This blog is based on a fake Hardees advertisement that says “Women don’t leave the kitchen! We all know a woman’s place is in the home, cooking a man a delicious meal. But if you are still enjoying the bachelor’s life and don’t have a little miss waiting on you, then come down to Hardee’s for something sloppy and hastily prepared.” Lori initially thought the ad was real, but edited her blog when someone clarified for her in the comments.
Regarding the ad, Lori says:
“I am positive an advertisement like this would not go over well these days but it should among Christian women!”
I often say that the more extreme a view is, the more difficult it is to distinguish it from satire. This is a perfect example; Lori takes an ad that most likely was meant to make fun of her views and agrees fully with what it says!
“God tells us a woman’s place is in the home. It’s the best place for us to be! We have been called to be our husband’s help meet and a keeper at home, therefore, we are responsible for fixing them food and taking care of them.”
There are a grand total of two verses in the Bible that could be interpreted to command all women to stay home, and one of them is only referring to young widows, not women in general. Lori herself has said that we should never form our theology on the basis of a handful of verses, but I guess she sees no reason to take her own advice when it’s not convenient. Of course, when reading these verses, we must keep in mind that it was already the norm in Paul’s culture for women to be keepers at home. So why would he be telling them this? The reason is that many women apparently were being unproductive, and he was urging them to use their time wisely. In other words, the choice for women was not between working at home or working outside of the home, but between working at home and not working at all. This is likely why some translations say “busy at home” rather than “keepers at home.” The point was not that women should never have careers, but that they should be productive. We can’t read the Bible as if it were written in 21st century America. To us, confining women to the home sounds odd, but in Paul’s day it was normal. So he certainly wasn’t telling them to go against the culture, but to conform to it!
“Yes, we are to serve them. Many, even Christian women, hate this concept but they will leave their homes all day and serve a boss and/or their clients willingly and happily. What’s up with this? Why is it so easy for them to serve everyone but their husbands whom they have chosen to love all of their days? One reason – rebellion.”
“Rebellion” - the favorite word used to bully people when you don’t have any good arguments. I could just as easily say Lori is in rebellion to the equality for men and women taught by God and the Bible; because, in fact, she is! She has chosen to uphold the social customs of secular 1st century society rather than the principles of the Bible.
But another key point must be made here. Lori doesn’t seem to understand the difference between serving a boss and serving a husband (according to her understanding of how wives should serve husbands). A boss has authority because he/she has earned it, not because of gender; and their authority is limited by the duration and scope of the job. By contrast, Lori believes husbands have comprehensive, unlimited, God-sanctioned authority over their wives. It’s not difficult to understand why women would be okay with the former but not with the latter. One is a perfectly legitimate and dignified subordination, while the other is completely arbitrary infantilizes women!
“God commands wives to submit to and obey their husbands. He doesn’t command them to submit to and obey their bosses but this is what many choose to do.”
No, God doesn’t command women to obey their husbands. The word “obey” is used when referring to children and their parents, as well as slaves and their masters (see Ephesians 6), but is avoided when referring to wives and their husbands (except by one or two Bible versions that have changed the meaning of the original Greek). This is because submission is not the same as obedience. All believers are told to submit to each other, meaning to honor one another, prefer others over themselves, so serve one another, and to not try to be the greatest (see Philippians 2:3, Matthew 20:25-28, Ephesians 5:21).
In fact, Lori seems to get this point at the start of her next paragraph:
“He tells us that the greatest of all is the servant of all.”
But then she blows it:
“I can tell you, women, from experience that the more I have learned to serve my husband and not expect to be served, the better our marriage has become.”
What she doesn’t understand is that egalitarianism does not do away with submission and service; it simply teaches that husbands and wives should submit to and serve one another, not out of obligation, but out of mutual love and respect. I cannot imagine who anyone believes this model of marriage is inferior to one in which wives should serve and respect their husbands, but husbands have no similar obligation in return. Besides, in Ephesians 5, wives are told to submit to their husbands, while husbands are told to love their wives. If Lori says the command to submit does not apply to husbands, would she also say wives are not required to love their husbands? Of course not! And this reveals her convenient inconsistency.
Lori concludes with this verse (a favorite of hers, but entirely misunderstood):
“For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body.”
Ephesians 5:23
Again, Lori is reading the Bible as if it were written in English. We commonly use the word “head” to mean “boss” or “leader”, but it meant nothing like this in Greek. Did Paul write with English figures of speech in mind? Of course not! In Greek, “head” was a metaphor for “source of life.” When Paul tells husbands that they are the “head” of their wives, he did not mean they should rule over them. Rather, this is part of the command to husbands to love their wives. He was acknowledging that in that time and culture men had greater privileges and status than their wives, but telling them that rather than taking advantage of this to rule over them, they should instead lay down their rights and honor their wives as equals. If this is not a command to husbands to submit to their wives, I don’t know what is. What a contrast there is between what Paul actually meant and Lori’s male-worshiping, male-originated interpretation!
Link to the original blog: https://thetransformedwife.com/when-women-didnt-leave-their-kitchens/
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