Submitting to the Lord sometimes involves drawing clear boundaries and enacting consequences when a husband sins.
–Mary Kassian
As I noted the other day, complementarians have a brilliant tactic to put wives in charge of their husbands. They support their favorite sin by claiming they are merely objecting to sin. If you don’t support making Christian wives the rulers of their husbands, you must be an advocate of men sinning with pornography!
For another example of this, see His Dearly Loved Daughter Ministries. Click on the link to see the disturbing pictures of what complementarian marriage looks like (scroll down for more at the bottom). Her thoroughly broken and traumatized husband looks like a kidnap victim trying to signal for help.
The dominating wife in the pictures is Esther Hosea (blog handle). In her post What should I do about his porn problem? 8“First Steps” for Wives she explains that wives who submit to their husbands instead of dominating them via the wake-up call model are guilty of the sin of idolatry. They must fully prepare themselves to divorce their husband if he doesn’t submit to their authority:
Step Three – Surrender Your Pride and Your Idols to God
This one is hard. This one hurts a little bit. (Or if you’re like me, a whole lot!) But it’s one of the most important steps for those seeking true healing. I’m going to ask you a few questions. They’re hard questions. Please take your time, seek God, and answer them as honestly as you can.
1.) Does the thought of your marriage ending bother you more than the thought of living with this sin forever?
2.) Are you more horrified by the idea of everyone knowing you “failed” at your marriage than you are at the idea of there being a secret sin in your marriage that no one knows about but you and your husband?
3.) Do you believe God would prefer for you to be abused than divorced?
4.) What’s more important to you, obedience to God, or the approval of Christians?
Once Christian wives repent of the sin of making an idol of their marriage, they will be prepared to set and enforce boundaries on their husbands:
Step Seven – Make Strong, Clear, Biblical Boundaries
I could write a whole book on the importance of Biblical boundaries… oh, wait. I have!
[Promo for her book at Amazon]
What does the Bible say about relational boundaries? Find answers to that question and many others. Learn how to define, establish, and implement healthy, God-honoring boundaries in your own life with the Biblical Boundaries Workbook. Available now on Amazon!
You guys, second only to seeking God, this is the most important step on this list! And frankly, if you’re seeking God, He IS going to lead you to make strong boundaries that honor Him.
If you have no idea where to start, check out this series I wrote: Biblical Boundaries, or just buy the workbook, which takes all the information in the series and adds tons of interactive questions to help you figure this issue out for yourself. If you know you need to make boundaries, but you have no idea where to start, or how to do it in a way that honors God, this book will show you where and how to find the answers! By the time you finish it, I guarantee you’ll have good solid boundaries ready to go and know everything you need to know about how to keep them.
The whole site is packed with statements like this. For example, from one of the posts in the Biblical Boundaries series she links to she explains that at times she is tempted to waver in dominating her husband. But then the Bible reminds her that wives must dominate their husbands (emphasis mine):
This is probably the area I struggle most in. It doesn’t “feel” loving to say, “If you do x, I will have to ask you to leave our house for 90 days.” It feels mean.
The thing is, I can see it easily with my children. I totally get that setting strong boundaries with them and enforcing painful consequences when they disobey is a loving way to set them up for success in life. I can understand that as a result of my delight in them, I will faithfully discipline and correct. But my husband is not my child. My friends, my parents, extended family members are not the same as my children. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like I have a right to “discipline” those people.
Then I read a passage like 1 Corinthians 5. Wow!
Sisters, God has commanded us to establish and enforce boundaries around morality with all believers! Why? As an act of love. Verse 5 shows us that disciplining such violations will basically force the person to hit rock bottom, which is the most likely way to see him restored.
Related:
