Well....I totally agree. My wife and I went to Jamaica. I was in ministry, she was not. But she went. We lasted about 4 mos. Sigh. I resented it. But we continued on. 28 years later, we are finally in one accord and doors of opportunity are opening for us that we know are of God. How? Because we both want the same thing.
I must admit, it is a tough pill to swallow for someone who knows God is dealing with him. But the sister was right on the money. Even though the wife may not be an outfront type of ministry lady person, she must be in agreement and supportive of her husband. If she is not, don't expect to move any mountains around.......

Shalom,

Lahry

For me this story raises a number of complex issues with no simple solutions (which is why I posted it). For one, it raises the issue of biblical headship vs. the non-biblical modernist doctrine of co-headship. When Yah'shua called the apostles into ministry, did they, for instance seek their wives' approval or did they simply obey? Should we follow man (or woman) before Elohim? Having raised these (and similar questions), what if a man believes he is being called when he is not? Obviously the will of Elohim is paramount. Does Yahweh only call mature men?

There is, of course, a huge difference between what should be and what is. If Mrs. Paul had said: "No to a life as an evangelist's or apostles' wife - it's either Jerusalem or Tarsus", what should he have done? would Mrs. Paul even have taken such a hypothetical stand as a Judahite raised in a Torah-based culture? And how can we possibly respond to Yahweh's calling in obedience (Yah'shua said: if you love Me, obey my commands) if a veto is being cast under a co-headship spell?

I do of course agree that ideally a husband and wife should be in agreement and seek a revelation and then act when there is harmony. There must always be room for grace, time in which to seek to know the will of Yahweh even if one of the two already has an answer. But how far should that grace be extended? At what point is grace exhausted? And how many of our Western attitudes are coloured by Romish notions about marriage, submission and obedience?

To be sure, Yahweh calls and then waits for our response. But is is also clear that if we prevarocate than He purses as He did Jonah until he gets obedience ... or is forced into judgment (as with Balaam). Reversing rôles, there will also be righteous Abigails and wicked Nabals - what a wonderful example that woman was! She obeyed but did not exceed her authority - she allowed Yahweh to pass judgment in His own time and way - and He did not delay to answer the prayer of this righteous woman.

Then there are those who argue that Yahweh pursues a different methodology in the New Covenant as compared to the Old. I am not convinced of this as I believe Yahweh does not change - He is the same yesterday, today and forever.

In the end we must answer to Yahweh for everything but we also have to take our stand. Woe to the man who stands before he has been told to stand (if at all) and to the woman who stands against him when Yahweh has told him to stand. And woe to the man who stands down when he has been told to stand when she stands against him.

What bugs me is that Priscilla absolutely had no authority to correct him:

I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet (1 Timothy 2:12).

I do agree with what you said in general, though, Lev, and as I was reading this, I, too, was thinking about the apostles and how their wives ministered with them (1 Corinthians 9:5). In fact, early church history teaches that when Peter was crucified, his wife was crucified right next to him! What love and devotion!

Although I can also understand this woman's hesitancy -- mission work is a big step and I think if I was a woman, I, too, would want assurance my husband knew that he heard from Yahweh. However, there comes a point where you have to trust and her answer "We either stay here or I'm leaving" says much about her spiritual state. A righteous woman should be willing to follow her husband, even if he didn't hear from Yahweh.

I did read this article last night which left a similarly sore taste in my mouth. I think much misunderstanding comes from Ephesians 5:18-6:9. While many see verse 5:21 as stating we need to submit to (i.e. come under authority -- its a military term) to each other in the same way, I see it as a topical statement, which is then followed by the preceding verses that then describe how we "come under authority" to one another. Verse 21 is the premise, 22-6:9 are instructions for how to fulfill the commandment. There have to be leaders in government, but good leaders will be mindful of those "subordinate" to them, just as Christ is mindful of the church, but doesn't bend to her will.

I think some discernment is needed with this story, because there is definately some truths in it, but I think if not careful someone can draw wrong conclusions as well

To say that Yah will always call a wife if He's called a husband to somehing I think is theologically sound, as Scripture tells as a husband and wife become one flesh ~ if I put a piece of paper in a book, and I send the book to Japan, then the piece of paper will also be sent to Japan because of its abiding or unity with the book...

This said, I do think there may be times when the wife, because of her own issues, may not be able or ready to hear Yah's voice, and though she IS called, resist that because of the place her heart is at.

Should her husband submit to her instead of Elohim? No, because Scripture tells us the husband is head of the wife, and Yah'shua is the head of the husband...
But I do think then would be the time also heed Elohim's commandment to love His wife as Yah'shua loved the church ~ for He showed His love in that when we the Bride was rebelious to His head ( His Father's) will, that He loved us and gave Himself that we may be reconciled and One with Him and His Father, forgiving us our sins. For a husband, this would mean seeking Elohim to enable him to forgive his wife (because resentment stems from unforgiveness), and also that in the time of 'delay' or waiting, his own heart and motives for the ministry will be seacrhed and where needed purified. It means praying (sincerely) for her and her heart... not with being shown 'right' or to do what he wants to do in the center, but a pure love and desire to Elohim's will first in the center, and a love for his wife ~ a sincere and pure desire that she may be truly reconciled wity him and Elohim. It means showing Yah'shua's love in disagreements ~ His patience, and kindness and longsuffering.

And if he *does* have to go, or take them before she is ready, I think he should have taken so much time in prayer, both for right motives, and clarity, and confirmation~ and that he should ask for very very clear confirmation before he acts, because of how far reaching a choice made in the flesh in this situation would be.

And with all these thing, Yah could allow these things to happen so that He may *cleanse, prepare and mature* the man He has called to ministry, and using him, doing so also wih his wife.

Yah is good and faithful :) For whatever He calls a man too, He will provide :)
We must just be careful when He has given us a promise not to try and do things in our own wisdom way and strength, and because of doing that end up with Ishmael's along the way that will apose the very promise Yah gave us. He will give us the Isaac's He promised us in His own time and way ~ though it does mean we have to seek Him, and sometimes, have to wait.

I agree with both DR and Deborah here with some qualifications.

Firstly, I see no contradiction between the mutual submission of believers to the truth and the submission of wife to husband. If you look at my coheadship article, you will see that these are two totally different sections in the Scriptures and that the chapters were divided differently before. I am citing the article here (which is a commentary on a very popular book on restoring marriage relationships based on the coheadship heresy):

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Preface

The following is a critique of the best-selling and one of the most popular marriage-in-distress rescue books on the market by Joel & Kathy Davisson entitled The Man of Her Dreams - The Woman of His which claims a high success rate in restoring marriage. The book can be ordered at www.joelandkathy.com but before you buy it, you may wish to download free extracts which give you a gist of what the book is about. You can do that here.

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With so many marriages on the rocks these days and divorce rates in the West ranging between 50% and 75%, Christian couples are desperate for solutions. Enter the Favisson book promising miracles if certain basic proceedures are followed. On the surface it looks marvellous and the statistics of marriage rescues are impressive. But are the solutions spiritual or psychic? Is the result a happy Christian marriage or something else?

This brief commentary is only on the extracts and is limited to theology and doctrine. I am in agreement with 95% of its content but there are a couple of items that give me grave cause for concern because they are doctrinally, and therefore spiritually, false. Undergirding the doctrinal premise of the writers, from which they derive their key for guaranteed marriage success and 'outrageous happiness' as they call it, is the claim that husband and wife are co-heads in the marriage relationship. This conclusion is arrived from a couple of subtle, and not so subtle twists of scripture which it is the purpose of this review to examine more closely. We will look at these in turn.

1 Timothy 5:14

In the chapter entitled, Leading as a Team, the Davissons claim that in this passage Paul is stating that the wife is the head of the house, household or family. The wife is the family head! By this they do not mean that this is an assignment from her husband as the overall head, like a manager appointed by the owner of a company, but a designation directly from Yahweh over which the husband has no authority whatsoever except to move upon her by the power of his love and devotion for her. They claim that the more the husband loves his wife, the more she will want to submit and yield to him as some sort of other 'head'. In the absence of this love, he has no authority over the family. In essence she must be wooed in order to obtain it. How is this conclusion reached?

This doctrine, which is entirely disjunctive with all other headship teachings in the Bible, they derive from a singule Greek word, oikodespoteo which is translated with uncertainty, and therefore in many different ways, by Bible linguists. The passage in question reads:

The first thing we need to note is that this counsel is given to young widows and within the context of potential abuse by these women making claims on the church's Widows' Fund because of their sensuality (v.11). The contrast here is with the mismanagement of their own lives as irresponsible widows and with the need for them to learn to discipline themselves and run a household instead of being idle gossippers (v.13).

The Davissons claim that this scripture is a licence for a wife to be head of, and rule a family because the same Greek word is used of men in the context of their undisputed headship elsewhere in Scripture as "master of the house" (e.g. Mt.20:1), a title they also ascribe to the wife here. In order to do this, they claim, mutual submission is required which they call "mutual adaptation". They justify this mutual submission and joint headship on the basis of the second passage of scripture I alluded to.

Ephesians 5:22

Here is their second key passage:

This, the Davissons point out, cannot be correct because the word "submit" is not in the original Greek text. And they're right. It isn't. Moreover, they argue that it contradicts the preceeding verse which reads:

How, they argue, can husband and wife submit to one another in the v.21 and then in the next verse the wife is commanded to submit to the husband but not vice versa?! The answer, they claim, must be found in the fact that the word 'submit' is absent in v.22. So they 'retranslate' (in fact, mutilate) the verse and claim it should read:

Which sounds all very 'nice' and feministic, but is it true? What is the actual relationship between vv.21 and 22? Are they even connected? Remember, that the versification and chapter divisions that exist in our New Testament were inserted by men for reference purposes and scriptural navigation. The original writers did not versify their gospels or letters.

But that aside, what we need to do is to read the context and look at the scripture material before and after vv.21 & 22. When we do that, what do we discover? We discover not only that two entirely different matters are being discussed - v.21 is at the tail end of one discourse, and v.22 begins a new one - but that in the original Aramaic, which was subsequently translated into Greek (since Aramaic was the receptor tongue, not Greek), the word 'submission' is not absent at all. It's there! The Greek translator presumably left it out because he assumed that vv.21 & 22 were part of the same subject matter or for grammatical reasons. If we look at the Peshitta, the Aramaic version of the New Testament, we will see that in actual fact there was a CHAPTER DIVISION between v.21 and v.22 that pre-dates the modern division we have, confirming that these were two different topics:

What exactly are we being told here by Paul? Paul is telling us, in the first chapter (Chapter IX in the Peshitta - the Peshitta was not originally versified either) that believers in Christ are to mutually submit to one another in the truth. This is about their spiritual walk with Messiah (Aramaic Mishiha) as parts of the Messianic Bride. This describes the relationship between the Body of Believers as Yah'shua's (Jesus') uniplural 'wife'.

In the second chapter (Chapter X in the Peshitta) the theme changes to another topic - the relationship of the Bride to the Bridegroom, and specifically of a wife to her husband, of which our submission to Yah'shua as our spiritual Husband is an allegory. We do not need to twist the words and meanings around as the Davissons have done in order to make the Word of Elohim fit in with a pre-conceived doctrine to bolster their book. This is the sort of things the Jehovah's Witnesses do, moving punctuation marks around to change the meaning of key doctrinal issues. Similar issues exist in Isaiah where arbitrary division into chapters, effected by Catholic monks, changes the meaning substantially.

The Davissons have tried to merge the two sections together and obscure the original meaning of Paul. In this matter they have tampered with Scripture and need to repent. Husband and wife are not co-heads and the wife is not the master of the family - she has the stewardship of the household under her husband as the overall head. The husband is, and remains so, whether he loves her or not. The wife's obligation to submit to, and obey, him is no more a function of her husband's obligation to love her legally than Eve was supposedly not required to submit and obey Adam if he did not provide for her. By the same absurd token, Adam (a husband) cannot refuse to provide for his wife's physical needs if she refuses to submit to him. He's not allowed to starve her until she is obedient (though see 2 Thess.3:19). The obligations are NOT quid pro quo - they are required of Yahweh no matter what the other party does. Our obedience or repentance is not contingent upon someone else's. That this is true is confirmed in numerous places where, for example, Paul reminds believing husbands and wives to continue loving and submitting to unbelieving wives and husband's respectively, even if their behaviour is not in accordance with Torah (1 Cor.7:12-17).

The Proper Perspective

There are, in scripture, legal and spiritual obligations as far as relationships are concerned. Citizens are supposed to be subject to kings as wives are to husbands whether the king or husband is righteous or not. That's why we are told to be subject to governments and magistrates provided they do not force us to disobey the commandments (Rom.13:1; Ac.5:29). That is the de jure aspect of Torah.

However, anyone with any intelligence knows that unrighteous behaviour on the part of a king or husband is foolish in the extreme because everyone is miserable when they behave that way by virtue of their position of authority, so nobody ultimately wins. The spiritual aspect of Torah, which is underlined, does not replace the de jure aspect (otherwise there would be lawlessness and anarchy, making for ever greater unhappiness), demands that kings and husbands set the example by taking the initiative to love their subjects and wives sacrificially. The message that the Davissons get across in this respect - the necessity of the husband to be the prime mover in the cultivation of the relationship, and not to blame-shift his own inadequacies and lack of love onto his wife when he fails to imitate the sacrificial love of Messiah towards the Messianic Community (Church) - is absolutely correct. Their message is: Husbands, wake up! If you want a fantastic marriage, then go and love your wives sacrifically and they will then respond to that with fervent devotion and happy submission from the depths of their heart that will not require the restraining or compelling hand of the written Torah! This message is important and its effect has been to save numerous marriages and lift them to high peaks of ecstatic joy (read the Testimonies on his website).

Now I do not know if the Davissons have twisted scripture in ignorance or deliberately - only they can answer that. What I do absolutely know is that their mutilated interpretations are setting a precident for lawlessness and idolatry. Yahweh has a proper order, and it must be respected - always - something that antinomian Christians often miss because of their failure to be obedient to the commandments. Getting our hearts right includes not only coming alive in the Ruach haQodesh but also loyally and faithfully obeying and guarding all the commandments, inner and outer.

There is no doubt that marriage is a partnership or teamwork, and should be, but it can only be a true partnership and team if it is built upon a foundation of truth and not lawlessness. If you extrapolate the Davissons' doctrine into other areas of Gospel life, there is the potential for great harm in terms of minimising the whole biblical concepts of submission and obedience. Yahweh ultimately becomes reduced to a 'pal' rather than being our awesome Elohim to be feared and adored. Obedience would then be contingent upon fickle and deceptive subjective feelings, which it is not.

There is more that could be said about the overspill from these new Davisson doctrines but as the main elements have been examined thoroughly here I will not go into that now.

I, for one, want to read the rest of the book - and its sequel - but I shall be treading warily in some areas of his teaching and by no means embracing them all. With the information shared here clearly stated, I would recommend others get the book too and to read with wisdom and care.
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http://nccg.org/563Art-Coheadship.html

As a footnote to my previous post, I need to add one further qualifier:

I am not here suggesting that a minister has the right to neglect his wife or children as a minister. Many do. The argument is sometimes advanced that a husband's/father's first responsibility is to minister to his family before he considers a calling in the ministry. I have to disagree. As a husband/father I am called to both earn a living as well as take care of my family. I do not see them as mutually exclusive (and I don't think anyone else does either). A man has a duty to minister to his wife and children - that's a given. However, his calling to minister to them is a facet of his calling as a minister anyway (whether he is called into the ministry or into a secular profession). This is not an 'either/or' choice - it's not 'ministry vs. family - if a husband is called into ministry, then it's both.

If there is an issue that men need to face and resolve it is when they allow ministry time to intrude upon family time. Many ministers forget that they have families who need them. The problem here is a lack of organisation and self-discipline on the minister's part. As Yah'shua said, we will always have the poor among us, just as there will always be souls who need ministry. A minister has to discipline himself to make time for his family, prioritising them, when necessary. It is as easy for ministers to get lost in their ministry as it is east for those in secular professions to get lost in their careers at the expense of their families.

Michael's wife's attitude was plain wrong. She had no business issuing an ultimatum like that. And possibly her husband was not called and was acting on impulse and the flesh. He may not have been listening to yahweh at all. But we must not confuse the two. Take Rebekah and Jacob. Rebekah was right because Isaac was not listening to the Ruach in favouring carnal Esau BUT Rebekah acted sinfully in bypassing her husband and deceiving him. She created all kinds of problems for Jacob because of her counsel. This should teach us how important Yahweh's authority structures are ... and it has absolutely NOTHING to with the fact that a man has something hanging between his legs (pardon my bluntness, but I here this feministic excuse all the time, which is just a mockery of men) - it is Yahweh's order, pure and simple. (The extra-piece-of-anatomy argument is just a red herring to devalue Yahweh's calling in male headship).

Now for the tough questions: if a man is unmistakably called by Yahweh to ministry and a wife says 'no', what should he do? Well, reason and pray with her first. Obviously. Seek to convert her by all means righteous (and not to threaten her with damnation for not instantly responding). If she has issues, then possibly they should have been dealt with before OR there and then OR it might have been Yahweh's way of getting the wife to face and deal with them. We can't know. But clearly there has to be time BOTH for the man to be 100% sure he has been called and when, AND to allow time for the wife to get things fixed. Only Yahweh can know how much time is needed for either. It may well be that the man IS called BUT has some things to fix in his life FIRST. That's why I said in my first post this is a complex issue. And as I said, there is always a grace period or unknown length. BUT it has to be understood that that grace does end at some point.

We know little about the families of the first apostles, sadly. As DR said, we know that husbands took their wives with them, and doubtless their children too. Paul was either a widower, a divorcee or his wife was at home (for whatever reason). We don't know. We do not read of any apostles' wives opposing them or giving ultimatums. I am not saying that some didn't, just that this is not recorded. We do however read of faithful helpers like Priscilla. It's clear what the New Testament emphasises.

Michael was pretty sure of his calling:

"Well, I heard the call that day loud and clear. I knew what I was called to do. I was not sure before, but the Lord’s voice was coming through like a megaphone. I was supposed to go overseas. I was supposed to be a missionary!"

What he DIDN'T know was WHEN. His error, I believe, was in the timing. I have made that error like most of us. I have assumed that a calling is "now". When Yahweh called me into the ministry in 1984 it was the day before I was being baptised into a church which He had also called me to be a part of temporarily. My calling did not begin until over 3 years later, in 1987.

IF Michael was called in the future then AND his wife was too, with him, then it MIGHT have been that BOTH of them needed time to resolve issues before being ready to serve. (She might, on the other hand, have never repented, no matter how long he waited). Their marriage may have needed working on and his wife may have needed to learn to submit to Yahweh's headship law. (I am speculating here, you understand). IF Micahel had been called there and then and his wife had refused, WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE THEN? That is the question. And there is only one answer.

Clearly we should never do anything impulsively. When Paul got his calling, he knew it, and nothing could have stopped him. (I suppose his wife, if he had one or if she was alive...to have been a Pharisee he must have been married...must have gone nuts, unless she converted too). Sometimes we must minister without wives (like Jeremiah).

Interesting discussion and a very important one too. If we don't get the issues right ´here our families will just be battle grounds impeding our discipleship. So we need to get family foundations right.

He wrote another article sharing private details about his marriage here and similar viewpoints to the one in the article posted by Lev above.

This is my response to him on his blog in case it doesn't post:
To Michael:

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me (Matthew 10:34-38 ESV).

Also:

And Peter said, “See, we have left our homes and followed you.” And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life” (Luke 18:28-30 ESV).

It would seem that, according to Jesus, there are circumstances where we are to literally abandon our families, if He calls us to and (especially if) they are opposed to doing God’s work (but noting in the case of marriage, that said abandonment doesn’t necessarily result in divorce, according to the strictures laid out in Matthew 19 and 1 Corinthians 7). Note how the apostles were called to abandon their homes to preach the Gospel and how He promised to reward not just them, but anyone who does likewise.

I do think it is important, though, to lovingly sacrifice for a wife who may not be as committed to God as you are. But in the case of the original person who asked this question, theology isn’t really spirituality — it has its place, but it isn’t all that important when compared to loving God and loving one’s neighbor. So (in all honesty and with the deepest respect), I think a man who neglects his wife for the purposes of studying theology is acting selfishly.

I saw his reply and was unimpressed. I do wonder if he understands that there is a difference between theology and spirituality? I thought him rather weak.

DR said:

He wrote another article sharing private details about his marriage here and similar viewpoints to the one in the article posted by Lev above.

This is my response to him on his blog in case it doesn't post:
To Michael:

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me (Matthew 10:34-38 ESV).

Also:

And Peter said, “See, we have left our homes and followed you.” And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life” (Luke 18:28-30 ESV).

It would seem that, according to Jesus, there are circumstances where we are to literally abandon our families, if He calls us to and (especially if) they are opposed to doing God’s work (but noting in the case of marriage, that said abandonment doesn’t necessarily result in divorce, according to the strictures laid out in Matthew 19 and 1 Corinthians 7). Note how the apostles were called to abandon their homes to preach the Gospel and how He promised to reward not just them, but anyone who does likewise.

I do think it is important, though, to lovingly sacrifice for a wife who may not be as committed to God as you are. But in the case of the original person who asked this question, theology isn’t really spirituality — it has its place, but it isn’t all that important when compared to loving God and loving one’s neighbor. So (in all honesty and with the deepest respect), I think a man who neglects his wife for the purposes of studying theology is acting selfishly.