Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Good morning and welcome to Dishman Baptist Church on this Memorial Day weekend.

God has yet again revealed His providence as we come to this significant passage on family worship Sunday.

It should come as no surprise to anyone who has watched a news outlet, read a magazine article, or logged in to social media anytime within the last 20 years to hear that the family unit is under attack throughout society.

In fact it has always been this way.

Satan’s initial temptations in the Garden accomplished to goals.

The first was to attack and impugn the nature of God as he successfully cast doubt as to God’s intentions and concern for His primary creation in mankind - “Did God really say” “You wont really die” “The Old Man is holding out on you, there’s so much more to be had here” - okay that last part was my own addition but it is in character with what Satan tempted Eve with.

The second and equally successful thrust was to attack and undermine the very first institution that God had put in place for the management of His creation - the familial unit.

There has been much speculation and extra-biblical musings as to when Satan fell and was cast out of Heaven with 1/3 of the angels and where Adam was when Eve was being tempted.

One thing seems to me to be crystal clear - Satan, being the cunning serpent, knew what he was doing when he approached Eve rather than Adam.

He knew the order that God had created male and female and he recognized that that relationship was meant to mirror the relationship of the Trinity in Heaven.

So by approaching Eve he was contravening God’s created order of accountability and planting the seeds for strife in the family unit throughout history.

The effects were immediate - we see the breakdown of the family unit as Cain murders Abel.

Jacob steals Esau’s birthright and blessing.

The royal family of Israel is plagued by bloodshed and betrayal - David with Bathsheba, Absalom, Amnon and Tamar.

The family unit has always been marred and undermined by sin.

Today though the attacks are insidious and seem to be in hyperdrive.

Unlike a physical war, where it was long ago determined to be folly to fight a war on two fronts, this ideological war is happening on multiple fronts and through multiple mediums.

Andreas Kostenberger in his book “God, Marriage and Family” writes “It can rightly be said that marriage and the family are institutions under seige in our world today, and that with marriage and the family our very civilization is in crisis.”

No fault divorce, the LGBTQ agenda, feminism are all fronts on which the battle for marriage is being fought.

The denigration of the marriage institution has contributed to the sexual revolution and the abortion debate.

Alabama has particularly been in the news on these issues this week.

First because the governor there just signed a bill criminalizing abortion.

Then the state made news because the children’s cartoon “Arthur” was scheduled to premier with an episode that included homosexual wedding and the public broadcasting channel there refused to air the episode.

So what are we as Christians to do? Paul is going to outline for us in four short sentences principles that Martin Luther, coupled with the verses that follow, called Haustafeln or house rules.

Please take you Bibles and turn or navigate to Colossians 3:18-21.

The crisis that surrounds the family and home dynamic today cannot be misconstrued as a cultural crisis only.

We must recognize it for what it is -

a spiritual battle.

In the same chapter that Satan mounts his frontal attack on both the character of God and the institution of marriage a promise is given that would provide the means for the redemption of the people who had transgressed God’s commands and in so doing marred the institution that God had put in place to manage His creation.

Kostenberger writes it this way - “If then the cultural crisis is symptomatic of an underlying spiritual crisis, the solution must be spiritual not cultural.”

The commands that Paul is going to give the Colossians and to us today are given with the spiritual solution in mind - the Gospel.

The commands Paul gives for the orderly management of the home were counter-cultural to what was happening in the First Century and what is happening in our society today and thus point to a greater reason for the home's existence - to be a witness to the Gospel.

We’ll see this revealed in the points saying “Submission doesn’t mean Servitude”, “Love not required?”

and “Seen but not seen”.

Submission doesn’t mean servitude.

Love not required.

Seen but not seen.

Submission doesn’t mean Servitude

Colossians 3:18; Galatians 3:28; Colossians 3:11; 1 Corinthians 11:3; 1 Corinthians 11:8; 1 Corinthians 11:11-12; Ephesians 5:22-24

Even uttering these words could get me excoriated outside the walls of this building - wives be subject to your husband.

We live in a day and age where the mere notion of women submitting to anything against their will is contrary at least and inflammatory at worst.

Women today are referred to as liberated and independent.

Strong willed and defiant.

That’s when they can even be referred to as women at all.

Gloria Steinem, the renowned feminist, says it this way “A gender equal society would be one where the word gender does not exist: where everyone can be themselves.”

The very idea that women would willingly submit themselves and place themselves below their husband staying home as much as possible to raise children is anathema and antiquated - a quaint idea of yesteryear but one that is far below our more modern and informed societal expectations.

This was certainly not the case in the society of Colossae.

That society - both in the Jewish culture and the Greek or Roman cultures of the day - had no concept of an empowered or liberated woman.

In fact Under Jewish law a woman was a thing; she was the possession of her husband, just as much as his house or his flocks or his material goods were.

She had no legal right whatever.

For instance, under Jewish law, a husband could divorce his wife for any cause, while a wife had no rights whatever in the initiation of divorce.

In Greek society a respectable woman lived a life of entire seclusion.

She never appeared on the streets alone, not even to go marketing.

She lived in the women’s apartments and did not join her menfolk even for meals.

Both under Jewish and under Greek laws and custom, all the privileges belonged to the husband, and all the duties to the wife.

So this begs a question - in a society where servitude was the accepted norm with respect to the status of a wife, why did Paul even need to write these words?

In a society that was so dominated by the male figures why does Paul encourage the women of Colossae to submit?

In fact in light of passages like Galatians 3:28

and in this very epistle

You would think that Paul would be encouraging the women to demonstrate their independence, to throw off the chattels of this provincial life and to seek adventure in the world.

But that’s not his encouragement at all.

It is to submit?

Why?

Well, we know that a correct interpretation of the verses in Galatians and Colossians doesn’t mean that the roles determined by God have been erased and that every one can be anything they want - despite what the world might tell you.

I wanted to be an astronaut and to visit the moon when I was little but here I am with a much more important job instead.

In effect what Paul is encouraging the women of Colossae, and the women of today, to is something far more radical, something far more surprising than exercising their own freedom and exerting their independence.

In a society that was built on strength and power an action like that would have just gotten lost in the rest of society and it does get lost today.

With all the interests vying for power in our modern world it is hard to distinguish one from the other - they’ve even had to invent a new system called intersectionality to determine who’s bid for power and influence is actually valid.

No what Paul is calling the women in this passage to is nothing short of revolutionary.

This Greek verb is an imperative and it is in the present tense meaning that it is a continuous ongoing action.

What is shocking about this verb is that it is in the middle voice - meaning that it is a choice.

It carries the sense of becoming inclined or willing to submit to orders or wishes of others - in this case the husband in the marriage relationship.

Now why is this?

Why does Paul ask this of these women and why does he ask it of you today?

Notice there’s nothing in the text that says that you are to submit because men are so amazing.

That they are worthy of submitting to.

Notice that this is a follow-on to the command that Paul has just given the church that whatever they do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul is tying the submission of the wife in the marital relationship to something greater than just that relationship.

In parallel passages in 1 Corinthians 11 and Ephesians 5 Paul will tie the marriage relationship to creation and to Christ’s relationship with the church.

In 1 Corinthians 11

then later in the chapter in verse 8

But lest men get too confident in this status he reminds them

Then in Ephesians 5 Paul would write to that church

Maintaining the proper relationship in the marriage, the God-ordained and created order, is a sure example of the Gospel and the relationship that the church has to Christ.

No one would suggest that the church attempt to assert her independence from Christ or to stand on her own merit - yet that is what we attempt to do in our marriages when wives do not live in Godly submission to their husbands.

And there are Biblical examples of the disastrous consequences that this can have.

In addition to the example of Eve who, rather than seeking Adam’s counsel or advice, decided instead to listen to the serpent there is also the example of Sarah.

In Genesis 12 God calls Abram and tells him to pack up and head to a new land where God promises that he will inherit the land and that he will be made into a great nation.

Through the intervening years Sarai remains childless.

She finally decides enough waiting - if God is going to come through on this promise He is going to need her help.

And so she gives her maid Hagar to Abraham and they conceive and Ishmael is born.

And thus we have the genesis of the middle east peace crisis because when Isaac is born Sarah wants Ishmael cast out and Abraham does so.

Ishmael and Hagar are sent out but they are promised by God that He will indeed make Ishmael into a great nation - and He does.

Sarah’s rash decision to subvert the plan of God, to take matters into her own hands and to rule Abraham and force him to take Hagar and conceive with her resulted in catastrophic issues over the last 5000 years.

So what is the point?

Am I trying to say that women should only be stay at home moms and cook and clean the house?

No - although we shouldn’t, not that we do but society does, look down on or minimize the importance of the stay-at-home mom.

There are many surveys that rank the job of stay-at-home mom one of the hardest jobs in the world.

But no - I am not advocating for all wives to quit their jobs and remain at home, although I think that the case can and should be made that if they have to work outside of the home that it should be as little as necessary and that the health of the family is greatly enhanced when mom’s primary focus isn’t her career.