She begins by asking why "most" Christian women will do housework without complaining but struggle with obeying their husbands when it's "clearly commanded by God." She then quotes the following verse:
“For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands: Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement” (1 Peter 3:5, 6).
This is very important to unpack. The Bible does NOT ever command wives to obey their husbands. Submission and obedience are very different things. All believers are told to submit to one another (such as in Ephesians 5:21), meaning that they ought to prefer others over themselves and seek to meet each other's needs. Paul deliberately uses a different word when talking to wives vs. others. When Paul tells children to obey their parents, for example, he uses the Greek word "hupakouo." The same word is used when referring to slaves. But he took care to avoid using this same word when speaking to wives; instead he used the word "hupotasso." It could not be more clear that he wanted to make sure we realized he was not telling wives to obey their husbands. Lori and Ken don't like this fact, so they ignore it.
As for the verse stating that Sarah obeyed Abraham, it is usually overlooked that Abraham also obeyed Sarah multiple times! For example, in Genesis 21:12, God himself tells Abraham to do what Sarah is telling him to do. So this verse cannot be used to support a husband's exclusive right to bark orders.
Many pastors avoid the subject altogether or just as bad, they teach a sermon on a wife’s submission to her husband by explaining everything he is supposed to do for her and not do to her, even going so far as to say, “A wife was not born to serve her husband.”
I'm not sure exactly what Lori and Ken had in mind what they wrote "do to her," but it certainly sounds sinister. And let me gladly "go so far as to say" a wife was not born to serve her husband! Men and women alike ought to serve God above all others, and yet Lori and Ken literally seem to believe that for a wife, her husband comes before God. This is nothing less than idolatry. Regardless, women are capable of (and were made for) so much more than being housekeepers, cooks, secretaries, and assistants to men! I suspect if Lori and Ken had been in the room when Jesus praised Mary for sitting and learning from Him rather than Martha for housekeeping, they would have denounced Jesus Himself!
I thought the Word of God teaches that all believers are born into Christ and are to serve others and that this service begins with serving our spouse, family, and fellow believers, then extends to all others in need. What a lame thought to put in the mind of a believer that we are not here to serve. What are we here for if not to serve God and in turn serves others?
What a crafty attempt to deceive us! To suggest that women don't exist solely to cook and clean for their husbands is not to say that no one ought to serve each other! Rather, I would suggest that men must serve as well (something Lori and Ken seem to think is beneath them). They would apply such requirements only to women.
It’s not like submission is some fringe view taught only by some cults, but rather it is spelled out clearly in eight to ten places in the New Testament and modeled in both the Old and New Testament and for 1,980 years of the Church age. So what makes submission all of a sudden such a pariah to these women?
Needless to say, Lori and Ken's idea of submission is a pretty fringe view, and yes, they are rather cult-like. Isn't it weird how they say it is spelled out in "eight to ten places"? Do they not even know how many? Why not just give the exact number, unless you're making something up? Instead, they try to slip past it without even providing references. And the fact that it has been practiced for such a long time throughout history is no more an argument that it is what God intended as the same argument would be regarding slavery. The Bible records much that it does not condone. If we must follow the lifestyle of every Bible character, why are Ken and Lori not shepherds?
So under the guise and excuses of “potential abuse” and the excesses of some men, Christian women everywhere are losing out on some of the very best that God’s ways offer them. They are making themselves into islands who are separated from their husbands physically, emotionally, and spiritually, all in the name of protecting themselves from something God says is good.
I really don't think the wives out there whose husbands treat them as adults and not children, who respect them as an equal, and who share decision-making, are missing out on much. But this is how Ken and Lori and those like them ensnare people: they fill them with fear to the point that they can't even use common sense anymore and see through the lies, so they are afraid to try a marriage based on equality or to listen to those who advocate for it.
Don’t be angry at me about this but talk to Sarah about it when you get to heaven. My guess is she will tell you, “I sure wish I had trusted God and my husband more fully and not made the mistakes I made by taking on the leadership role at times in my marriage, in spite of God’s Word, because I feared that my needs for a child may not get met in spite of God’s promise to me.”
I really look forward to Lori herself asking Sarah this question. And, in fact, talking to the Apostle Paul! I suspect he would have quite a few corrections to make to Lori and Ken's teachings.
Link to the original blog: https://thetransformedwife.com/to-love-honor-vacuum-and-obey/
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