What if ....

What happens when, in a happy marriage, a wife disagrees with her husband on certain aspects of the male authority teaching? If she hides this, she lives under tension. If she voices her disagreement to others, he may feel a loss of face.

It is good to know that many couples disagree on this issue and still model a faithful and enduring love for each other. This is from J. I. Packer Answers Questions for Today with Wendy Murray Zoba. page 106.

She's Welsh, he's English. She highlights that point. When they take walks together, she meanders (still sometimes barefoot), carrying binoculars, watching the chickadees, and tracing the flight of the bald eagle, he bolts, wanting to get there and back again. He keeps his shoes on.

She moves comfortably into "the debating mode" (Packer notes: "She's not sure she can see coherence in my position on women in ministry"). He demurs, "I'm an analyst. I'm not a debater."

Along a similar line, here is a comment from the CBE blog on a post about Eph. 5,

I’m just hanging out, lurking a bit, enjoying people’s posts and their different takes on this. I don’t have much to say on this thread, but thought it was a perfect place to insert what I heard a wise old preacher once say about this passage in scripture.

He said that he didn’t read the parts that didn’t apply to him.

i.e. He focused on the “Husbands love” and let his wife work out “Wives submit.” He didn’t feel a need to explain it to her, define it for her, or beat it into her head. He knew that she loved Jesus and would do what Jesus impressed on her heart concerning scripture, even Ephesians 5.

I guess you could say he trusted her and her faith in Jesus and the scriptures. And he trusted Jesus to speak to her.

I can’t even tell you if this man leaned more hierarchal or egalitarian. I just know that his words hold a wisdom that transcends far above the pettiness of those wanting to force their views of “God’s divine order for the family” on others.