Wow, really? Cause I've heard dozens of sermons on submission. For that matter, I've preached dozens or sermons on submission (sermons, Sunday School teaching, family worship, etc.).
You must have a better church than me, because I can count on one hand the number of sermons on this topic that I remember hearing, with about five fingers to spare. :-)
Well, it is a very popular topic amongst a certain kind of church.
And a church that preaches exegetically, if they are at all honest, will be forced to preach through various passages that use the word (as you have done here) and will be forced to deal with it.
I remember hearing a sermon by Voddie Baucham (I think it was) where he very much goes into the fact that verse 21 is then expanded into various specific relationships in the later part of the book. IE it is not a stand alone passage, still less one that then ends up contradicting the following passages (a common view).
And the families. I remember one time going around my church and asking the men how they handled the Song of Solomon. Some of them skipped it. Some said ‘we go real fast’.
Well of course I assumed you have written about it... :-)
But at least in my experience (and I came from a church background that affirmed, at least in principle, the importance of teaching "the whole counsel of God"), pastors almost never tackle the subject, or tackle it in such a way as to simply reinforce the very basic, "God says this so it's right" aspect of the topic before quickly moving on to "safer" ideas.
I'm glad to hear there are other traditions out there that are less afraid to talk about what Scripture actually says, even when it says difficult things, rather than focusing simply on those parts of Scripture that we like (or that we can twist into saying what we want them to say).
Now that we've hashed out 'submission' a bit, I would like to focus on 'reverence'. Not sure if it is a textual variant, but my KJV interlinear shows this as 'phobia', which the KJV (obviously enough) translates as 'fear'. Is the modern world so afraid of Godly fear that it needs to water it down into 'reverence'? Or would someone be willing to argue that the modern reader reads 'reverence' as more dramatic a response than 'fear'??
I thought I dealt with that in the post (and even referenced the KJV reading of the word). I've always understood Biblical fear to involve a strong helping of reverence (though fear, in the typical sense of the word, is also included). This helps distinguish our fear of the Lord with our fear of spiders or of heights. We are not (I believe) to fear Him as something or someone who might bring us harm, but fear Him in the sense of recognizing and reverencing His power and His position far, far above us. So I don't see "reverence" as a watering down, but rather as making more explicit the type of fear being described, so that it will not be confused with the basic, "I'm going to smite you if you sin" kind of fear that many modern secularists feel is all there is to God.
Yeah, I was dealing with the issue of the modern translations and why they think that reverence works better than fear I have a feeling that it’s pretty much the same reason that they straight away from talking about submission.
How interesting! I've never heard that about "ezer," though now, of course, I'm going to have to investigate it! :-)
It is always amazing to me how Satan can twist the wonderful blessings God offers in Scripture and make us believe that they are curses. Sad how easily we are deceived! This area of submission is one prime example of that. I believe God intends these submission relationships to be a great help and blessing, both within the church and between the church and the world. But the modern church has so thoroughly embraced the lie that submission is something vile and evil that many within those churches have come to believe submission is something awful, to be avoided. And even worse, the world looks into the church and reviles God Himself, because He commands us to submit.
A wonderful blessing, and Satan has twisted it into a curse. If only we, as the Church, would learn to trust God and take Him at His Word, rather than letting the Father of Lies interpret that Word for us!
Wow, really? Cause I've heard dozens of sermons on submission. For that matter, I've preached dozens or sermons on submission (sermons, Sunday School teaching, family worship, etc.).
You must have a better church than me, because I can count on one hand the number of sermons on this topic that I remember hearing, with about five fingers to spare. :-)
Well, it is a very popular topic amongst a certain kind of church.
And a church that preaches exegetically, if they are at all honest, will be forced to preach through various passages that use the word (as you have done here) and will be forced to deal with it.
I remember hearing a sermon by Voddie Baucham (I think it was) where he very much goes into the fact that verse 21 is then expanded into various specific relationships in the later part of the book. IE it is not a stand alone passage, still less one that then ends up contradicting the following passages (a common view).
And the families. I remember one time going around my church and asking the men how they handled the Song of Solomon. Some of them skipped it. Some said ‘we go real fast’.
We went line by line, word by word.
Indeed, I’ve even written about submission here on Substack:
https://vonwriting.substack.com/p/the-myth-of-the-submissive-wife
Well of course I assumed you have written about it... :-)
But at least in my experience (and I came from a church background that affirmed, at least in principle, the importance of teaching "the whole counsel of God"), pastors almost never tackle the subject, or tackle it in such a way as to simply reinforce the very basic, "God says this so it's right" aspect of the topic before quickly moving on to "safer" ideas.
I'm glad to hear there are other traditions out there that are less afraid to talk about what Scripture actually says, even when it says difficult things, rather than focusing simply on those parts of Scripture that we like (or that we can twist into saying what we want them to say).
Now that we've hashed out 'submission' a bit, I would like to focus on 'reverence'. Not sure if it is a textual variant, but my KJV interlinear shows this as 'phobia', which the KJV (obviously enough) translates as 'fear'. Is the modern world so afraid of Godly fear that it needs to water it down into 'reverence'? Or would someone be willing to argue that the modern reader reads 'reverence' as more dramatic a response than 'fear'??
I thought I dealt with that in the post (and even referenced the KJV reading of the word). I've always understood Biblical fear to involve a strong helping of reverence (though fear, in the typical sense of the word, is also included). This helps distinguish our fear of the Lord with our fear of spiders or of heights. We are not (I believe) to fear Him as something or someone who might bring us harm, but fear Him in the sense of recognizing and reverencing His power and His position far, far above us. So I don't see "reverence" as a watering down, but rather as making more explicit the type of fear being described, so that it will not be confused with the basic, "I'm going to smite you if you sin" kind of fear that many modern secularists feel is all there is to God.
Yeah, I was dealing with the issue of the modern translations and why they think that reverence works better than fear I have a feeling that it’s pretty much the same reason that they straight away from talking about submission.
How interesting! I've never heard that about "ezer," though now, of course, I'm going to have to investigate it! :-)
It is always amazing to me how Satan can twist the wonderful blessings God offers in Scripture and make us believe that they are curses. Sad how easily we are deceived! This area of submission is one prime example of that. I believe God intends these submission relationships to be a great help and blessing, both within the church and between the church and the world. But the modern church has so thoroughly embraced the lie that submission is something vile and evil that many within those churches have come to believe submission is something awful, to be avoided. And even worse, the world looks into the church and reviles God Himself, because He commands us to submit.
A wonderful blessing, and Satan has twisted it into a curse. If only we, as the Church, would learn to trust God and take Him at His Word, rather than letting the Father of Lies interpret that Word for us!
Very interesting! Thanks for looking, and sharing!