Hi all
Been lurking for years, following the MB program for 3 years.

My husband and I have been talking about the MB principles with our adult unmarried daughters as we've found it to be the most practical program out there and one that actually works. One of our daughters has asked about how Biblical submission as it is taught in many Christian churches fits in with the program. She has a good understanding of the POJA and agrees with it, but most churches she has ever attended always refer to the wife submitting to the husband (Ephesians) and the husband being head of the wife - she is wondering how that relates to the MB program.

I did see a very well thought out post on here a year or so ago, but despite looking for hours, have been unable to find it again. Can anyone help with finding that or any ideas on this subject - we are also introducing a young couple about to be married in a few months to the MB program and they too were wondering about this same subject.


We have read just about every MB book available, but I can't recall this issue being addressed in them - correct me if I'm wrong.

Thanks.

learnalot, this issue is addressed directly in Dr Harley's latest book Draw Close. In this he shows how MB is inspired by the Bible by quoting Biblical passages to support all the MB principles, including POJA. The book teaches couples how to use Biblical teachings and MB together in order to strengthen the marriage.

You can order the book from the online bookshop here, or from Amazon.

Dr Harley supports his concepts with the Bible and has mentioned a verse that says "submit to one another" that he says people conveniently overlook.

If you email him at the radio show, he will send you the scripture verses, I bet. He likes talking about it.

Thanks for your replies.

We do have the book Draw Close and DH and I are currently working our way through that each night. To my understanding of the concepts, it is all about "submitting one to another" - not one person lording it over the other. I never really bought into the idea that the wife was only to submit to the husband anyway - despite being surrounded by other homeschool families who follow that religiously.

I will e-mail Dr Harley on the radio show.

As a husband, I don't worry about "submission." No matter how you take the verses in the Bible, you won't find any about husbands trying to enforce this on their wives. I don't consider myself responsible for trying to straighten out everybody in the world or to right every wrong, and I especially don't consider myself responsible to straighten out my wife.

What I am responsible for is LOVING my wife. And love must be in deeds, not words. http://bible.cc/1_john/3-18.htm That means that if I just say that I love her yet I do things that hurt her (Independent Behavior), I am a liar and not really loving her. And if I just say that I love her yet try to force her to do things that hurt her (Selfish Demands), again, I am a liar and not really loving her. So any way you slice it, if I want to obey what God said in the Bible about being a husband, following the Policy of Joint Agreement is a good way to do that. In fact, it's essentially the only way I know to do that.

The Golden Rule is the gold standard, so to speak, on how to love someone. Treat them the way you want to be treated. Do for them what you would want done to you if you were in that situation. How do we want to be treated? We do not want to be controlled and abused. We do not want our spouse to live an independent life. We want our emotional needs to be met. We want people, especially our spouse, to respect our wants and wishes, our likes and dislikes, even if those feelings are highly unique to us and appear irrational to others.

Since this is what we want, this is the care we ought to give to our mate. That's the Golden Rule, and it came straight from Jesus, and I think again the Policy of Joint Agreement is a great human way of getting the point across on how to put this into practice in marriage. When you violate the Policy of Joint Agreement, you are in fact violating the Golden Rule: you are not giving your spouse the same care and consideration and thoughtfulness that you want them to give you. Of course, as sinful human beings, we tend to find a way to write ourselves a pass for our own thoughtlessness while still condemning our mate for their failures.

Dr. Harley's approach to Christian living is really an amazingly high standard. And I found that that's what I and my marriage needed: I needed to focus on holding myself to God's high standard. We needed that kind of acting love far more than perfect theological understanding of every verse.

I do not know if Dr. Harley completely agrees on everything I've said above; that's just my take on it. I do believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that the Bible is God's perfect (infallible) Word. I self-identify as a fundamentalist. We even homeschool.

One more thing:

http://bible.cc/acts/5-29.htm

"We ought to obey God rather than men." I have always understood this teaching of the apostles to mean that while we submit to human authority, when that human authority directs us to disobey God, we must obey God instead. For example, if the state orders us to not go faster than forty miles an hour, that doesn't entail disobeying God, so we must obey. But if the state orders us to murder someone (as literally happened in Nazi Germany, for example), we must disobey the state and obey God.

So if the Bible is taken to mean that a husband is a human authority over his wife, that still does not mean that the wife should disobey God for her husband.

What I have found in such situations is that many women believe that submission to their husbands entails deceiving their husbands about their feelings. For example, husband wants to buy a motorcycle. Wife is not enthusiastic about this, but she believes she should "submit" to her husband, and so she LIES to him and tries to force herself to feel differently about the motorcycle, tells husband it is a great idea, praises him for buying the motorcycle while inside she is dying.

If we think that God is telling us to LIE, I think we've misunderstood what God says.

Truthfully, when I first read Dr. Harley's Policy of Radical Honesty, I found it to be completely in keeping with what I had always thought was God's Biblical standard of honesty. We don't just avoid false statements: we avoid deceiving others.

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi3900_honesty.html

Of course people debate exactly how far that goes: is it right to lie to save someone's life from a murderer, for example, and what about Rahab in the book of Joshua? But seriously I don't see how anyone could justify deceiving their mate. Husbands and wives need to give each other honest, factual, accurate feedback in order for marriage to function the way God intends. If that hasn't been present for a long time, there are probably some serious and painful course corrections that need to be made.

This subject troubled me for awhile. I couldn't see how MB squared away with what I had always been taught about submission and the wife's role. That is, until I went back and read the original scripture that the teaching of "biblical submission" is based on.

That's where we usually stop. But there's more.


Biblical submission is not the wife doing whatever her husband wants her to do. True Biblical submission and the POJA are essentially the same thing, when you look at these verses.

POJA: Never do anything without the enthusiastic agreement of your spouse.
The wife's submission, according to Ephesians: Respect your husband and care for him by not putting your own desires above his
The husband's role, according to Ephesians: Love your wife as you love your own body, give yourself up for her, care for her

The wife submits to her husband by taking his feelings into account and never doing anything that he is not enthusiastic about. The husband loves and cares for his wife by considering her feelings and desires equal to his own, and never doing anything that she is not enthusiastic about. If he is to love her as his own body, how is he to force her to do something she hates?

Love this thread! These explanations are really helping me sort this out, too. There is unfortunately lots of misinformation out there: even in Sunday school.

Thanks Prisca & Markos.

Marcos & Prisca - thanks for your well thought out comments. They've given me a lot to think about.