Pastors' wives: honor only to whom honor is due...
A widow is to be put on the list only if she is not less than sixty years old, having been the wife of one man, having a reputation for good works; and if she has brought up children, if she has shown hospitality to strangers, if she has washed the saints’ feet, if she has assisted those in distress, and if she has devoted herself to every good work. (1 Timothy 5:9, 10)
(Tim, w/thanks to Kamilla) In her new book, Marriage, Mitres, and Being Myself, First Lady of Canterbury, Mrs. Rowan (Jane) Williams, speaks of the hardships of being married to a bishop. In a news piece announcing the book, the Telegraph quotes Mrs.Williams in ways that remind me a great deal of the wife of the new provost of David's and my alma mater, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary:
(Mrs.) Williams said clergy and their families have to endure "poor boundaries" between their public and private lives, "laughable" job descriptions and "few opportunities to congratulate oneself on a job well done". She claimed the spouses of church leaders are expected to entertain guests as well as raising children and following their own careers, and admitted visitors to Lambeth Palace are sometimes "shocked" at how untidy it is.
Mrs Williams ...is a mother-of-two and theologian as well as the wife of Dr Rowan Williams... "Housework has never been very high on my list of priorities," Mrs Williams writes...
"The Church can be a thankless employer, with poor boundaries between private and public space, vague practices about holidays and days off, laughable job descriptions and few opportunities to congratulate oneself on a job well done and completed."
Mrs Williams, 51, said many bishops' spouses feel "bitter resentment" and "positively weighed" down by the expectations placed on them.
How David and I have been blessed by the wives God gave us! But also, by the wives of our fellow pastors and elders! Thank you Heavenly Father.
When Sydney Anglican, Phil Jensen, and his wife, Helen, were visiting with us some years ago, one of our conversations was about choosing staff members...
Phil and Helen told us part of their interview process was the staff members' wives interviewing the candidate's wife. The man wouldn't be hired unless the wives approved of his wife. They had an effective veto power.
This is likely best done with less than explicit knowledge of what's going on by some of those involved, but it does need to be done. There are few blessings in our church greater than the wives of our elders and pastors, and their ministry among us. Wisdom, counsel to their husbands and other women in the church, raising godly children, and hospitality that simply doesn't end, and is almost always joyful. Certainly more often joyful than their husbands who need the occasional prodding to do it "without complaining."
So, if you have a pastors college or you serve on a search committee, don't proceed with any man without looking carefully at his wife.
You can say a lot of good things about Doug Wilson's helpful writing and preaching, and his great love for Christ and His Church. Yet, the thing few outside of his family and church would know is the character and ministry of Goodwife Nancy. Some might see as patronizing the comment about her matter-of-factly diving into the dirty dishes in the kitchen sink after the luncheon at David's and Cheryl's, yesterday.
Not at all. It's the honest esteem of men for a woman who, like our wives, does not make a practice of whining about laundry and dishes or the hardships and costs of hospitality, but rather takes her greatest joy in washing the feet of the saints. Her husband and children rise up and call her "blessed."
Any one of these wives has a theological acuity, a doctrinal depth that dwarfs what I've seen from Carolyn Custis James--that is, if we are to judge a woman's God-knowledge by her cheerfulness in the work God's Word gives pride of position to when it speaks of woman.
Is it time, yet, to restore the curriculum of Scripture to the curriculum of women in the church?
Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored. (Titus 2:3-5)
Or must we keep on blathering about women theologians, by which we mean women not burdened down by more than two children, and not particularly joyful about cooking and cleaning and changing diapers?
Unless we begin to honor those to whom honor is due, the church will honor those who are not honorable, but nevertheless suffer no doubts that they are worthy of recognition--and relentlessly demand it.
Badwives whose mothers never had to worry about their self-esteem.
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"She claimed the spouses of church leaders are expected to entertain guests as well as raising children and following their own careers"
That's really too bad that their careers might be effected. I guess their husbands never made any sacrifices?
Also though, you always hear about PKs and it's funny how in Christian circles it's often the missionary's or pastor's kids who are having the most trouble - surely because those men had a hard time being there for their families as well as being able to do their ministries. It takes a lot of grace for these families which definitely comes largely in the form of godly wives.
I'm a bit surprised no on has picked up on the term, "clergy spouses". Not wives, spouses.
Kamilla
The term produces 9,700 hits on Google. :-)
In Doug's Book _Mother Kirk_ there's a whole appendix of questions for elders and their wives: http://books.google.com/books?id=tZ4X-fsowFAC&pg=PA271&lpg=PA271&dq=%22mother+kirk%22+questions+wives&source=bl&ots=v_pCKUeipi&sig=kxOFXZdZ5kHfF80xyG-I_p_1yEU&hl=en&ei=AcvCSbibL4TSnQeCtcCVCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result
Years ago I was on a pastoral search committee and we interviewed a lady who in my opinion gave us the best answer when we asked her what she thought her role should be. The pastor's wife answered that her main job "was to lift her husband up in prayer daily and make their home a place for him to come home to and find God's peace there<" everything else was secondary. As she was the mother of 6 children I had my doubts but I did find their home to be the most enjoyable place to visit and stay for a spell. She did teach and do many other things in the church but those were always secondary. She was a great example to me in many ways.
The military has had a lot of expectations on wives also. As your husband goes up in rank it was always assumed that the wife would take on certain duties such as running family support groups and helping out with the other wives especially when the husbands were deployed. I don't know how much this has changed as more wives work and more wives are the military person. My husband was infantry so there weren't really any females around! The wife could definitely make or break your career by how well she fit into military life. Of course, many marriages didn't survived the military life either. I have often wondered how families survive where the mom works fulltime. Who holds together not just all the routine things of housework and schedules but also all the unexpecteds that continually come up? I know how much our house starts to fall apart when I'm gone a lot or overly busy with things besides home and family.
> I don't know how much this has changed as more wives work and more wives are the military person.
It has changed a lot with the proliferation of dual military couples.
Interesting. I wonder where Chríst instructs Mary to help her sister Martha, or where Paul tells Phoebe to go home. I think these women washed lots of dishes, but it wasn't worth mentioning, because the focus was elsewhere.
Let the lesson to be learned from Mary be clear. She's no poster-woman for feminist disdain for the work of maids, cooks, laundresses, gardeners, nursing home aides, and day care workers.
Keeping house is not to take the place of time with our Lord, and if we've made that choice and demand that our Lord direct another to follow us in our error, we will be blessed with His rebuke.
But try to imagine Martha (if she were married) or Priscilla huffing and puffing about how she's her husband's "favorite theologian" and "not a kitchen wife."
Reading through that section of Mother Kirk almost makes me feel hopeless (since these really are mandates for all husbands and Godly homes). Wilson certain puts a fine point on it.
"But try to imagine Martha (if she were married) or Priscilla huffing and puffing about how she's her husband's "favorite theologian" and 'not a kitchen wife.'"
I don't know Custis James but I think the point is that "washing up" is not to be the focus of being a woman. For some of us, men and women, serving tables is a worthy service, something we offer.
But women should not be restricted to these things. It is the association of "female" and "washing up" and its juxtaposition with "men" and "doing theology" that is the difficulty.
I would say that washing up is to women as taking out the garbage is to men. Women can and do take out the garbage, men can and do work in the kitchen. But for the most part, these remain gendered activities. However, we would not say working in the kitchen is to women what leading in church is to men.
I think most women would identify with this. I see complementarian women as wanting to be recognized as thelogians also.
I could say that I would like to invite you over for tea and you would see what homemade jam made from Saskatoon berries tastes like. But in this environment you just have to take my word for it. And complementarian women are in the same situation, so they have to write poetry or express themselves in some other way. None of us are "kitchen wives" on the internet.
I think women, as women, need to reflect on their womanliness with more expansiveness, especially since making jam does not fill the economic role it used to. It is a sign of a luxurious lifestyle with time to spare, rather than "the only way to get jam on the table." It is an indulgence.
Dear Sue,
No one here has said anything about "washing up" or "homemade jam." As you rightly say, that sort of trite summary of womanhood is old and in the way. Nor has anyone said anything here about "restricting" our mothers, wives, and daughters. Having written this, I thought I was exhorting us to celebrate them? Maybe I was speaking tongues and need an interpreter? (Smile.)
But to continue, you have said nothing about what Scripture explicitly lists as the curriculum older women are to teach younger women; what God's Word demonstrates over and over as the Holy Spirit's presentation of Godly womanhood. Summarize it as you want, but you must summarize it in a way that reflects, not Scripture's sex-neutral, but its sex-specific commands. And that's what never happens in today's rebellious ethos. Always the exception trumpeted and lauded, but we never quite get to the rule except to protest those who want to "limit" and "diminish" and "restrict" women.
So, although I could agree with your sentences and phrases and words pulled apart and one by one, I disagree with your thrust and would not want you to teach my wife or daughters how to live as a Godly woman if the above is representative of your summary of Scripture's glorious calling we refer to as "Biblical womanhood".
How many times must I post these Scriptures before feminists will admit they exist and explicitly denounce them, or finally repent for leading the church to despise what God commands?
"I'm my husband's favorite theologian--certainly not a kitchen wife cleaning up, baking cookies, or making jam."
So again, to the end that, in the land of the blind, a few more may see:
...encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored. (Titus 2:4b,5)
A widow is to be put on the list only if she is not less than sixty years old, having been the wife of one man, having a reputation for good works; and if she has brought up children, if she has shown hospitality to strangers, if she has washed the saints’ feet, if she has assisted those in distress, and if she has devoted herself to every good work. (1Timothy 5:9,10)
Therefore, I want younger widows to get married, bear children, keep house, and give the enemy no occasion for reproach... (1Timothy 5:14)
Washing up and making jam?
Please, such a summary is so utterly patronizing of the beautiful, bloody sacrifices of my mother, daughters, and wife. Two of my children were National Merit finalists and my Dad did about half the cooking in the home I grew up in.
So what?
I keep a vacuum cleaner behind the curtain of my office at church because I love to clean and I collect old vacuum cleaners.
So what?
My most excellent wife joined with two or three others to start a Christian school here in Bloomington, serving as its first principal and leaving when it had grown to 150 students.
Who cares?
Seriously, it's always the women who have been saved through the suffering of childbearing and childbirth who are the deepest and wisest and most faithful and discerning female theologians. If, that is, it's the perfections and commands of the Only True God under consideration.
Love,
"No one here has said anything about "washing up""
Actually you did. You wrote,
"Some might see as patronizing the comment about her matter-of-factly diving into the dirty dishes in the kitchen sink after the luncheon at David's and Cheryl's, yesterday."
My point is that you think that my characterizing womanhood as "washing up and making jam" as patronizing. But that is what Custis James also said.
I see little difference between her statement and yours.
She wrote in Whitby Forum,
"She is not a kitchen wife. She does not keep house, cook, clean or sew, but she reads an awful lot and often talks to women (and sometimes men) from all over the world about women's struggles within the evangelical church ..."
And you seem to agree with this. You write that men do half the cooking and women are to teach women. You agree that being a woman is not to cook and clean and sew/make jam, but to teach women and children.
So now I am puzzled. You write,
"Seriously, it's always the women who have been saved through the suffering of childbearing and childbirth who are the deepest and wisest and most faithful and discerning female theologians."
I have to ask a totally ignorant question. Does James not have children? Are you saying that because she does not have children she has not suffered and cannot be a theologian. I love someone very much who is not able to have children. This is her suffereing. Can she not be a theologian?
I don't understand what it is about Custis James that you are criticizing. The reasons for you not approving of her are not clear in your writing.
>I don't understand what it is about Custis James that you are criticizing. The reasons for you not approving of her are not clear in your writing.
Dear Sue,
Carolyn Custis James is only significant as a type that surrounds us, today--a type utterly devoid of honoring the unique calling of woman as defined by God's Spirit and Word.
I've quoted it. How could it be more clear? More specific? More earthy? More directly counter a woman who would dare to demean the very duties it commands and honors?
So I'll throw in the towel, here. If I've not been clear, Scripture is. May the day come when women who joyfully love their Lord obeying His commands concerning domesticity and submission and childbirth are once again honored.
With love,
At some point, it is probably better to just accept that James says something that doesn't sound nice to those of us who do like sewing and making jam, but it still falls somewhere short of heresy.
Tim:
I mean no sarcasm or disrespect here but the phrase, "the women who have been saved through the suffering of childbearing and childbirth", is confusing to me. As you wrote,
"Seriously, it's always the women who have been saved through the suffering of childbearing and childbirth who are the deepest and wisest and most faithful and discerning female theologians."
I thought that we all have the potential to be saved because of Jesus's sacrifice on the cross (obviously I'm not a Calvinist). Depending on your denomination, you appropriate this sacrifice of God's grace in various ways (the sacrament of Holy Baptism as an infant, believer baptism, etc.).
I also know that the statement about women being saved through childbirth is in the Bible; I have just never belonged to a church/denomination that ever mentioned this as a means of salvation so I never thought to ask a priest, deacon, or minister about it.
Since I doubt that it means that women who have no possibility of becoming mothers -- single women past childbearing age, married women with infertility issues or medical issues that preclude them from becoming pregnant -- I can't imagine that it means that women who haven't birthed at least one child have no hope of salvation?
If that is correct, what does it mean?
Thanks,
Sue
In the last paragraph of the above post, I meant to say, "Since I doubt that it means that women who have no possibility of becoming biological mothers...". I did not mean to imply that adoptive mothers were any less mothers than those moms who had actually carried their babies to term.
--Sue
Sue,
My salvation comes through faith in Christ's finished work on the cross not my works. That being said, the greatest growth, trials and joys in my Christian life have come through my role as a wife and mother. Nothing brings me to my knees and to the Cross faster. Academia and my professional life were far easier to navigate and deal with. I fear I am a clanging cymbal in your ear here though and I am going to go be a daycare worker, laundress, maid, farmhand, tutor, chef, and dishwasher for the rest of the day.
Mary:
So are you basically saying that being a mother has been a means of sanctification for you rather than a means of salvation? That makes sense to me.
--Sue
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