It’s Complicated
WEEK 7: Battle of the Sexes
Brad Saab
One Missoula Church
3/6/2022
TODAY’S BIG IDEA: Matrimony reflects the relationship between Jesus Christ and His Church. Just like Eve was created to help the first Adam accomplish his mission from Yahweh, the Church helps Jesus Christ accomplish His mission. This brings definition for individual marriages that contradicts how our imploding culture thinks relationships should go. (Genesis 2:18, Ephesians 5:32, 1 Corinthians 15:25-28, 47)
“For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, 44 for each tree is known by its own fruit.” —Luke 6:43–44a
The context of modern conflict between chauvinism and feminism is nothing more than recycled Babel-building
Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” —Genesis 11:4
The biblical design for marriage is not two individuals jockeying for dominance, but two symbiotic parts of one body selflessly sacrificing for the good of each other
Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.… 21submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. —Ephesians 5:17, 21–33
What does this passage directly confront?
A husband’s desire to neglect responsibility out of selfishness, fear, distraction, or apathy
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. —Genesis 3:6
The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” —Genesis 3:12
Husbands: It is a lot easier for your wife to respect you if you’re legitimately respectable.
Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land. —Proverbs 31:23
Strengthening question for husbands to ask their wives: “Is there anything I’m doing that it is making me hard to respect?”
A wife’s desire to subvert Christ’s authority to set the man’s mission/mandate/ methods/agenda
To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, in pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire (teshuqah) will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” —Genesis 3:16
If you do well will I not accept you? But if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. And its desire (teshuqah) is for you, but you must rule over it.” —Genesis 4:7
Wives: If a husband submits to His God-given responsibility to “take up his cross” and lead in sacrifice and service for the good of his wife (and all creation), a domineering and power-hungry wife will absolutely devour and destroy him
But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. —Galatians 5:15
She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life. —Proverbs 31:12
Strengthening question for wives to ask their husbands: “Is there anything I’m doing that it is making me hard to sacrificially lead?”
The beautiful portrait of biblical marriage has the husband looking out for his wife and the wife looking out for her husband so that the one flesh is flourishing, and everyone is having their needs met and no one is living out of selfishness. This is uncommon, not impossible. Become uncommon.
But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 26 It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, 28 even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” —Matthew 20:25–28