In the first part of this blog post we discussed the characteristics of a modern day “karen”. The type of woman embodied in that description is undesirable by non-Christians and is completely unacceptable to living a Christian life. Yet, many of those in church every Sunday can be seen behaving like “a Karen” during the week (male and female). Sometimes that behavior shows its head at church too.

In this post, I want to talk about the scriptural design for marriage and what that looks like in practice. The new testament encouraged the role of women in the kingdom which went against many popular societal beliefs. Ladies have always had a place close to Jesus. The world has changed a lot and we women have come a long way from biblical times. We are no longer forced by our fathers at a young age to marry a man that picked us but we had no choice in the matter. We are no longer counted along with the rest of the property owned by a man. We are able to provide for ourselves meaning we don’t have to accept abuse from a spouse in order to eat. We can attend school, vote, and have our own careers. These are all good things, but even good things can get twisted, if we’re not careful.

Like it or not, scripturally speaking, men must bear a very large responsibility to God in the context of relationships. Men were created with strength to protect and to provide. God did not call for Eve after she and her husband ate from the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden. God knew it was the woman who was tricked by the serpent first, but God called out looking for Adam. (Genesis 3:9) Man is commanded to be the spiritual leader and, while He’s not held completely responsible for the actions of his family, he must be accountable if his own actions gave the enemy a stronghold and contributed to the change of heart in his family away from God.
Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
Ephesians 6:4 NIV
As believers, we know that if we are actively seeking God and in a daily relationship with him, the rest falls into place. That is very important for the man leading his family through life on earth.

If we can all agree that scripturally men were created to be the head of the family (Ephesians 5:23), I assume we can also all agree that women are the heart. The heart is every bit as important as the head because together they control (head) and nurture (heart) the body. One cannot be successful without the other. Without an emotion, the head won’t know that something is wrong and a relationship needs to be fixed. However, the Bible is full of scriptures that tell us our emotions must be under our control and regulated by wisdom. (Galations 5:22-23, Titus 2:11-12, Proverbs 9:13) In addition, women are commanded to respect their husbands and to “submit to your own husbands as you do the Lord” (Ephesians 5:22).

This is where a lot of women lose interest in following God’s word. How can we be expected to blindly submit to another flawed, sinful human being when we know their weaknesses better than anyone? Many modern men don’t possess spiritual wisdom or a daily, living relationship with God leaving women unwilling to submit to his direction for her life and that of their children. Both spouse’s decisions have a huge impact on the lives of everyone in the family. THIS is why it is so important to choose a spouse wisely without expecting that person’s character to change after marriage. The fatal flaw is that single people become so afraid of pain and suffering that we want to only choose a perfect spouse. Godly women who accept their submissive role can be particularly susceptible to this fear, resulting in the creation of completely unattainable standards.

In the next post, we’ll discuss the scriptures that make our role as women particularly uncomfortable and how the desire to avoid our roles fueled some unhealthy feminist shifts in society.