Idolatrous Marriage
Then he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel saying, ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts. Zechariah 4:6 NASB
Not – What is the connection between Genesis 2:18, Zechariah 4:6, Ephesians 5:23 and John Piper’s view of marriage? More than you would suspect. Of course, Piper isn’t the only well-known evangelical preacher who asserts the divinely ordained headship of the husband. But his view certainly is common among proponents of this mistaken exegesis.[1] Matthew and Hubbard point out that this typical hierarchical view suggests that women receive the benefits of protection, provision and harmony when they live in proper submission. According to the hierarchical view, this is the true fulfillment of femininity.[2] As I pointed out in Guardian Angel, I consider this the second greatest heresy of the Christian Church. It has provided theological justification for the general suppression of women for centuries despite all of the male claims about loving as Christ loved. History is the tattletale about this lie.
We should have known better from the beginning. First, it seems abundantly clear from the Genesis account that Adam places himself in hierarchical superiority. Certainly God does not, as the reinstatement of the couple following their sin demonstrates. But if we didn’t learn the lesson in the first story, we see it repeated again and again in the lives of the patriarchs, disastrous examples of family dynamics when power is the name of the game. And then there’s God clear declaration to Zerubbabel. Power is not God’s chosen method of relationship management. A “relationship” based on power is not only nothing more than enforced oppression, it is idolatry. Sacks sees this quite clearly in the political realm. “Polytheism was the cosmological vindication of the hierarchical society. Its monumental buildings, the ziggurats of Babylon and the pyramids of Egypt, broad at the base, narrow at the top, were hierarchy’s visible symbols. Religion was the robe of sanctity worn to mask the naked pursuit of power.” According to Sacks, “Abrahamic monotheism entered the world as a rejection of imperialism and the use of force to make some men masters and others slaves.”[3]
Consider the implications. Do you suppose God called Abraham to a faith that opposed the hierarchy of power only to reinstitute it in marriage, the seminal model of covenant? Do you think God intended to duplicate the power-dominant male supremacy of Egypt or Babylon? Since the Tanakh is the only ancient Near Eastern mythology that includes the formation of the woman, do you suppose it would adopt the same view held by all the other ancient myths that exclude any mention of the woman? The answers are obvious.
Male dominant marriage hierarchies are not only not biblical, they are much worse. They endorse the same mistaken model of power found in idolatrous cultures. It simply doesn’t matter how carefully circumscribed the “love” is articulated. “As Christ loved the church” (a bad enough translation of Messiah and the qehelah) cannot be he grounds for an assertion of male headship. To make it so is to stand in opposition to everything we are told about a God who does not subscribe to power management.
Let me put in another way. If you and your marriage partner are struggling with a power game, then you should both take time to absorb the stories of the patriarchs, men who were both victimizers and victims of power. You should pay close attention to God’s interaction with these men. You should carefully note what kind of intimacy they shared with their wives. You should ask yourself what happened to their children. You might just learn that power nearly destroyed them. God offered a different way. Most of them never found it.
Topical Index: power, marriage, idolatry, hierarchy, Piper, ‘ezer kenegdo, Genesis 2:18, Zechariah 4:6, Ephesians 5:23
[1] “Headship is the divine calling of a husband to take primary responsibility for Christ-like servant leadership, protection, and provision in the home.
Submission is the divine calling of a wife to honor and affirm her husband’s leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts.” John Piper, “Husbands Who Love Like Christ and the Wives Who Submit to Them,” http://www.desiringgod.org/messages/husbands-who-love-like-christ-and-the-wives-who-submit-to-them.
[2] Alice Matthews and M. Gay Hubbard, Marriage Made in Eden: A Pre-Modern Perspective for a Post-Christian World, p. 132.
[3] Jonathan Sacks, Not In God’s Name,
Power struggles define and consume all worldly structures, without exception. You are right, Skip, in identifying this grab for power as underlying all idolatrous and paganistic ideals and motivations. Power as the ultimate goal drives our justification of sin, too: idolatry assumes that the ends justify the means, which is the utter negation of any and all justice. It is even included in the neo-christian whine “the devil MADE (power) me do it”. I think it also shapes the paradigm with which we approach the notion of god in our flesh.
The flesh of the human, because it is vulnerable to being forced, worships the forces it fears, and naturally ascribes those fears to the God of the universe and of man. I think there could be nothing more idolatrous than assuming that God must be just one more, ultimate, power grab. This is god made in the image of man. This is Nebuchednezzar’s image of himself made of gold on the Plain of Duran, complete with fanfare and furnaces. This has to be the pinnacle of confirmation bias; this assumption that whatever achieves the ability to force has achieved the divinity of right.
The direct command of Yeshua to “call no man your master” gave me the courage to make a stand for the dignity I was created for. I can only be forced if I agree. If I would have this Man rule over me, I have to clear the runway of my heart of all others who, in this world, are making a power grab for my loyalty. If I would have the King of heaven as my King, I have to become willing to stand up to all those other idols that are trying to shove me around. Idolatry, at bottom, is always going to be about force, the vulnerability to force, and the move toward the power structure of force. Heaven is always going to be about the freedom to choose and to love, and about a God Who defines true heroism and leadership as the ability to serve, which, if you think about it, is power turned on its head (ok, now I have tickled myself, which usually means its time to quit!).
Skip this a very powerful article and I agree a 100%! The world would look a lot different if men and women understood who they are in the image of God! It would look a bit like Gan Eden?
When I sometimes talk about this subject and tell them how it was mend to be many men and woman start to cry because they realize that first of all they know its the truth and then they long for that original state. They also know that the road back is complicated because of the doctrine of hierarchy from the church fathers and the long history of preaching this to the believers. But even in this terrible chaos I want to be a light of truth for anyone who is interested in THE truth!
Can you imagine what a chaos this has brought into marriages!
And I am so glad that God gave a strong forhead to oppose these kind of leaders telling me for years that I can not serve God like men do..
Be blessed everybody! Sorry for my simple english!
My father had a quip. As he did for everything apparently.
“Lead dog is best dog, not meanest dog. People follow you because they admire and respect who you are, not because they’re afraid.” He considered people who stuck around out of fear or need “unreliable”. For a man who never knew God sometimes he sure sounded like Him.
A Marriage Made in Heaven
~ Serve one another in love ~
Two servants, living life together, both serving Christ by serving one another. “Let this mind be in you, which also was in Christ Jesus..” The mind and heart of a servant. We [both} lead by serving.. The word [in Hebrew, of course!] is “avad.” A foursquare word meaning “work-worship-love-serve.”
Marriage is “all of the above.” It is work [hello and amen], we have to work at it – work things out, it is “high-maintenance”- the two become are becoming one- a lifelong process. It is “worship..” – We place a very high value or “worth-ship” upon our covenant-friend. And yes, Biblical marriage is a covenant! A blood-covenant union of two souls. It is critical to remember this!
And then there is love! Ahh.. love! Too much to say – far better to practice! Just do it! Love clearly defined? Take another look at Calvary. Benevolence towards another at cost to myself. Love may be measured by sacrifice. (Husbands, wives) Take another look at Calvary. Supreme love. Sacrificial love. Sustaining love. Sovereign love.
~ For He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all.. – How shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? ~ And ?? And He does! [Only, hello] “all things that pertain unto life and godliness!” [Oy!] And ?? The best is yet to come!
Meanwhile, back on the planet, – “serve on another in love.” Serve with a Servant’s Heart, – the heart-soul-mind-and strength of the resurrected and reigning Messiah!
Remember? ~ I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me! ~ for greater is He Who is [now] in you, than he that is in the world! ~ We are more than conquerors through Him that loved us! ~ Loved us? – or Loves us? Tell me, when did He stop loving us? Lol! His love [beloved] endures forever!!
Matrimonio Idolatra
Continuó él, y me dijo: Esta es la palabra del SEÑOR a Zorobabel: “No por el poder ni por la fuerza, sino por mi Espíritu”–dice el SEÑOR de los ejércitos. Zacarías 4:6 LBLA
No – Cuál es la conexión entre Génesis 2:18, Zacarías 4: 6, Efesios 5:23 y la visión del matrimonio de John Piper? Más de lo que podrías sospechar. Por supuesto, Piper no es el único predicador evangélico conocido que afirma la posición divinamente ordenad del marido como cabeza. Pero sin duda su punto de vista es común entre los defensores de esta interpretación errónea. [2] Matthew y Hubbard señalan que este punto de vista jerárquico típico sugiere que las mujeres reciban los beneficios de la protección, la provisión y la armonía cuando viven en la sujeción adecuada. Según el punto de vista jerárquico, este es el verdadero cumplimiento de la feminidad. [3] Como he señalado en Ángel de la Guarda, considero que esta es la segunda herejía más grande de la Iglesia Cristiana. Ha provisto la justificación teológica para la supresión general de las mujeres durante siglos a pesar de todas las afirmaciones masculinas acerca de amar como Cristo amó. La historia es la chismosa que delata esta mentira.
Debimos haber sabido desde el principio. Primero, parece suficientemente claro en el relato del Génesis que Adán se pone en superioridad jerárquica. Ciertamente, Dios no lo hace, tal como lo demuestra la reintegración de la pareja después de su pecado. Pero si no aprendimos la lección en la primera historia, vemos que se repite una y otra vez en la vida de los patriarcas, ejemplos desastrosos de la dinámica familiar cuando el poder es el nombre del juego. Y luego está la clara declaración de Dios a Zorobabel. El poder no es el método escogido por Dios para la gestión de relaciones. Una “relación” basada en el poder no es solamente nada más que la opresión forzada, es idolatría. Sacks ve esto claramente en el ámbito político. “El politeísmo era la justificación cosmológica de la sociedad jerárquica. Sus edificios monumentales, los zigurats de Babilonia y las pirámides de Egipto, anchas en la base y estrechas en la parte superior, eran símbolos visibles de la jerarquía. La religión era el manto de santidad usado para enmascarar la búsqueda del poder desnudo”. Según Sacks, “el monoteísmo de Abraham entró en el mundo como un rechazo al imperialismo y el uso de la fuerza para hacer de algunos hombres amos y otros esclavos”. [4]
Considera las consecuencias. ¿Crees que Dios llamó a Abraham a una fe que se opuso a la jerarquía de poder sólo para reinstituirla en el matrimonio, el modelo fundamental del pacto? ¿Crees que Dios pretendía copiar la supremacía de poder-dominante masculino de Egipto o Babilonia? Ya que el Tanaj es la única mitología antigua de Oriente Medio que incluye la formación de la mujer, ¿supones que adoptaría el mismo punto de vista sostenido por todos los otros mitos antiguos que excluyen cualquier mención de la mujer? Las respuestas son obvias.
Las jerarquías masculino-dominantes en el matrimonio no sólo no son bíblicas, son mucho peores. Endosan el mismo modelo erróneo de poder encontrado en las culturas idólatras. Simplemente no importa que tan cuidadosamente circunscrito el “amor” se articule. “Así como Cristo amó a la iglesia” (una traducción bastante mala de Mesías y la qehelah) no puede ser la base para la afirmación de la supremacía masculina. Decir que es así, es estar contra todo lo que se nos habla de un Dios que no se promueve a la gestión de poder.
Permítanme decirlo de otra manera. Si tú y tu cónyuge están un en un juego de lucha de poder, entonces ambos deberían tomar el tiempo necesario para absorber las historias de los patriarcas, hombres que fueron tanto victimarios como víctimas del poder. Se debe prestar mucha atención a la interacción de Dios con estos hombres. Debes notar cuidadosamente el tipo de intimidad que tenían con sus esposas. Debes preguntarte qué pasó con sus hijos. Puede que aprendas que el poder casi los destruyó. Dios ofreció un camino diferente. La mayoría de ellos nunca lo encontraron.
Topical Index: power, marriage, idolatry, hierarchy, Piper, ‘ezer kenegdo, Genesis 2:18, Zechariah 4:6, Ephesians 5:23
Hello Skip,
Thank you my brother. I really enjoyed reading your today’s word today. A day late but I’m glad I didn’t miss it. We’ve missed you and so appreciate your willingness to expose these lies we’ve lived with for so long. It is pernicious and twists our scripture translations to deceive wherever possible. There seems no end to its destruction.
Shalom my friend
Thank you Skip. I now see Zechariah 4:6 with whole new eyes. I am grateful.
Zechariah 4:6
Wait a moment; is this what John 4:23-24 is telling us if we serve right we will experience the right spirit controlling our lives?
We may be forgetting the reason:
Genesis 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Equal responsibilities but different roles…
“Headship”:
For me Husband-man is a better word choice, which is a very interesting term referring to a role as a partner while keeping the responsibility of the man; the pointer or reminder…
“Submission” the word choice may be the wrong one as I understand the feminine role in life the words subdue the relationship fits more in the role as us men are not hardwired to make things last, they just need to work for now…
“power turned on its head”
Good reference may I add “Power turned inside out – not destructive but rather constructive…”
Larry thank you
100% for this explanation!
Carl: The word [in Hebrew, of course!] is “avad.” A foursquare word meaning “work-worship-love-serve.”
Thank you for this reminder something like the meaning of YHWH??