What does it look like to have a “biblical” marriage?
We toss that phrase around a lot–”biblical marriage.” It’s become a really loaded term.
But often it’s assumed that a “biblical marriage” is just obvious. Everyone knows what it is.
But do they?
I’m back from an extended time off to recharge and relax, and while the beginning part of that time off was super busy with family stuff and punctuated with my back going out (which wasn’t fun), I did have a really good final part of the vacation. And what I often do on vacation is read rather voraciously.
Because of that, when I get back I often have a ton of thoughts running through my head, and today I’d like to type some of them out before I lose them.
I want to talk about two different approaches to a “biblical marriage”.
First: The idea that it’s vitally important that the order of authority is maintained.
Let’s take this Bible passage, for instance:
Memucan answered the king and his nobles, “Queen Vashti has wronged not only the king but also every noble and citizen throughout your empire. Women everywhere will begin to despise their husbands when they learn that Queen Vashti has refused to appear before the king. Before this day is out, the wives of all the king’s nobles throughout Persia and Media will hear what the queen did and will start treating their husbands the same way. There will be no end to their contempt and anger.
“So if it please the king, we suggest that you issue a written decree, a law of the Persians and Medes that cannot be revoked. It should order that Queen Vashti be forever banished from the presence of King Xerxes, and that the king should choose another queen more worthy than she. 20 When this decree is published throughout the king’s vast empire, husbands everywhere, whatever their rank, will receive proper respect from their wives!”
Let’s set the stage.
The king of Babylon had requested that Queen Vashti parade around to show off her body to visiting drunk noblemen, and she refused. This caused quite an uproar, because she was treating the king with contempt.
So one of the king’s advisors gave this advice–banish Queen Vashti, so that the women of the kingdom will know that it is wrong to show contempt to their husbands, because if we don’t get a handle on this, then women may stop giving their husbands honor!
And that’s what the king did.
Technically, this can be called a “biblical marriage”, because it is marriage advice that appears in the pages of the Bible. But reading it in context shows that this is not advice that is supposed to be listened to. Throughout the book of Esther, the king and his cronies are the baddies. Esther and her uncle Mordecai are the good ones (and, I would argue, Vashti is too ).
Yet let me ask a question:
When you read this Bible quote, doesn’t it seem totally in keeping with Emerson Eggerichs’ arguments in Love & Respect? In fact, in Love & Respect he even quotes this passage positively, as if its advice is pertinent to us!
Wives virtually ask to be unloved when they “look down on their husbands”(Esther 1:17 NIRV).
He goes on to talk about how the book of Esther demonstrates the problems with women who don’t respect their husbands.
Imagine taking a story of a pagan king acting foolishly as the guide of an accurate way that we should see marriage! What does that say about the state of evangelical marriage advice?
But let’s take another step back and look at the themes in the whole book of Esther.
The book of Esther shows us the emptiness and pettiness of the quest for power.
In Esther, we see one group of people that is eagerly trying to benefit from the trappings of power and authority without doing anything worthy of respect and admiration. Everything they do, all of their actions, are about making sure they stay the top dog, and the order of authority is maintained.
The king throws a huge lavish banquet for the nobility in order to look good, and wants to show off his smoking hot wife (who refuses to comply). Then he issues a decree to try to maintain the illusion of his great power. Haman, his right hand man, spends the entire book plotting how he can get the people in the land to honor him and bow down to him. Basically everything that the Babylonian nobles do is to exalt themselves without ever caring about anyone around them.
Mordecai and Esther are shown in stark contrast to this. Mordecai, a Jew, reports on a plot to the king’s life and saves the king, even though the king isn’t even a good guy. Mordecai and Esther together try to save the Jews from the edict that they be exterminated. They exercise strong character and are the heroes in the story, while those merely trying to cling to power are shown to be pretty much nothing.
There is nothing about them to respect. Nothing about them to admire. They merely have power and use it badly.
The book of Esther (and, I would argue, the whole Bible) shows us the emptiness of a life focusing on who is in charge, rather than a life focusing on building good character and doing the right thing.
Now let’s turn to another way of seeing biblical marriage: the household codes in Ephesians 5.
For this, I’d actually like to quote at length from the late Rachel Held Evans. I read her book Inspired on the plane this week, at the advice of others, because of her take on the household codes. I thought she explained things so well, and rather than mangle her argument, I’ll just post her own words.
Rachel says:
Many modern readers assume teachings about wives submitting to their husbands appear exclusively in the pages of Scripture and thus reflect uniquely “biblical” views about women’s roles in the home. But to the people who first heard these letters read aloud in their churches, the words of Peter and Paul would have struck them as both familiar and strange, a sort of Christian remix on familiar Greco-Roman philosophy that positioned the male head of house as the rightful ruler over his subordinate wives, children, and slaves…By instructing men to love their wives and respect their slaves, and by telling everyone to “submit to one another” with Jesus as the ultimate head of house, the apostles offer correctives to cultural norms without upending them.
Exactly! The household codes in Ephesians 5 were really Paul saying–”Okay, this is how you’re expected to live in Roman culture. Now let’s make it imitate Christ.” And he turned it around so that it wasn’t about one person exercising authority over another, but instead everyone having an attitude of humility and service. That’s revolutionary!
Rachel goes on to ask:
So the question for modern readers, then, is whether the point of the New Testament household codes is to reinforce the Greco-Roman household structure as God’s ideal for all people, in all places, for all time, or whether the point is to encourage Christians to imitate Jesus in their relationships, regardless of the culture or their status in it.
Yes! Those who try to make Ephesians 5, and Paul’s other household code passages, to mean that husbands must be in authority and power over their wives (as Emerson Eggerichs, John Piper, John MacArthur, Mark Driscoll, even Tim Keller) may be missing the entire point.
Think back to the story of Esther. In that story, Esther and Mordecai showed the emptiness of the quest for power. Through their righteousness, the pettiness of those in power was revealed.
What if that’s part of the point of what Jesus came to do?
Earlier in the book, Rachel tells a story set in New Testament times, when one character muses like this:
“What I understand the apostle to be saying,” Nympha says, “is that the crucifixion of Jesus exposed the empire, and all forms of unjust authority, for what they are—cruel and empty, desperate and weak. Rome executed an innocent man, for what? Healing the sick? Telling stories? Riding a donkey into Jerusalem? The Messiah’s obedience in humbling himself, loving his enemies, caring for the poor and suffering, and turning away from violence made a mockery of this opulent and oppressive empire. It made a mockery of religious hypocrisy and exclusion. And his resurrection proves he is in fact Lord and Master of all, for even Rome could not bury him, even Caesar could not keep him dead for long.”…
“Maybe we are not called to overthrow the empire’s social order, but to disarm it, to reveal its emptiness compared to gatherings like these where slave, master, husband, and wife are equals in service to Jesus.”….
“And if husbands and wives love each other,” another pipes in, “and slaves and masters respect one another, and if all submit to Jesus as the head of the Christian house, the ‘chain of command’ begins to break down.”…
Drucilla wonders aloud if there will come a day when the world doesn’t need household codes, when Jesus really is Lord and Master of every home. That’s when Aelia has a dangerous thought. “They say Pax Romana begins in the home,” she says. “Maybe revolution does too.”
Rachel’s thoughts on the household codes were so impactful! You can get her book here.
Let me ask: What sounds more like the way of Jesus?
- The household codes are meant to praise the Roman concepts of power and authority and hierarchy for all time; or
- The household codes are meant to point us to the Jesus way of doing things, where divisions are broken down, and we’re focused on serving one another without a quest for power?
What if Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross showed the emptiness of the Roman/empire way of doing things, and defeated evil by showing another way? What if the Jesus way of doing life is not about power and authority at all?
And what if the evangelical church has so lost sight of the Jesus way, by instead using the words of Scripture to recreate a chain-of-command religion?
What would it mean to leave behind the chain of command model of Christianity, and the chain of command model of marriage?
What would it look like to live life as equals, serving one another and following Jesus? What if that is the revolution that Jesus brought, and what if He is inviting us to be part of that in our own homes? To show what real intimacy and humility looks like?
That’s the journey I’d like to take us on in the road ahead this year on the blog and on the podcast.
What does it look like to focus on intimacy rather than roles? What does it look like to live by the Spirit rather than a husband’s will? What does it look like to live sacrificially for each other, while recognizing our inherent worth in Christ? And how does such a relationship constitute an uncomfortable challenge to the status quo, and to those around us?
I hope you’ll join me on that journey! I think it’s going to be a fun one. And let me know what other questions these thoughts raise. Let’s keep talking, keep growing, and keep leaning into Christ as we try to find the Jesus way.
What do you think? Have you heard sermons quoting the pagan advisors in Esther positively? Have you been rethinking the household codes? Let’s talk in the comments!
Most of what I’ve heard throughout my life about “Biblical” or “Christian” marriages focused on two things: Traditional roles, in that the husband works, and the wife keeps house and cares for the children. And, of course, the belief that the husband must be the absolute final and only authority on the marriage, household and everything in it. Hopefully we can overcome this.
Yes! Imagine if instead of talking so much about having a Christian marriage, we just talked about how to act like a Christian in your marriage?
Yes!!! Put that on a shirt!!! That’s a fantastic quote!!
Love this: Act like a Christian!
Look to Jesus as the example of how we are supposed to behave and forget about the “chain of command.”
I agree with Jen: Sheila, this absolutely should be a slogan to place on products (or as the subtitle for your next marriage book?).
Yes!! Merch, please!!!
The Roman setting was a fascist one. In Nazi Germany, they called the unquestioned obedience to the leader the Führerprinzip, or leadership principle, and look at the destruction such obedience caused. Now I know I’m being extreme, but I was honestly shocked when I read this and realized that it is the same principle at work: unquestioned obedience to the husband.
We also cannot just assume that our husbands have a direct line to God, because often they just aren’t listening. They are very distracted by their own plans and goals (that is not to say that women aren’t), and it behooves godly wives to keep their men accountable–ideally we should keep EACH OTHER accountable. But unquestioned obedience often prevents us from challenging our men to check in with God about what He really wants for the family.
I think the trick is not becoming pushy or ungodly in our approach, and this is where I struggle. This is why it is so important that Christian teachers and churches reevaluate what they are teaching, because a woman operating on her own just seems like a loose cannon and it’s easier for men to disregard anything she says. I’ve been going through this for 2 years now, because I know God is speaking to me about it family, but the church we were in just shut me down whenever I would speak up about it. Why? My husband wasn’t hearing anything from God.
Would it not have been better for the church to come alongside us as a couple and say, “Let’s investigate this, pray over it and see what God wants to say to BOTH of you regarding His call on your family.”
The worst part is, I know that there are many situations in which women are taught that they can’t do anything but submit, wait, and pray. Sometimes these situations are much more painful or even dangerous than the one I’m in.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again.
Those whose use Paul’s words to amass power unto themselves in marriages or churches are modern day pharisees who reject The Chief Cornerstone, Jesus, while they build their spiritually bankrupt doctrine.
As a result of rejecting The Chief Cornerstone, their doctrinal house is built on sand. It’s crumbling and washing away before their very eyes. But they refuse to see their error.
Absolutely!
It strikes me that the vast majority of the teaching in the bible about how to be (God’s image, sermon on the mount, fruit of the Spirit, gifts of the Spirit, mutual submission …) is non-gendered, so followers of Jesus should look to that for guidance on our attitudes and behaviours in all our relationships, including in marriage. Once we can sign off on all that, then maybe think about the specifics of being a husband or a wife.
Love this!
I feel that part of what is going on here can come down to people not understanding the values that people hold up.
When people speak of hierarchy as being something that can be good they are not wrong. Afterall we do see in Genesis that God does create an established order. He tells mankind that they are to have dominion over the earth and that they are to work together to accomplish that goal. He tells them that they are created in his image. God then is by nature the most powerful being their is. He has ultimate authority. Yet he does not abuse it. He instead gives us a chance to share in a grand and wonderful design.
When Jesus said to render unto Caesar what belonged to Caesar and to God what belonged to God he was at once doing something incredibly revolutionary and upsetting revolutionaries. The zealots wanted a military revolution. Many expected a military messiah. Instead Jesus asks us to evaluate what power really is and where it lies. Jesus the king acts as a servant. He does not tear down Rome and burn it and its culture to the ground. Instead he through his actions brings out how the Pax Romana fails and that what the romans truly want a real peace can be found in his personage.
I think when people hear deconstruction some imagine something like the French revolution. Chaos and destruction and fear everywhere. People who see the good in what churches are wonder why people would want to destroy that good. Those deconstructing do not want at least I believe some of them do not want to destroy what Jesus established but rather to show people Jesus where the establishment fails to do so.
Please, let me know what you think.
Danielle – I think it is interesting that you think that some people think that deconstruction means revolutionary war and chaos. It really is interesting because I have not witnessed anyone say that – at least not here. Now maybe over there on the Civil War Times website they are talking about deconstruction that way but not here. When I think of deconstruction I think about my sons legos and how we break it down and then rebuild something better. I also think Paul did the same thing in his letters to the early church. He also praised those such as the Thessalonians for their faith. What a great example Paul was to us to follow in this time we live in eh?
Taking something apart to rebuild it as something better is a good thing. It was done expertly by people such as Frederick Douglass. I find it interesting how people think about things such as order and chaos. I think both of which are necessary in a sense. Change can be good or bad. I would hope that it will be a force for good.
Lego castles are a good way to describe what positive change can be actually. You build a castle and if you want to build something else you take it apart to build.
😀
I have similar thoughts about deconstruction. It’s about taking something apart. Reconstruction is rebuilding what was taken apart. Sometimes it’s just personal preference–like reorganizing into something that better meets your goals and needs. Sometimes it’s about asthetics. And sometimes it’s about fixing flood damage, or removing toxic mold.
For me, deconstructing purity culture was about removing toxic mold that significantly affected my mental, emotional, and spiritual well being. And rebuilding bit by bit with clean solid materials, and big windows to let in lots of light.
Love the direction for this year. I would still totally buy a t-shirt that says, “ So NO like Vashti”.
Hope you had a restful break. Sorry about your back. I’ve done that, too, and it’s miserable.
It all depends on how one defines “biblical.”
If you mean “the kind of marriage described in the biblical book of Esther,” you get one kind of marriage.
If you mean “a marriage where Jesus is the center,” i.e., both spouses are acting as though “biblical” means “Christlike,” then you get a completely different kind of marriage.
Hierarchy from above…
Sometimes hierarchy is good and needed. Countries have Presidents, businesses have CEOs, sports teams have coaches, and so on. Most of the time on this site, though, when we speak of hierarchy, we mean the traditional idea of male patriarchy. That is, men, just because they are men, are the absolute leaders of all churches and households. Even there, of course, most of us don’t want to destroy churches or marriages, but bring them closer to true equality for us all, with God and Jesus as the leaders.
Exactly. Hierarchy in and of itself can be good but tyranny autocracy etc winds up being a problem.
Maybe if we want to get rid of hierarchy in marriage we are going to have to look at any hierarchy in church also. There’s no reason for functional adult Christians to rule over one another.
I think the household codes mentioned in the Bible pertained to the time and culture in which they were written, not for all time. Jesus did not mention anything about household codes, so why should we?
Wanting to have power reminds me of U.S. politics and the rise in Christian nationalism.
Xerxes was a pagan king so I don’t understand why a lot of Christians think we should apply that verse about wives needing to bow down to their husbands according to the book of Esther. Well, lately, I think a good number of Christian men are getting hung up on power. They (I cannot say all men, because I know that’s not the case. I’m mainly referring to pastors like Mark Driscoll, John Piper, etc.) are getting more vocal about gender roles than ever. It seems like that to me.
Some of the mainstream churches I have recently attended want to put emphasis on husbands “leading” their families, yet they don’t explain what that means. When you ask the pastor/speaker what they mean, they say things like, “Be present in your family’s lives,” “Be responsible for getting everyone ready for church,” “Be the one who initiates and leads prayer and meals and bedtime.” To me, these things apply to both parents. It’s called being responsible adults and parents.
I am so sick and tired of evangelicals’ obsession with prescribed gender roles. That’s just a yoke around our necks that Jesus never put on us.
Driscoll, Piper, et al. are definitely getting louder and louder, because the women they have collectively oppressed through their faulty teaching are shaking that garbage off and saying, ENOUGH!! They must feel pretty shaky at the moment, as the formerly silenced voices refuse to be silenced any more.
“When those who have had privilege lose that privilege, the resulting normalcy feels like oppression to them.” These guys are losing the privilege they formerly enjoyed, and now they think they are being oppressed. It’s pretty sad, really, that they can’t handle being equals with their fellow human beings.
In my opinion, an example of a biblical marriage would be Priscilla and Aquila. They both worked as tent makers, shared in the missionary field, and lead a church in Ephesus in their house which resulted in correcting Apollo. Priscilla’s name was first most of the time which went against common usage signaling that she probably led just as much or more than Aquila. So whatever passes as a “biblical marriage” in most complementarian circles isn’t biblical in my view.
Yes! They’re one of the only healthy couples mentioned in the Bible!
When I read that passage in the bible about “we can’t let Vashti get away with this, because then all the other wives will start disrespecting their husbands, and society will collapse” (okay I paraphrased that), it sounds really over-the-top, like the biblical writer is emphasizing how insecure and fragile these men are. Like, telling readers don’t be like that.
Also, I love the book “Inspired”! I read it a few months ago and posted a review here – “No One Can Take The Bible From Me” https://tellmewhytheworldisweird.blogspot.com/2023/04/no-one-can-take-bible-from-me.html Are you going to write more posts about it? There are a lot of really good concepts in this book. 🙂
And about “biblical marriage”- whenever I hear that term in the context of political debates, it’s because people are saying things like “the biblical definition of marriage is one man and one woman.” As if that’s all you need for a healthy marriage, as if the most important thing is what genders you and your spouse are. Whereas in reality, having a healthy marriage is about loving each other and working well together and communicating well, etc.
Can I just say, I’ve gotten pretty suspicious of the term “biblical,” as applied to any modern practices or beliefs. Not because I think the Bible is not important (it is). But, I’ve noticed that very often what people mean when they say this or that thing is “biblical” is “I approve of this and I have proof texts to support my sentiments.” Depending on how open they are to differing interpretations, it can also mean “If you disagree, you’re disagreeing with God/the Bible, not me.” It ends up being quite reductive, both of the complexity of life and faith, and of the Bible itself.
Yes, I agree.
Pointing out the painfully obvious: Ephesians 6:5-9 is about how slaves and masters should treat each other… and we all understand that slavery is a horrific evil.
So does that mean Christianity condones the “hierarchy” of slavery, or is the more likely interpretation that we are told how to behave in a deeply broken and fallen world, in a hierarchical system that should not exist in the first place?
Now let’s go and apply that to marriage.
EXACTLY!
This came across my FB feed this morning
When I say I want a Biblical wife
What people think I mean. A wife that is passive and subservient.
What I really want: A wife that’ll drive a tent stake through a tyrant’s head given the chance.
Yes!!! I’ve got one of those!!!
Somebody commented: “ If you can’t handle me at my Judges 4&5 then you don’t deserve me at my Proverbs 31.”
I absolutely love that last sentence!
That is also merch worthy.
This requires further clarification…
“The book of Esther (and, I would argue, the whole Bible) shows us the emptiness of a life focusing on who is in charge, rather than a life focusing on building good character and doing the right thing.”
Are you saying something different or are you saying that the book of Esther and the whole Bible is about a life focused on building good character and doing the right thing? It sounds like the latter, but I wanted to ask because there could be a whole misinterpretation of the Gospel packed in that one statement.
Doing the right thing does not save us. Jesus does. But what is our life supposed to be about? When Jesus died, He showed the emptiness of the quest for power. And his resurrection showed the emptiness of empire. Servanthood, love defeated power and selfishness. So there’s a new way to think about how we’re supposed to relate to each other, how we’re supposed to treat each other. I think often we forget the years that Jesus lived, and look only at His death. His death saved us; but His life shows us how to live.
Ok, I wanted to make sure the message going out was not that the Bible is about doing the right thing. Jesus’ death and resurrection is about us as humans in our wickedness destined straight for hell and God in his great love and grace for us sent his only Son to pay the penalty for our sins that we may live eternally with Him regardless of anything we could do, did do, or could earn. He intervened to have relationship with us. If we don’t have an understanding of the death and resurrection then we miss the whole thing. We absolutely can look to Jesus’ life as an example but you have to look at all of it. There are plenty of things throughout Scripture that show us how to live. The Bible is one great big story. Our life should be about what God has done for us and that transforms us to love, serve, obey his commands, etc.
Agree with this post about looking at the whole context to understand what was the existing, sometimes toxic power status quo and what part is actually the new teaching.
I agree with Rachel Held Evans but would go a step farther. In the Book of Esther, we explicitly learn that Esther was terrified that approaching the king could result in being killed. While that isn’t spelled out in books like Ephesians or Titus, it would have been been obvious to the people at that time. I’m in Israel right now. There are sites here, especially Masada, where Zealots vowed to fight to the death against Rome. The gruesome result was brutal warfare resulting in massive fatalities for the Judeans and in a few cases, murder-suicide in Zealot holdouts. THAT is the historical context in which to look at something like the Book of Titus. These were people who understood that threatening Rome and its power structure could be very, very dangerous. This is advice specifically for that situation, on how to make a good impression and avoid a direct threat, and eventually gain power by winning people over.
Yes – I am so sick of reading ‘Biblical’ interpretations of Esther that present it as a great love story. Have these people even read the book they claim to be talking about?!!!
Oh my goodness – who’s describing it as a love story?
Tommy Tenney, for one. Hadassah: One Night with the King. While this is a great read and does a lot to bring the story to life, it does end up presenting it as a love story.
You’d be scared at how many do!
I volunteer with a church group teaching the Bible to kids & families, and we recently did Esther. I always check out available resources on the topic, and I was horrified by every single kids teaching resource I found on this book. I know if you’re teaching little kids it’s not appropriate to go into the details, but when I was a kid, we were taught along the lines of ‘The King chose Esther to be his wife – she didn’t have a choice because the king could marry whoever he wanted’, so I was expecting the resources to take that line. Instead, they were all about how excited Esther was to join the beauty parade and how she’d always dreamed of becoming a princess, and when her eyes met those of the king they fell in love…
It’s not just kids’ resources either. The former pastor of our church donated a book to the church library (which has been quietly removed from the shelves!!!) which was basically a soft porn/romance novel combo going into salacious (and highly imaginative and unlikely) details of Esther’s first night with the King…
Out of curiosity, I’ve just had a look on Goodreads and found a list of novelisations of Esther – there are over 30, and judging by the titles and covers, most if not all are ‘romances’. Some specifically have ‘love story’ in the title.
urgh… that’s really bad. Esther always dreamed of being a princess? That is a HORRIBLE way of presenting the story!
I’m excited for this line of thought and discussion over the next year.
As you and others pursue the argument that Paul us meeting the roman believers where they’re at in their cultural construct , it would be great to get some citations that male-headed households in fact was the normal hierarchy in Rome.
I haven’t taken the chance to look for this information myself.
In Roman times patriarchy was the rule. Men could kill their wives and not be punished because they “owned” their wives and kids. Honestly, just look up any info on Roman society. This was foundational and fundamental.
I believe the majority of complementarian men are pretty fragile. What else could they be when they don’t have their identities rooted in Christ and instead get their sense of self from being “in charge!?” (I was raised in deep patriarchy, but became egalitarian before I knew the term existed.) Thank you for all you do!!!
It’s really like how the king in the book of Esther, and all of his advisors, were also extremely fragile.
I can’t overstate how much positive change I have experienced from reading your posts and listening to so many podcasts. Thank you!
I was curious about the endorsement of the book “Inspired.” (I really, really thought I’d posted something yesterday in regards to this, but I don’t see my comment anymore? Maybe I didn’t hit the right button. Or do you not include comments that are not exactly on topic?) Since you do such thorough work on exposing toxic ideas in books, it felt odd that this book is one you are using to uphold your ideas. I think RHE writes about “household codes” in a way that is very helpful to explain what you are talking about, but the book is full of ideas that are very questionable. I was just wondering if you could help me understand?
When I get ideas from people, I credit them! And I thought her take on household codes was so good.