Submission from a Hebrew Perspective
I used to look at what Sha 'ul (Paul) wrote:
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1. Ephesians 5:22
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
[Gr] gune hupotasso idios aner hos kurios
[Eng] (any woman of any kind) (be a subordinate)
[Heb] ishshah (hey, that's me!), seautou 'iysh (no hebrew equivalent for "even as") ba`al.
[Eng] (woman/wife) (be humbled or afflicted) (thyself) (human male husband) (owner/husband/ruler/lord)
and
2. Colossians 3:18
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.
(What, are you kidding? I'm NOT going through THAT all over again! Not for THIS!)
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... and think that he must really hate women, A LOT. I mean, this is pretty strong language, right? I mean, I, Ishshah, a WOMAN of GOD, am supposed to WHAT???!!!!! EXCUSE ME???!!! When I think of masters and lords, I think of Egyptian slave drivers and English knights who weren't always such kindly gentilemen. I think of poor Israilites needing freedom, and poor hoveling fools and their families barely eaking out an existance while in lifelong indebtedness to their English lords as well as their kings. I DON'T think of anything positive here, at all. Yet, when I was very young, I had an epiphony. I still subscribe to it today, some 25 years or more later...
The epiphony started out like this: "Well, just DON'T marry any man you could never submit to!" You know, that's darn good logical thinking for a little kid! I wasn't "mature" or "developed" enough yet in my heart and mind to take that anywhere. That's not true anymore.
It takes a lot of trust in someone to be willing to submit to them. A lot more than I normally have at all. I'm like a horse - I HAVE to run free. If you tame and coral me, I become so docile that I lose that wildness that captured your heart in the first place! I loose all sense of independance, and wind up feeding from a traugh! I was not meant for troughs. I was meant for the open fields, for play, and for Living it up :) So, no one can really "capture" me, and yet, I have been "captured" twice now. Once through a Holy Relationship forged by God in what is very much like marriage, only it's even bigger than that, and it's a Spiritual thing, a true Heart *Relationship. And a second time through this totally awsome friendship I have with Erik. Yes, I have awsome friendships with the rest of you as well! Please don't think I've forgotten you! I haven't. But seriousely, this discipleship thing... When you have THAT with someone, it's just on a different extreme, and you can't say that that kind of friendship is the same as all your other friendships - it's just not. I've been "captured" by a caring, respectful, loving, decent and very real friendship that is completely submitted to God in all areas at all times. Heh - there's that magic word again ;)
Submission. Captured. Captivated! LOL. Now, there's one for the records. I don't know about "Captivating" but I can say that I've been Captivated! By Love. I'm Captive to Him. Pure and simple.
How can I do that? How can I submit in a Spiritual Marriage to God, and a Spiritual Sibblingness to Erik? What, have I gone mad? No. I've finally come to realize a few things. First of all, both God and Erik have my best in mind. Always. There's never a time with God when He isn't making sure that I'm being well cared for! Honestly, though I've suffered MUCH in this life, so much that I've been told that many people would have killed themselves long ago had they walked in my shoes, I've also been GREATLY blessed! I've always been provided for, and even when my heart finally gave out, God swooped in and said "Excuse Me, hon, we have some work to do here! I DO LOVE YOU!"
And as for Erik... He submits himself to God because he is "chained" to God (his words, not mine, though I've had my own experience with that myself), and so he does God's bidding. That's his choice, but he follows God's ways, not the world's ways. I used to think that the world's ways would naturally be any human being's ways - that of course, a human being would only do evil, and that only evil would be that person's will and choice of their own selves. This is a dangerous and seriousely flawed line of reasoning. It should be avoided at all cost, yet it is very easy to fall into, particularly when this is what's taught in many of our Bible classes as a meathod of controlling young people into feeling bad about themselves so that they'll want salvation, to avoid hell (fire insurance). It devalues the very people that God created in His own image (inside and out) from conception on. It also strips people of their ability to choose. It teaches them that they can only choose evil, that they can never choose good (which means they have no choices to choose from). It demoralizes them. Anyway, Erik is human, true. All humans have the ability to choose wrong, true. But something happens - something changes - when a human being finally says "Ok, God, I trust you, and I want to do what you ask. I know you Love me and will always take good care of me, so I know that doing what you ask won't lead me into bad things." This doesn't mean that Erik (or anyone else) no longer has the right to choose to do evil - it just means that his heart is Captivated by God, and so he no longer -wants- to do anything unLoving, unGodly, etc. This means that I can trust myself to be in a Loving friendship with Erik, and know that he'll never WANT me to be hurt. It's possible, of course for him to hurt me, but he'll never even once want it to be that way.
On the human friendship level, it's kind of like the difference between accidentally brushing up against someone in a crowded hallway, and intentionally walking clear across town in order to beat someone up. On the Spiritual level, if I'm ever "hurt" by God, it's because He knows that the healing process will bear much fruit. LOL. Hey, Erik, I GET IT! That first verse we read at the start of the Bible study? About God pruning the vines? Heh. I get it. Go figure. It took me over a year :p
And so, I know that God and Erik can be trusted. I'm learning to trust God and people. Trust isn't cheap. It has to be earned. Perhaps it wasn't like that before sin, but that's how it is now. I refuse to trust anyone completely if they've not put in the time and work and attention and heart that it takes for me to know, when I'm good and ready to know, that they can be trusted. That's my price. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's the difference between choosing a "good owner" and a "bad owner." I only want to be "owned" by good owners!
Why is this such a big deal? Why did Paul make such a seemingly startling statement? What does this mean to me, Ishshah, Woman of God?
Someday, I'll meet the man I'm going to marry. I've always been afraid that somehow, I would mess up, marry the wrong man who seemed good at first but turned out to be evil later on. Well, God has cured me of that! Yet I'm still learning what it means to expect good things from that man, who I've dubbed "Joe X." I mean, there are a LOT of men out there who, long ago, gave up on caring one lick about the hearts of the women in their lives! What are the odds that I would actually wind up with a "good" man? Yes, I now believe that God will work that out, but I still, from time to time, have that nagging thought in the back of my head. I just chalk it up to how I'm going to just need more time to stop hearing that message. I need more time to learn what it means to expect good things from him!
What kind of man could I not only willingly, but GLADLY, "submit" myself to? I've thought about the whole "master and pet" thing. I mean, if you look at people who own pets, you can usually easily put them into one of two boxes: "good owner" and "bad owner." How do you know a good owner? A "good" owner is the opposite of a "bad" owner! (duh.) They LOVE their pets! They ADORE them! And they take EXELLENT care of them! They give them more than just food, water, shelter, vet care... They give them love, time, attention, hugs, kisses, etc. Hmm... Sounds like the kind of "master" (Mr.) I could submit myself to, any time :D
Note to my future human husband: I think I'm almost ready for you ;)
* Sorry, oh soooo sorry, to those who think that a heart relationship is never necessary - B freak'n S!!! It TOTALLY is, and if you don't have that on any level with God, ASK HIM FOR IT! You won't regret doing that at all. Trust me on that instead of always whining about it, ok? God'll give it to you, when He's good and ready. So stop worrying about it, ok? And stop judging me for having it, and thinking that I need "reminding" not to "brag" about what I have with Him! Pardon me, but when you DO have it, you'll brag too ;D And then you'll know how I feel when you think I need to be "humbled" into shutting up about what I have with Him - 'couse your friends will treat you like you've treated me. And you'll get wearied of it, and you'll tell them the exact same thing I'm telling you. In fact, you'll copy/paste this very paragraph, I'm sure, and just email it to the masses after you've put up with the whining for long enough.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Ephesians 5:22
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
[Heb] ishshah (hey, that's me!), seautou 'iysh (no hebrew equivalent for "even as") ba`al.
[Eng] (woman/wife) (be humbled or afflicted) (thyself) (human male husband) (owner/husband/ruler/lord)
and
2. Colossians 3:18
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.
(What, are you kidding? I'm NOT going through THAT all over again! Not for THIS!)
--------------------------------------------------------------
... and think that he must really hate women, A LOT. I mean, this is pretty strong language, right? I mean, I, Ishshah, a WOMAN of GOD, am supposed to WHAT???!!!!! EXCUSE ME???!!! When I think of masters and lords, I think of Egyptian slave drivers and English knights who weren't always such kindly gentilemen. I think of poor Israilites needing freedom, and poor hoveling fools and their families barely eaking out an existance while in lifelong indebtedness to their English lords as well as their kings. I DON'T think of anything positive here, at all. Yet, when I was very young, I had an epiphony. I still subscribe to it today, some 25 years or more later...
The epiphony started out like this: "Well, just DON'T marry any man you could never submit to!" You know, that's darn good logical thinking for a little kid! I wasn't "mature" or "developed" enough yet in my heart and mind to take that anywhere. That's not true anymore.
It takes a lot of trust in someone to be willing to submit to them. A lot more than I normally have at all. I'm like a horse - I HAVE to run free. If you tame and coral me, I become so docile that I lose that wildness that captured your heart in the first place! I loose all sense of independance, and wind up feeding from a traugh! I was not meant for troughs. I was meant for the open fields, for play, and for Living it up :) So, no one can really "capture" me, and yet, I have been "captured" twice now. Once through a Holy Relationship forged by God in what is very much like marriage, only it's even bigger than that, and it's a Spiritual thing, a true Heart *Relationship. And a second time through this totally awsome friendship I have with Erik. Yes, I have awsome friendships with the rest of you as well! Please don't think I've forgotten you! I haven't. But seriousely, this discipleship thing... When you have THAT with someone, it's just on a different extreme, and you can't say that that kind of friendship is the same as all your other friendships - it's just not. I've been "captured" by a caring, respectful, loving, decent and very real friendship that is completely submitted to God in all areas at all times. Heh - there's that magic word again ;)
Submission. Captured. Captivated! LOL. Now, there's one for the records. I don't know about "Captivating" but I can say that I've been Captivated! By Love. I'm Captive to Him. Pure and simple.
How can I do that? How can I submit in a Spiritual Marriage to God, and a Spiritual Sibblingness to Erik? What, have I gone mad? No. I've finally come to realize a few things. First of all, both God and Erik have my best in mind. Always. There's never a time with God when He isn't making sure that I'm being well cared for! Honestly, though I've suffered MUCH in this life, so much that I've been told that many people would have killed themselves long ago had they walked in my shoes, I've also been GREATLY blessed! I've always been provided for, and even when my heart finally gave out, God swooped in and said "Excuse Me, hon, we have some work to do here! I DO LOVE YOU!"
And as for Erik... He submits himself to God because he is "chained" to God (his words, not mine, though I've had my own experience with that myself), and so he does God's bidding. That's his choice, but he follows God's ways, not the world's ways. I used to think that the world's ways would naturally be any human being's ways - that of course, a human being would only do evil, and that only evil would be that person's will and choice of their own selves. This is a dangerous and seriousely flawed line of reasoning. It should be avoided at all cost, yet it is very easy to fall into, particularly when this is what's taught in many of our Bible classes as a meathod of controlling young people into feeling bad about themselves so that they'll want salvation, to avoid hell (fire insurance). It devalues the very people that God created in His own image (inside and out) from conception on. It also strips people of their ability to choose. It teaches them that they can only choose evil, that they can never choose good (which means they have no choices to choose from). It demoralizes them. Anyway, Erik is human, true. All humans have the ability to choose wrong, true. But something happens - something changes - when a human being finally says "Ok, God, I trust you, and I want to do what you ask. I know you Love me and will always take good care of me, so I know that doing what you ask won't lead me into bad things." This doesn't mean that Erik (or anyone else) no longer has the right to choose to do evil - it just means that his heart is Captivated by God, and so he no longer -wants- to do anything unLoving, unGodly, etc. This means that I can trust myself to be in a Loving friendship with Erik, and know that he'll never WANT me to be hurt. It's possible, of course for him to hurt me, but he'll never even once want it to be that way.
On the human friendship level, it's kind of like the difference between accidentally brushing up against someone in a crowded hallway, and intentionally walking clear across town in order to beat someone up. On the Spiritual level, if I'm ever "hurt" by God, it's because He knows that the healing process will bear much fruit. LOL. Hey, Erik, I GET IT! That first verse we read at the start of the Bible study? About God pruning the vines? Heh. I get it. Go figure. It took me over a year :p
And so, I know that God and Erik can be trusted. I'm learning to trust God and people. Trust isn't cheap. It has to be earned. Perhaps it wasn't like that before sin, but that's how it is now. I refuse to trust anyone completely if they've not put in the time and work and attention and heart that it takes for me to know, when I'm good and ready to know, that they can be trusted. That's my price. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's the difference between choosing a "good owner" and a "bad owner." I only want to be "owned" by good owners!
Why is this such a big deal? Why did Paul make such a seemingly startling statement? What does this mean to me, Ishshah, Woman of God?
Someday, I'll meet the man I'm going to marry. I've always been afraid that somehow, I would mess up, marry the wrong man who seemed good at first but turned out to be evil later on. Well, God has cured me of that! Yet I'm still learning what it means to expect good things from that man, who I've dubbed "Joe X." I mean, there are a LOT of men out there who, long ago, gave up on caring one lick about the hearts of the women in their lives! What are the odds that I would actually wind up with a "good" man? Yes, I now believe that God will work that out, but I still, from time to time, have that nagging thought in the back of my head. I just chalk it up to how I'm going to just need more time to stop hearing that message. I need more time to learn what it means to expect good things from him!
What kind of man could I not only willingly, but GLADLY, "submit" myself to? I've thought about the whole "master and pet" thing. I mean, if you look at people who own pets, you can usually easily put them into one of two boxes: "good owner" and "bad owner." How do you know a good owner? A "good" owner is the opposite of a "bad" owner! (duh.) They LOVE their pets! They ADORE them! And they take EXELLENT care of them! They give them more than just food, water, shelter, vet care... They give them love, time, attention, hugs, kisses, etc. Hmm... Sounds like the kind of "master" (Mr.) I could submit myself to, any time :D
Note to my future human husband: I think I'm almost ready for you ;)
* Sorry, oh soooo sorry, to those who think that a heart relationship is never necessary - B freak'n S!!! It TOTALLY is, and if you don't have that on any level with God, ASK HIM FOR IT! You won't regret doing that at all. Trust me on that instead of always whining about it, ok? God'll give it to you, when He's good and ready. So stop worrying about it, ok? And stop judging me for having it, and thinking that I need "reminding" not to "brag" about what I have with Him! Pardon me, but when you DO have it, you'll brag too ;D And then you'll know how I feel when you think I need to be "humbled" into shutting up about what I have with Him - 'couse your friends will treat you like you've treated me. And you'll get wearied of it, and you'll tell them the exact same thing I'm telling you. In fact, you'll copy/paste this very paragraph, I'm sure, and just email it to the masses after you've put up with the whining for long enough.
posted by Caroline Talita Ishshah | 10:59 PM
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