Gender Idolatry
“No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other.” Matthew 6:24
Serve – Yeshua is pretty clear about divided loyalty. No one, man or woman, can serve two masters. The Greek word used here is douleuo, a verb that literally means to take the position of a servant, a doulos, a slave. No one is able to accept slavery to two different authority figures.
Most of the time, we apply this famous verse to the issue of materialism. We act as though the subsequent remark, “You cannot serve God and mammon,” is the only application of this verse. But that is foolish. Yeshua doesn’t restrict the principle to finances. He merely makes one application of the general principle. Divided loyalty doesn’t work.
Katherine Bushnell provides what I consider the final closing argument about the position of husbands and wives by applying this general principle to the case of marriage. If no one can serve two masters, then it follows that no woman can serve two authority figures as the same time. A woman cannot be in subjection to her husband and be in subjection to God. The same general principle applies. She will love one and despise the other; hold on to one and hate the other. Clearly, Yeshua expected every follower to recognize the foolishness of this division and put loyalty to Him ahead of everything else. This is no less the case in marriage. A woman who serves her husband as a slave (douleuo) cannot be God’s slave, and a man who insists on a wife’s obeisance stands in opposition to the command of the Lord. When Paul and Peter exhort wives to submit to their husbands, they simply cannot mean wives should act as their husbands’ slaves. That would violate everything Scripture teaches about the proper relationships with the Lord. If the principle is true about money, it is all the more true about relationships.
This tells us that submission is not servility. It is not about “who’s in charge here,” or “who’s the head (authority) of the house.” Submission must be something other than a hierarchy of slave service. We are all enjoined to submit to one another as unto the Lord, so whatever submission means, it must apply equally to both husbands and wives. It cannot be about an authority hierarchy or it would fall under the two-masters indictment.
What does it mean to serve from an Old Testament perspective? The Hebrew word is avad, the word for work, serve and worship. God Himself uses this verb when He instructs Pharaoh to let the people go so that they might serve Him. Now we see the bigger picture. My service to God is my work and my worship. With this in mind, no husband can possibly insist that his wife serve him. That would require the wife to worship her husband. It’s time to stop this gender idolatry. The partners in a new covenant redeemed marriage do not endorse or demand an idolatrous hierarchy. They act as one on their way back to the Garden.
Topical Index: slave, master, marriage, douleuo, avad, authority, Matthew 6:24
This should “engender” some responses today! I hope there is a part “B” to this article today, (especially for us male carbon units). If we are to listen and to obey the words of YHWH and we believe His book of instruction (all of it), we are enjoined in Ephesians 5:25: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;” This is a tall order. He gave Himself. He did not give of Himself, He gave His very life’s blood and breath. He loved the church (His bride)- supremely and sacrificially. If we need a physical demonstration of love (show me how), all we need do is “look” at the cross. If sacrifice is the measure of love (and it is!), consider the cross of Christ. Do I love my wife this way? This is the standard, my friends. The truth often “ouch!”. Brother Skip, you have rightly defined love as “benevolence toward another at cost to myself”. We have miles and smiles to go, don’t we? Rabboni, teach us to love as you have loved. What I need to do today, it to “close the gap” between “knowing” and “doing”. I ask (in Jesus’ name), LORD of life and love, enable and empower me to love in the same way that you love me. Amen.
Men’s, we are the initiators and our wives are the responders. What would be the response of a wife whose husband would love her “as Christ loved the church?”
I also realize we cannot give what we do not have. We first must be loved in order to give love. This “love from above”, this “galaxial glue”, is a gift from the Giver. He is the Source. As the Book states, (it’s available to anyone), “ask and you will receive.” Receive it and then give it away. Learn to look. Look to live. Live to learn. Learn to love. Love to laugh!
He has given unto us, all things that pertain unto life and godliness. The problem is with the receivers. “We have met the enemy.. and he is us”. There must be a tremendous change in this man’s heart in order to love the way Yeshua loves. Is G-d capable of such a change? Is He able? (I don’t think there is a problem as far as He is concerned.) I believe the true question is.. “am I willing?” (one more “ouch!”) Now there’s a perfect union- “Mr. Able and Mrs. Willing”. -Then, as you have ably put it brother Skip.. “back to the Garden!”
What would be the responce of a woman whose husband would love her as Yahshua loved the church? You have got to be kidding! If woman could trust men like that, they would so desire to please the husband it would change the world!
Yes, that’s the idea – and the ideal.
Skip,
“They act as one on their way back to the Garden.” What a moving and powerful representation of who we are in Christ! If we Christians would behave as the people we are because of Jeshua’s grace, we might have more pleasant marriages and fewer divorces. Thanks for the insight.
Garden-bound,
Wayne
“No man can serve two masters”
Just to share my experience/thoughts, I have lived in the SF Bay Area since 1980 and have never encountered anybody who would dare say out loud that a woman should serve a man.
That said, I think that most marital or pre-marital relationships have some degree of the “master/slave” or “parent/child” dialectic going on at least part of the time.
On the other hand, I think it is relatively easy for a man and woman to have an adult to adult relationship as long as it remains “platonic.”
Regarding service to others, I think it is almost always a good idea to adopt an attitude of service in any human interaction unless something inappropriate is going on.
“Serve the LORD with gladness..
What can we possibly give to a G-d who is “self-contained?” He is Jehovah- the “self-existent one”. And the answer is?.. “Love one another”. “Serve one another” We love G-d by loving what G-d loves and that my friends is people. YHWH loves people. “For G-d so loved the world”… What can we give to our Father? We can “love one another with a pure heart fervently”. The way we serve G-d is by serving people. “As we have therefore opportunity, let us “do good” unto all men, especially those who of the household of faith” (your brothers and sisters!). “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” Just as we fathers love to see our children “love each other”, it also pleases our heavenly Father when we “serve one another in love”. We are encouraged to “let this mind be in you which also was in Christ Jesus” and that my brothers is the heart of a servant (a voluntary servant, -a doulos). He was not made to serve, he volunteered himself and humbled himself and put on a towel and washed the feet of his disciples. Could you imagine G-d washing your feet? (me, either..).
And also (btw..) “by this, shall all men know that you are my disciples.. if you have love one to another. How many “one another” versers are there contained in our instruction manual? Enuf to keep us busy for quite some time.
Bob Dylan was right. “Gotta serve somebody.” Jesus makes a mighty fine Master. (He is the best “boss” I’ve ever had.) We are never more “Christlike” than when we serve. Give us our Father, today, the heart of a servant. Let us minister to our wives, our children, our families, our neighbors and our co-workers and demonstrate by our daily lives the mind and heart of the LORD Jesus. We know this is pleasing in your sight. This I pray in the name above all names, the mighty name of our Messiah. Amen.
One Master many servants.