituality'.

SteveDallas

Thanks folks. A couple of weeks ago, I gave them a challenge. The husband was responsible for all decision making related to how they spend their time together.

The initial response was heartbreaking. The women said, "Thank you!" and the men said, "No thank you."

When it was over, the only complaint the women had was that the men weren't forceful enough in making decisions. Rather than just deciding, they would look for the absolute most lukewarm response imaginable.

One of the wives said she enjoyed being able to compliment her husband on his choices and wished that would happen more often.

It' amazing how different the world looks through this lense.

jessie

I would give it to them straight up and not try to sugar coat anything.  Give them the Word-that's why God has them in your class.    

_io

Ephesians 5:33 says that a husband should love his wife and the wife should respect her husband.  You could ask what the wives in your group are doing that would make it easy to love them, and what are the husband doing that would cause the women to respect them.  Frame it in blue pill words to convey alpha characteristics, both male and female.

SteveDallas

jessie said:

I would give it to them straight up and not try to sugar coat anything.  Give them the Word-that's why God has them in your class.    

@jessie, Definitely no sugar coating involved. The exact question posed by one of the members of the class was this, "We here Eph. 5:25 quoted a lot in lofty sermons about marriage, but what does it really look like?"

Our motto in the class is, "This isn't algebra class. You should never walk out of here thinking, 'when am I ever going to use this?'" We are always looking for the practical application of the biblical truths.

I find it intriguing that I came upon this site just before we started talking about marriage. While this isn't a faith based forum, the correlations between the biblical roles and the inherent nature of men and women is undeniable.

SteveDallas

_io said:

Ephesians 5:33 says that a husband should love his wife and the wife should respect her husband.  You could ask what the wives in your group are doing that would make it easy to love them, and what are the husband doing that would cause the women to respect them.  Frame it in blue pill words to convey alpha characteristics, both male and female.

@_io,
There's a fight starter! this is a generation that has grown up believing that husbands are supposed to love them unconditionally, like Christ would.

But your suggestion is exactly what we will be talking about in the next couple of weeks; men who want respect without being respectable and women who want men to give sacrificially of themselves  for her happiness, rather than her betterment.

SteveDallas

TPoke said:

I have always thought the realization that being head of household (captain) is hard work and most men are too lazy to provide leadership that makes a family /relationship run smoothly. This leaves women to have to take over and this seems to make them tired and angry .

@TPoke,

We have been working to convey the message that women value security and they cannot feel secure when they are the ones having to make all the choices.

The funny thing I am seeing is that the young couples look at me like I've grown a 3rd eye when I bring these points up. But I'm running these concepts past women in their 30's and early 40's and their eyes just light up! "Yes! Tell the men to do this!"

One lady, married 20 years, said she was going to have to start coming to our church and join this class because this sounded like so much fun.

I fear for our youth.

_io

SteveDallas said:

_io said:

Ephesians 5:33 says that a husband should love his wife and the wife should respect her husband.  You could ask what the wives in your group are doing that would make it easy to love them, and what are the husband doing that would cause the women to respect them.  Frame it in blue pill words to convey alpha characteristics, both male and female.

@_io,
There's a fight starter! this is a generation that has grown up believing that husbands are supposed to love them unconditionally, like Christ would.

But your suggestion is exactly what we will be talking about in the next couple of weeks; men who want respect without being respectable and women who want men to give sacrificially of themselves  for her happiness, rather than her betterment.

Christ had no problem telling the church what he thought of them when they were disrespectful of his headship (see the messages to the various congregations in Revelation).  Individuals were also ejected from the church in the first century for unrepentant bad behavior.  Just because Christ loves you doesn't mean you don't have standards of behavior.  So if husband are to love their wives like Christ loves the church, then the wives need to realize there are standards of behavior she has to reasonably attempt to meet.

SteveDallas

I absolutely agree. I told them up front that my goal was that each of them would go home fighting at least once during our lessons. Mostly kidding, but I am perfectly okay making them uncomfortable.

It's going to be interesting to see how they respond.

jessie

SteveDallas said:

I absolutely agree. I told them up front that my goal was that each of them would go home fighting at least once during our lessons. Mostly kidding, but I am perfectly okay making them uncomfortable.

It's going to be interesting to see how they respond.

That's my favorite kind of teacher.   

Riddick

SteveDallas said:

_io said:

Ephesians 5:33 says that a husband should love his wife and the wife should respect her husband.  You could ask what the wives in your group are doing that would make it easy to love them, and what are the husband doing that would cause the women to respect them.  Frame it in blue pill words to convey alpha characteristics, both male and female.

@_io,
There's a fight starter! this is a generation that has grown up believing that husbands are supposed to love them unconditionally, like Christ would.

But your suggestion is exactly what we will be talking about in the next couple of weeks; men who want respect without being respectable and women who want men to give sacrificially of themselves  for her happiness, rather than her betterment.

When the arguments/talk-back start, that's when you point out the difference between real love and feel-good claptrap.  As in, sometimes it will mean 'tough love', with rules and consequences.

TheatreMommy

SteveDallas said:

_io said:

Ephesians 5:33 says that a husband should love his wife and the wife should respect her husband.  You could ask what the wives in your group are doing that would make it easy to love them, and what are the husband doing that would cause the women to respect them.  Frame it in blue pill words to convey alpha characteristics, both male and female.

@_io,
There's a fight starter! this is a generation that has grown up believing that husbands are supposed to love them unconditionally, like Christ would.

But your suggestion is exactly what we will be talking about in the next couple of weeks; men who want respect without being respectable and women who want men to give sacrificially of themselves  for her happiness, rather than her betterment.

Well, you might start talk about the definition of the word love... how in Greek, I think, there were 4 words to describe it... one being physical love, one being  familial love, one being spiritual love and one being love of mankind (charity).  And then, talk to them about what types of love does one expect to see in a marriage... then talk about how the love that Jesus has for all of us, I'd imagine, would be spiritual love and charity and maybe familial but maybe not, I don't know how your congregation/teaching would frame this.  

Then you could go into the biology... with the assumption that God MADE this biology for a reason, it is a responsibility to understand the biology... the dopamine and oxytocin etc...  

I think that would lead naturally into the behaviours that best trigger biological reactions... and could take you anywhere you wanted to go... includig the other passage that I found enourmously helpful... which I can't remember but think i s in Corinthians about specific examples of wifely behaviour... i.e., her lamp will not go out at night (i.e., she will be forward thinking enough to put enough oil in so it doesn't go out and lose the flame)... about her industriousness...

Also, directing them to supplemental reading of the MAP would be cool! LOL.

CaptainCaveman

SteveDallas said:

When it was over, the only complaint the women had was that the men weren't forceful enough in making decisions. Rather than just deciding, they would look for the absolute most lukewarm response imaginable.

To that I will quote Revelation 316: "'So then because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth."' Pitch that to the reluctant husbands and see if their mansters wheel wildly away.

It is not that the right decision is always made, but that a decision is made, at all. I have been guilty of this from to time, but to have a lukewarm mentality as modus operandi for a marriage is destructive to both partners. There is a reason the husband is called the groom at the wedding.

Prez

SteveDallas said:

Hi Folks,
I teach a young married couples Sunday School class at my church. We're going to be talking about Ephesians Ch 5 this week. This is the infamous "wives submit to your husbands...husband is the head of the wife" versus.

I've been looking for ways to incorporate some red pill thinking into our lessons on marriage because this is a very beta group of young men and women.

Anyway, rather than getting all theological on them, I've decided to keep it simple. Paul's command for the wives basically comes down to this, "Wive's, make your husband look good" and his command to husbands comes down to, "Husband's give freely of yourself for the betterment of your wives."  (I'll defend my interpretation if needed, but no need to waste time on it of not necessary)

We will also talk about two things that corrupt this process; men who expect respect without being respectable, and women who expect husbands to give freely of themselves for her happiness rather than her betterment.

I've gained several examples of both the positive and negative applications from this forum, but
if anyone has specific thoughts to share, I'd love to incorporate them into the lesson.

Thanks,

I'm late to the party, but a 1700 year old sermon by John Chrysostom makes the point that men are to love their wives as Christ loved the church whether the wives submit to them or not, and that wives are to submit to their husbands whether their husbands love them as Christ loved the church or not. 

Some preachers will imply that if a man loves his wife properly, that she will naturally submit to him, putting all the responsibility on the man.  Some manosphere blogs focus on the idea that men are basically evil and that women are basically good, and alleviating women from responsibility.  This is a thought you can explore.  If a man really loves his wife, does that mean she will submit to him?  A lot of beta husbands love their wives and show it in a really beta way.  Does that make their wives submit to them?  I don't think so.

If a wife automatically submitted whenever her husband loved her, we would expect the churches in Revelation 2 to be in perfect submission to Christ, but they were not.  There was no problem with Christ's love.

Some preachers will say that it is the wives responsibility to submit to her husband, implying it is wrong for a husband to offer correction, pushback, operant conditioning, etc. for his wife's lack of submission.  That is true.  But it isn't wrong necessarily for a man to remind his wife she needs to submit to him.  There is a lot of instruction in the Bible about exhorting one another to prevent sin or admonishing others who sin.  This should apply to marriages as well.  A man can correct his wife for not submitting to her.  Christ offered some verbal correction and even consequences in the letters to the churches in Revelation.

TheatreMommy

Borrowed from Mr. Brown in another thread - the one to which I was referring previously, very badly (not Corinthians, for example)

Proverbs 31:10-31

New International Version (NIV)

Epilogue: The Wife of Noble Character

^10 [a]A wife of noble character who can find?
    She is worth far more than rubies.
¹¹ Her husband has full confidence in her
    and lacks nothing of value.
¹² She brings him good, not harm,
    all the days of her life.
¹³ She selects wool and flax
    and works with eager hands.
¹⁴ She is like the merchant ships,
    bringing her food from afar.
¹⁵ She gets up while it is still night;
    she provides food for her family
    and portions for her female servants.
¹⁶ She considers a field and buys it;
    out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.
¹⁷ She sets about her work vigorously;
    her arms are strong for her tasks.
¹⁸ She sees that her trading is profitable,
    and her lamp does not go out at night.
¹⁹ In her hand she holds the distaff
    and grasps the spindle with her fingers.
²⁰ She opens her arms to the poor
    and extends her hands to the needy.
²¹ When it snows, she has no fear for her household;
    for all of them are clothed in scarlet.
²² She makes coverings for her bed;
    she is clothed in fine linen and purple.
²³ Her husband is respected at the city gate,
    where he takes his seat among the elders of the land.
²⁴ She makes linen garments and sells them,
    and supplies the merchants with sashes.
²⁵ She is clothed with strength and dignity;
    she can laugh at the days to come.
²⁶ She speaks with wisdom,
    and faithful instruction is on her tongue.
²⁷ She watches over the affairs of her household
    and does not eat the bread of idleness.
²⁸ Her children arise and call her blessed;
    her husband also, and he praises her:
²⁹ “Many women do noble things,
    but you surpass them all.”
³⁰ Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
    but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
³¹ Honor her for all that her hands have done,
    and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

TheatreMommy

I write that, above, to suggest that a wife has a LOT to do... a lot on her plate, spiritually. And having a guy who is better than her, stronger, more alpha (in charge/leader) who is worth submitting to... that is a blessing. But the guy has got to be that man for her.

I entirely support teaching both parties their roles - women to be that woman the man wants to care for and honour, and men to be that man the women want to work under... double-entendre intended.

never_surrender

SteveDallas said:

Thanks folks. A couple of weeks ago, I gave them a challenge. The husband was responsible for all decision making related to how they spend their time together.

The initial response was heartbreaking. The women said, "Thank you!" and the men said, "No thank you."

This is awesome... it reminded me when I get a shit test that the W says, "you are so controlling"