Headship Questions, Part 7

For the next installment of handling questions about men being the covenant head of the family, we're going to tackle three related problems in one article. (Note: This is an ongoing series of articles based on the series of teachings on marriage. To understand the context of the questions, please read the previous posts about "Headship Questions.")

• I’ve tried, and I’ve failed.
• She is not / they are not willing to follow.
• I really don’t want to change.

These may not seem like related questions, but they are in at least one sense - they all have the same answer.

The first statement ("I've tried, and I've failed") apparently comes from a man who believes that he's taken the concepts to heart, taken an appropriate amount of time to try leading his family according to those principles, and the results he was hoping for did not materialize. Or, perhaps he just failed in his effort - he tried, but didn't stick with it for very long, lapsing into other habits of leading (or non-leading).

The second statement ("They are not willing to follow") looks at the willingness of the family as a primary problem in implementing the headship model. Because they are not willing, headship is not functioning in the home.

The third statement ("I really don't want to change") is a brutally honest statement that says, "I get the basic concepts, I know what's involved, and I just don't want to do that in my home." I wish more of the men in our churches could be this honest - no guile, no gameplaying - just the reality of not having the will to do so.

Three different problems coming from three different places in life. All three end up with headship not functioning in the home. And I believe all three have the same basic answer: Your responsibility before God is to provide headship, no matter what. Now this may sounds harsh and inconsiderate - it's not intended to be. But like the third statement, there is no guile or gameplaying in this answer.

Let's look at each comment more carefully.

First, the statement about trying and failing is a comment that comes from the wrong definition of "success" in providing covenant head leadership. "Failing" here has been measured by considering the degree which the ideal results were experienced in the home. If we got a lot of good results, it would be called "success," but if we didn't get enough of the desires results, then it was a failure. That's the wrong definition of success.

The man cannot guarantee the results. He cannot force his family to follow, he cannot follow a recipe and get the same outcome everytime, and he cannot control how things will turn out. But that's not how I would define success in providing covenant head leadership. The right definition is whether or not that leadership is provided. If the leadership is there, success. If not, failure. The only failing here is to never start or to give up. 

Your responsibility before God is to provide headship, no matter what. Even if the "results" you want are happening (yet!), your responsibility is to provide that leadership nonetheless. It's a lot harder when you aren't seeing the results you want, but that doesn't change the fact that men are responsible to provide the leadership. Just by becoming a husband, a man takes on that responsibility without condition.

Second, when the wife and/or family is unwilling to follow, you may have a situation where years of a lack of headship have taken a tremendous toll on the family's willingness to follow the man. Or, it's possible the man is providing great leadership, but some in the family are just rebelling.

Your responsibility before God is to provide headship, no matter what. You answer to God for yourself and for your family as a whole, but they answer for how they take up their responsibilties. Your job, men, is to provide them every opportunity to take up the responsibility well by providing good leadership. Your job is to encourage and motivate them to take up their responsibility. But since you can't make them, the best thing you can do is provide that leadership no matter how unwilling they are. I've seen too many men use this as their excuse - "They're not following, so I'm not going to lead." Who's leading in this case? The family, not the man! He's determining what to do based on them ... reacting to them. That's what followers do, not leaders.

Third, the brutally honest man who says that he doesn't want to change is not coming to terms with the reality of being accountable before God. This model for marriage is not just a nice set of techniques for marriage enhancement - this is the model God prescribes for us and expects us to live out. Your responsibility before God is to provide headship, no matter what. Even if you don't feel like it.

Whether or not you choose to take up that responsibility is your business, but it's your responsibility whether you take it up or not. God expects it of you, even if you decide you don't want to lead as the covenant head. 

There are many times when I don't feel like it. I don't want to change from my self-absorbed ways - ways that are easier than being the covenant head. In that moment, I have a choice. Will I submit to God's will, or will I reject it?

But there's a less harsh way of looking at this. The best that God has for us in marriage is through a marriage that resembles His design. The greatest enjoyment, the greatest fulfillment, the greatest success by God's own definition, the greatest marriages period. The more Lynne and I make progress toward this model, the more satisfying our marriage becomes. I'm more happy in marriage when I'm providing covenant head leadership than when I'm selfishly trying to manufacture my own happiness.

All three of these comments get down to the same point - a true leader chooses to lead despite the destractions, pitfalls, discouragements, and personal failings. A man will not fulfill the role of covenant head until he's willing to be the covenant head no matter what. The whole concept of being the covenant head is to be the who takes the initiative and forges ahead in leadership. We cannot fulfill the role of covenant head if we're waiting for people or circumstances or our own desires to coveniently line up to make it easy. That's not leading - that's following.

Headship Questions, Part 6

Let's handle the next question that has come out of the list of questions the men collected about the teaching on covenant headship.

Question 6: I don’t know how to start.

My guess is that this a very common comment. And I think it shows that the sermon series did not go far enough on explaining some of the more practical matters. We covered a lot of theology, and we did not cover enough practicality.

There may be several reasons why a man doesn't know where to start, and all are important. It may be that a man is younger and hasn't had much teaching or modeling of these principles, and just lack of life experience contributes to a sense of not being sure where to start. Or, perhaps a man has been married a while and sees all the potential, but doesn't know which of many ideas to pursue first. Or more seriously, a man has been married a while, has not been a strong covenant head, and has created a lot of unhealthy patterns - and perhaps has even created enough damage to the family relationships that getting started is just flat out daunting. Perhaps there are other situations where a man still identifies with this difficulty.

Let me offer the following ideas on how to get started (because I'm trying to get started, too!).

1. Understand the covenant head model of marriage. I mentioned this in a previous post. We've got to have a pretty good grasp of this model before anything else (which is why the sermon series focused so much on the theology). Get the sermon series on CD and listen to it again. Talk with others who have some understanding of the model.
   
2. Do what you can to make sure your spouse understands this model of marriage. If only one of you understands it, it will be much, much harder to implement.
3. Come to an agreement with your spouse that you want to implement this model in your marriage. Understanding is one thing - wanting to implement it is another.
4. Start with the covenant head. Everything in the model depends on starting with the covenant head and building from there. Even the definition of submission depends on the definition of covenant head. Focus your attention first on the man becoming the covenant head - both of you work on this! I'll discuss this in more detail below.
5. Then focus on the wife's role as "ezer." After you get momentum on the man becoming the covenant head, then make sure that the wife is working on a biblical kind of submission (i.e., being committed to the success of her husband as the covenant head). Don't get these two steps backwards - too many men are waiting for their wives to submit before they lead!
6. Then approach parenting as a team from this model. You've got to get your marriage into the right model before you can expect your kids to follow along. However, I recommend explaining all of this to them along the way, but don't demand that they "come around" until you're displaying some semblance of the biblical model.
7. Pray the whole time. Pray alone, pray together, pray in your small group. This is not a new set of "rules," but an entire way of understanding marriage. It will take time and serious readjusting, and so you need constant prayer.

Now, what do I mean by "start with the covenant head"? That's really the crux of the original question.

I suggest writing out the three parts of being the covenant head, and then begin each day by selecting one item from each of the three categories to be a goal for the day. You may pick the same thing several days in a row - in fact, I recommend it! You can't do it all, and there's no formula to say what's right for you. But most likely, you'll have little problem examining your life and seeing at least one item under each category that you need to improve on. Tell someone (a close friend, an elder, your spouse) what areas you want to grow in and ask them to pray for you.

Here are the three aspects:

1. The covenant head faces God and speaks on behalf of the family, and then turns and faces his family and speaks on behalf of God.
2. The covenant head stands in the breach between danger and his family.
3. The covenant head loves his wife as Christ loves the church.

Just take one idea from each of the three, tell someone what you intend to do, and then work on that area until you see enough progress to take on another idea.

For example, the first item clearly implies praying regularly for your wife and family. Do that. Pray daily for them. Speak to God on their behalf - not to complain about them, but to pray as their advocate and protector. Find ways where you are speaking something other than God's truth into their lives and submit yourself to say only what lines up with Scripture. Are there other ways that you are not representing God's will to them?

For the second aspect, see what dangers face your family - temptations, unbiblical ideas, habits, even dangers that you might pose to them with your own choices and lifestyles. Find what endangers your family and, with great love and gentleness, find ways to protect them. Give them truth to fight lies, remove temptations when practical, protect their future marriages by making yours strong, and so on.

For the last aspect, the love Christ has for the church as described in Ephesians 5 is sacrificial. Are you putting your goals ahead of your family relationships? Do you build up your wife or tear her down? Do you make decisions by throwing around your weight or by considering the counsel of your wife? When is the last time you overtly demonstrated in some way that you would jump in front of a bus for her, that you would toss away your career for her, that you would give up anything in this world for her? Compare how you show your love against how Jesus shows His love for the church, and submit yourself to loving His way. One of the biggest ways to "give yourself up for her" is to become the covenant head God designed you to be!

It's impossible for to give specific things to do in this post that would apply to everyone, because every situation is different. So, I would recommend discussing this post with another man who understands the model and work on some ideas together.

Also, consider explaining all this to a Christian man who has not yet learned about this model. Spread the understanding of the model. When you explain something to someone, you end up learning it even better yourself.

If you would like to speak with me directly about your situation, I would be happy to toss around some ideas with you that would apply to your specific situation. I am praying that every man of DBC becomes a stronger covenant head each year of his life.

Headship Questions, Part 5

It's been a few weeks since the last post - with the holidays and odd hours for the church office, we put a few things on ice until after the new year. And here we are, fresh and ready to tackle the next question about headship from the list of questions generated by the men of DBC. (If you are unfamiliar with the headship model of marriage, please refer to previous posts in this blog and to our sermon series Men and Women of God.)

The fifth question for us to handle is: Today's generation looks at marriage as being equal. How do they overcome this thinking if that's what they have been taught?

First, let me be very careful about the wording of the question. This is an extremely important point, and we cannot fully appreciate the headship model until we get this straight. A marriage based on headship is equal! We must be convinced of this.

A dominance marriage is unequal, where the man has authority over the wife apart from the concept of headship. This view has been taught in churches for years, and plays mere lip service to Paul's admonition that men and women are equal in Christ (Galatians 3:28). This view does not ground authority in man's double accountability before the Lord, the servant-leadership taught in Scripture, or the command for men to love their wives as Christ loves the church.

In an overreaction to the dominance model, the egalitarian model teaches that the equality of men and women means interchangeability of men and women. This view teaches that there is no distinction in the roles and responsibilities that husbands and wives may have. Neither one has headship authority over the other. This view takes equality to mean equivalence.

A headship marriage takes seriously both the teaching that men and women are equal in Christ and that there remains a distinction in responsibilities between husband and wife. It took us quite a bit of time in the sermon series to lay out this idea. The man has particular responsibilities as the man, the woman has particular responsibilities as the woman, there is an authority established, but only through the man's responsibility to accurately represent the will of God, and the woman's responsibilities are equally important. A headship marriage is equal, but the roles remain distinct.

I know what the question is attempting to ask, but I want to be very careful with the definitions.

Now, on to the question itself. Perhaps it would better to ask it this way: Today's generation looks at marriage as being egalitarian. How do they overcome this thinking if that's what they have been taught?

Great question!

This question is at the heart of my motivation to discuss this material. We've been wrongly taught by society and by the church, and I ardently want to correct these misconceptions. Too many marriages are in difficulty simply because we do not have widespread understanding and adoption of these principles.

The first step is to understand the model yourself. We cannot expect for our churches or our society to be re-taught unless we really understand the model itself. That means going over the material again and again. (It would help if I would finish my thesis now instead of over the next two years!)

The second step is to live it out in our own marriages. If we know the theory but don't practice it, the best we can do is teach theory to others. This means that wherever our marriages are not following this model, our own marriages need to change. Then we can teach others from experience, not theory. I am still learning how to integrate these truths into my own marriage, and the more I integrate it, the better I can teach our congregation about it. Lynne has also taken up the task of adding these principles into our marriage, and she can tell you some very specific ways that she approaches a real-life marriage differently.

The third step is to teach. And then teach again. And then teach again. This is not something that a single series or Bible study will "fix." To change the way we've been trained to think takes time and repetition. Time and repetition. Time and repetition.

This must start with family first, and then work its way outward. Our families - we endeavor to begin the process of living under these principles before we get too energetic about teaching others. Our church family - as a church, we continually teach and grow in these principles as a church before we expect to impact those around us.

One thing I'm becoming very convinced of is that people come to understand these principles in "layers" - there's a general understanding of the theory, then an understanding of basic application, then an understanding of deeper, more complex implications, and so on. There is much for us to unlearn first, and so we should expect learning the headship model to take time. And in some cases, not only do we need to unlearn, but we have to unravel patterns and ways of relating to one another that have been entrenched over years of following a different model.

But be not discouraged! Once we get the basics, the other layers come fairly naturally over time. It's crucial that we understand the basic meanings of headship and submission (see previous posts for a proper definition). Then, we can build the rest on those two ideas.