Deacon Wives: Fresh Ideas to Encourage Your Husband and the Church

Faithful support

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He may have to devote copious amounts of time to church. Hopefully, he will balance it all with family. Then, gently mention it to him from time to time. Do it at the right time — not when he is tired or distracted. If your lifestyle permits, go with Him on hospital visits and other tasks like giving communion to the home-bound. Let him leave without complaining about it and go when you can,. Your husband is in leadership which means, to some degree, you are too. Be careful of long chitchat sessions that can lead to gossip.

Keep your words praise-worthy. Stay in your own business. Keep confidential information confidential. Take care of your children, your home and your career with integrity and vigor. Be a super hero. According to Complementarian authors John Piper , Wayne Grudem , and others, historically, but to a significantly lesser extent in most of Christianity today, the predominant position in both Catholicism and conservative Protestantism places the male as the "head" in the home and in the church.

Grudem also acknowledges exceptions to the submission of wives to husbands where moral issues are involved.

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The husband is the chief of the family and the head of the wife. The woman, because she is flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone, must be subject to her husband and obey him; not, indeed, as a servant, but as a companion, so that her obedience shall be wanting in neither honor nor dignity. Since the husband represents Christ, and since the wife represents the Church, let there always be, both in him who commands and in her who obeys, a heaven-born love guiding both in their respective duties.

Though each of their churches is autonomous and self-governed, the official position of the Southern Baptist Convention the largest Protestant denomination in the United States is:. The husband and wife are of equal worth before God, since both are created in God's image.

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A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. He has the God-given responsibility to provide for, to protect, and to lead his family. A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. She, being in the image of God as is her husband and thus equal to him, has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household and nurturing the next generation.

The patriarchal model of marriage is clearly the oldest one. It characterized the theological understanding of most Old Testament writers.

It mandates the supremacy, at times the ultimate domination, of the husband-father in the family. In the first century Roman Empire, in the time of Jesus, Paul, and Peter, it was the law of the land and gave the husband absolute authority over his wife, children, and slaves—even the power of life or death. It subordinates all women. Biblical patriarchy is similar to Complementarianism but with differences of degree and emphasis. Biblical patriarchists carry the husband-headship model considerably further and with more militancy.

While Complementarians also hold to exclusively male leadership in both the home and the church, Biblical patriarchy extends that exclusion to the civic sphere as well, so that women should not be civil leaders [47] and indeed should not have careers outside the home. Patriarchy is based on authoritarianism—complete obedience or subjection to male authority as opposed to individual freedom. Patriarchy gives preeminence to the male in essentially all matters of religion and culture. It explicitly deprives all women of social, political, and economic rights.

The marriage relationship simply reinforced this dominance of women by men, providing religious, cultural, and legal structures that clearly favor patriarchy to the exclusion of even basic human dignity for wives. Historically in classical patriarchy, the wives and children were always legally dependent upon the father, as were the slaves and other servants. It was the way of life throughout most of the Old Testament, religiously, legally, and culturally. However, it was not unique to Hebrew thought. With only minor variations, it characterized virtually every pagan culture of that day—including all Pre-Christian doctrine and practice.

While Scripture allowed this approach in Old Testament times, nowhere does the Bible ordain it. In the Hebrew nation, patriarchy seems to have evolved as an expression of male dominance and supremacy, and of a double standard that prevailed throughout much of the Old Testament. Its contemporary advocates insist that it is the only biblically valid model for marriage today. They argue that it was established at Creation, and thus is a firm, unalterable decree of God about the relative positions of men and women.

Biblical patriarchists see what they describe as a crisis of this era being what they term to be a systematic attack on the "timeless truths of biblical patriarchy". They believe such an attack includes the movement to "subvert the biblical model of the family, and redefine the very meaning of fatherhood and motherhood, masculinity, femininity, and the parent and child relationship.

Their view is that the male has God-given authority and mandate to direct "his" household in paths of obedience to God. Thus, William Einwechter refers to the traditional Complementarian view as "two-point Complementarianism" male leadership in the family and church , and regards the biblical patriarchy view as "three-point" or "full" complementarianism male leadership in family, church and society.

The patriarchists teach that "the woman was created as a helper to her husband, as the bearer of children, and as a "keeper at home", concluding that the God-ordained and proper sphere of dominion for a wife is the household.

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Biblical patriarchists consider that "faithfulness to Christ requires that Biblical patriarchy be believed, taught, and lived". They claim that the "man is They teach that a wife is to be obedient to her "head" husband , based upon Old Testament teachings and models. Christians believe that marriage is considered in its ideal according to the purpose of God. At the heart of God's design for marriage is companionship and intimacy. The biblical picture of marriage expands into something much broader, with the husband and wife relationship illustrating the relationship between Christ and the church.

It is also considered in its actual occurrence, sometimes involving failure. Therefore, the Bible speaks on the subject of divorce. Salvation within Christianity is not dependent on the continuation of a biological lineage. Polygyny , or men having multiple wives at once, is one of the most common marital arrangements represented in the Old Testament, [53] yet scholars doubt that it was common among average Israelites because of the wealth needed to practice it.

Betrothal erusin , which is merely a binding promise to get married, is distinct from marriage itself nissu'in , with the time between these events varying substantially. Like the adjacent Arabic culture in the pre-Islamic period , [57] the act of marriage appears mainly to have consisted of the groom fetching the bride, although among the Israelites unlike the Arabs the procession was a festive occasion, accompanied by music, dancing, and lights.

In Old Testament times, a wife was regarded as chattel , belonging to her husband.

Since a wife was regarded as property, her husband was originally free to divorce her for any reason, at any time. The Bible clearly addresses marriage and divorce. Those in troubled marriages are encouraged to seek counseling and restoration because most divorces are neither necessary nor unavoidable. So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.

In both Matthew and Mark, Jesus appealed to God's will in creation. He builds upon the narratives in where male and female are created together [Genesis 1: This corresponds closely with the position of the Pharisee school of thought led by Shammai , at the start of the first millennium, [59] [60] [61] with which Jesus would have been familiar.

By contrast, Rabbinic Judaism subsequently took the opposite view, espoused by Hillel , the leader of the other major Pharisee school of thought at the time; in Hillel's view, men were allowed to divorce their wives for any reason. There is no time in history when the marriage bond stood in greater peril of destruction than in the days when Christianity first came into this world.

At that time the world was in danger of witnessing the almost total break-up of marriage and the collapse of the home…. Theoretically no nation ever had a higher ideal of marriage than the Jews had. The voice of God had said, "I hate divorce" in Malachi 2: Jesus brought together two passages from Genesis, reinforcing the basic position on marriage found in Jewish scripture. Thus, he implicitly emphasized that it is God-made "God has joined together" , "male and female," [Genesis 1: Jesus used the image of marriage and the family to teach the basics about the Kingdom of God.

He inaugurated his ministry by blessing the wedding feast at Cana. In the Sermon on the Mount he set forth a new commandment concerning marriage, teaching that lustful looking constitutes adultery. The KJV New Testament Greek Lexicon, KJV says porneia includes a variety of sexual "deviations" to include "illicit sexual intercourse, adultery, fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, intercourse with animals, etc.

Theologian Frank Stagg says that manuscripts disagree as to the presence in the original text of the phrase "except for fornication". There is grace and redemption where there is contrition and repentance…. There is no clear authorization in the New Testament for remarriage after divorce. Jesus was rebuking the husband who victimizes an innocent wife and thinks that he makes it right with her by giving her a divorce".

He points out that Jesus refused to be trapped by the Pharisees into choosing between the strict and liberal positions on divorce as held at the time in Judaism. When they asked him, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause? There is no evidence that Jesus himself ever married, and considerable evidence that he remained single. In contrast to Judaism and many other traditions, [52]: He believed marriage could be a distraction from an urgent mission, [66] that he was living in a time of crisis and urgency where the Kingdom of God would be established where there would be no marriage nor giving in marriage:.

He used marriage not only to describe the kingdom of God, as Jesus had done, but to define also the nature of the 1st-century Christian church. His theological view was a Christian development of the Old Testament parallel between marriage and the relationship between God and Israel. There is no hint in the New Testament that Jesus was ever married, and no clear evidence that Paul was ever married.

However, both Jesus and Paul seem to view marriage as a legitimate calling from God for Christians. Paul elevates singleness to that of the preferable position, but does offer a caveat suggesting this is "because of the impending crisis"—which could itself extend to present times see also Pauline privilege. Some scholars have speculated that Paul may have been a widower since prior to his conversion to Christianity he was a Pharisee and member of the Sanhedrin , positions in which the social norm of the day required the men to be married. But it is just as likely that he never married at all.

Yet, Paul acknowledges the mutuality of marital relations, and recognizes that his own singleness is "a particular gift from God" that others may not necessarily have. It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

Paul indicates that bishops , deacons , and elders must be "husbands of one wife", and that women must have one husband.

Deacons’ Wives Duties

This is usually understood to legislate against polygamy rather than to require marriage:. Now the overseer bishop is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. The reason I left you in Crete was that you might put in order what was left unfinished and appoint or ordain elders in every town, as I directed you.

An elder must be blameless, faithful to his wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient. In the Roman Age, female widows who did not remarry were considered more pure than those who did. Paul allowed widows to remarry. Building on what they saw the example of Jesus and Paul advocating, some early Church Fathers placed less value on the family and saw celibacy and freedom from family ties as a preferable state.

Nicene Fathers such as Augustine believed that marriage was a sacrament because it was a symbol used by Paul to express Christ's love of the Church. However, there was also an apocalyptic dimension in his teaching, and he was clear that if everybody stopped marrying and having children that would be an admirable thing; it would mean that the Kingdom of God would return all the sooner and the world would come to an end.

While upholding the New Testament teaching that marriage is "honourable in all and the bed undefiled," [73] Augustine believed that "yet, whenever it comes to the actual process of generation, the very embrace which is lawful and honourable cannot be effected without the ardour of lust This is the carnal concupiscence, which, while it is no longer accounted sin in the regenerate, yet in no case happens to nature except from sin. Both Tertullian and Gregory of Nyssa were church fathers who were married.

They each stressed that the happiness of marriage was ultimately rooted in misery. They saw marriage as a state of bondage that could only be cured by celibacy. They wrote that at the very least, the virgin woman could expect release from the "governance of a husband and the chains of children. Tertullian argued that second marriage, having been freed from the first by death,"will have to be termed no other than a species of fornication," partly based on the reasoning that this involves desiring to marry a woman out of sexual ardor, which a Christian convert is to avoid.

Also advocating celibacy and virginity as preferable alternatives to marriage, Jerome wrote: No one can make a comparison between two things if one is good and the other evil. If it is good not to touch a woman, it is bad to touch one: But if it be bad and the evil is pardoned, the reason for the concession is to prevent worse evil.

Therefore, virginity is as much more honorable than marriage, as the angel is higher than man. But why do I say angel? Christ, Himself, is the glory of virginity. Cyprian , Bishop of Carthage, said that the first commandment given to men was to increase and multiply, but now that the earth was full there was no need to continue this process of multiplication.

This view of marriage was reflected in the lack of any formal liturgy formulated for marriage in the early Church. No special ceremonial was devised to celebrate Christian marriage—despite the fact that the Church had produced liturgies to celebrate the Eucharist , Baptism and Confirmation. It was not important for a couple to have their nuptials blessed by a priest.

People could marry by mutual agreement in the presence of witnesses. At first, the old Roman pagan rite was used by Christians, although modified superficially. The first detailed account of a Christian wedding in the West dates from the 9th century. Return to Book Page. Preview — Deacon Wives by Diana Davis. In describing the qualities of a church deacon, the Bible also emphasizes the traits of his companion: There are also helpful home and family suggestions, self-evaluation forms and checklists, and even a detailed teaching plan to share this wealth of material with other women in the church Paperback , pages.

Published June 1st by B Books first published To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Deacon Wives , please sign up. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. It is filled with good and practical ideas for the ministry of being a deacons wife.

I find it to be helpful for anyone involved in ministry in the local church. Aug 20, Jennifer Gelert rated it really liked it. I have been a deacon's wife for awhile now.

Even so this book shared some new thoughts and ideas. It was good to see some things I have been doing but she shared so many other ways I can be supporting my husband, my pastor, my church. This portion from the book really got my attention: A popular topic for women today is learning to say "no". May I challenge you, instead, to say yes?

Too many of us say yes to a myriad of trivial jobs that won't matter in eternity and say no to ministries where God I have been a deacon's wife for awhile now. Too many of us say yes to a myriad of trivial jobs that won't matter in eternity and say no to ministries where God has called us.

These are Christian women who spend hours every week volunteering for worthy secular organizations or parachurch groups while their church is void of necessary workers. Yes, you should be involved in your community, but the church must be your top priority. Christ died for the church.

The church is God's bride. She deserves our best efforts. I have had several people say to me I should say no more often and back down my involvement. I have slowly been saying no - but to thinks I know God does not want me involved in. I believe if more people would seek God and find their place in the church, I would not always be asked.

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