This is a common tactic of “Christian feminists” of which many fall prey to or are swept up in the false doctrine like Gregoire, Kellers, and many of the other common Christian marriage books.
The topic of this passage is a bit irrelevant, but if you want to know basically the wife went vegan and the husband told her it’s not Biblical and now she’s refusing to have sex unless he goes vegan too.
See if you can spot the errors before reading on to my comments and analysis.
First and foremost, think about what it means to love her in this moment, because when we are called to be like Christ that includes in how he loved his people; that was unconditional love, so even through its unbiblical and goes against your belief, you make it clear you can’t support this lifestyle, that would be hypocritical, but on the other hand it’s not your place to change her, it’s not our job to change people, thats God’s job, and have to trust that he will do what he does best; he cares for us. What she is doing is very clearly wrong, she should not be forcing you to go against your beliefs just like she doesn’t want you to force your beliefs on her. She is in the wrong in this scenario, but that doesn’t make it ok to retaliate, thats not what love is. Remember the verse that says all the wonderful things about love, that is what marriage is supposed to be. I agree with whoever said to bring the pastor into the situation, thats a good third party to mediate, because clearly she isn’t willing to listen to you. But remember she is still deserving of love and respect, this certainly doesn’t warrant a divorce. Marriage is a commitment, we make it work no matter what until what I believe is absolutely rock bottom. God’s heart reflects this. Remember to stay in the word, pray, and look at how God’s heart is reflected in the teachings of the Bible. God tames care of his people, he will certainly take care of you and your wife, this is your chance to be connected with God and learn more about him all the while growing your marriage and in the end becoming more intimate with your wife.
The main errors in this passage are:
- Misuse of God’s/Jesus unconditional love from Ephesians 5. Common tactic of the “Christian feminists”
- “It’s not your place to change her.” Also, a common tactic of the “Christian feminists” with their common saying ‘it’s the wife’s job to submit and the husband shouldn’t be telling her that’
- “wives are deserving of love and respect” – love, yes. Respect no.
- The commenter also doubled down on the first one by saying: (“First, I want to ask you what your definition of ‘love’ is defined by the bible. If you honestly look at it, you will see that its a decision and its sacrificial, its putting others before yourself at any cost, including your life.”)
Unfortunately, these are very common ones with cheap grace theology.
There was a long back and forth, but the rebuttal to these points are many which I’ve covered before (shortened version):
Misuse of God’s/Jesus unconditional love from Ephesians 5. Common tactic of the “Christian feminists”
The commenter also doubled down on the first one by saying: (“First, I want to ask you what your definition of ‘love’ is defined by the bible. If you honestly look at it, you will see that its a decision and its sacrificial, its putting others before yourself at any cost, including your life.”)
The purpose of Christ’s love for the Church is sanctification (Eph 5). Jesus put our ETERNAL SOULS before Himself with our sanctification in mind. His sacrifice was focused on our salvation and sanctification. Not on uniformly putting everyone above Himself (false).
Numerous times throughout the gospels, the disciples have their own thoughts about what Jesus is here for. For instance, they think that Jesus is here to save the Jews from the Romans (e.g. military kingdom), to strike down Samaritans with fire after they rejected Him (Luke 9:54), or even that He wasn’t supposed to die (e.g. Jesus rebuked Peter by calling Him Satan because he said he didn’t want Jesus to die).
Contrary to putting everyone before Himself, Jesus did not put the disciples thoughts, feelings, or actions before Himself in these cases. Nor did He say it wasn’t His job to “change their thinking.” In fact, He did the opposite. Jesus was singular minded in His ministry for God, and anyone that stood in His way including His own disciples had to be taught, corrected, rebuked, and trained in the way of righteousness. Heck, in some cases John 6 even tells us that Jesus even let people walk away if they didn’t want to believe in Him wholeheartedly. (e.g. John 6:66 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.).
Love is not love when someone allows another Christian to keep on sinning without trying to change their heart so they repent.
“It’s not your place to change her.” Also, a common tactic of the “Christian feminists” with their common saying ‘it’s the wife’s job to submit and the husband shouldn’t be telling her that’
Already slightly covered in the above. Jesus did not say “it’s not my job to change the disciples thinking.” He was very adamant about changing their thinking and actions to become more like God, so they would actually become His disciples in true love and righteousness.
Not only that but as we’ve discussed before in Revelation 2-3, Jesus practically gives ultimatums to the Churches. Repent or get removed.
Rev 2:4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. 5 Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.
Rev 2:14 Nevertheless, I have a few things against you: There are some among you who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin so that they ate food sacrificed to idols and committed sexual immorality. 15 Likewise, you also have those who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. 16 Repent therefore! Otherwise, I will soon come to you and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.
Rev 3:15 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16 So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. 17 You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. 18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.
The biggest tragedy is the double standard:
Christian Love requires that you point out sin in other Christians’ lives and encourage them to repent (e.g. Matthew 18). Yet somehow all this is thrown by the wayside when you have a wife. You can tell any other Christian that they better stop sinning and to repent and change their ways, but apparently you can’t tell your wife that.
It’s pure doctrinal delusion.
“wives are deserving of love and respect” – love, yes. Respect no.
Covered already as well.
The simple fact is that respect mean different things to men and women. Men give respect based on excellence and good results and generally such respect qualifies the respected man as someone worth following (at least in that particular area). Women want respect just because. So when you tell men to start respecting women, you’re inadvertently telling tell to put the woman as an authority figure in his life which is directly contradictory to the Bible. It’s the same inverted role relationship as chivalry: queen and the knight. That’s why these types of things sound good but are destructive in nature for relationships and marriage because it undermines God’s creation.
The sad part is that people really believe this stuff.
If you recall back Wayne Grudem posted the reflections on the sex debate and the word Kephale meaning authority or not. After hundreds of pages written and thousands of hours of research, he finally realized that the “Christian feminists” didn’t really care about the Truth but only about what their itching ears wanted to hear.
But for those who do care about the Truth, hopefully they will start to understand that the culture has really brainwashed us to the point that we barely even realize that we treat women with kid gloves when they should be held accountable instead.
