Biblical Headship/Leadership: In the Home/In the Church
The following is a brief consideration of the Biblically factual reality of what constitutes the obedient practice of the God-ordained and commanded leadership role of a Christian man, first in marriage and the home and then in the governing of the church.
By way of what was to some, no doubt, a seemingly simple daily task faithfully carried out by the Priests of Israel in the tabernacle and later in the Temple, Scripture provides us a particularly significant Old Testament insight into the Priestly responsibility of every Christian man, husband, and father. As the Priest of Israel regularly (daily), faithfully trimmed the wicks of the Golden Lampstand in the Holy Place of the Tabernacle in order to insure the brightest light possible so as to keep the Holy Place brightly lighted, God, by the inspired pen of Moses (Deuteronomy 11:18-21) and Paul (Ephesians 5:25-33; 6:4; Colossians 3:17,18-21), has established clearly His plan of/for the Priestly responsibility of every Christian man/husband/ father to be faithful each new day to clearly teach and practically apply, to the lives of those under his care, the gloriously bright Light/Truth of God’s Holy Word. Solomon records a beautiful word picture of how this is to be done in reality and what, in God’s blessing, that reality will produce and look like in the lives of those who faithfully believe and obediently live it out – Proverbs 24:3-4 (Proverbs 1-2; 8-9; Joel 1:3).
Biblical leadership is first and foremost, a command to Christian men, as individuals, relating to their responsibility and accountability to obediently carry out their God-ordained role as commanded by God and revealed in His Holy word (individually/Ezra 7:10; as a husband/ Ephesians 5:25; as a father/Deuteronomy 11:18-21; Ephesians 6:4; as an elder in the church/ Timothy 3:1-7). There is no Biblical command/prerequisite calling for the woman’s/wife’s involvement and/or approval in the family nor in the church as relates to leadership/ shepherding. In fact Scripture commands exactly the opposite in that in the family, wives are commanded to submit to her husbands and in the church wives/women are commanded to seek the counsel of their husbands at home – Ephesians 5:22-24,33; I Timothy 3:4-5; 2:11-12.
The failure of the modern church to teach and disciple men accordingly and hold men accountable to this God-ordained command is one evidence of the evil influence of feminism’s subtle encroachment into/subversion of the truth within the church, as evidenced by the number of Christian men and women who view this leadership as being a corporate issue, meaning the wife must always be consulted/informed and the wife’s approval in alway necessary for the husband to move forward with any decision or the church membership must always have input and be in agreement with the elders for the elders to make leadership decisions.
Why is virtually every Biblical command pertaining to spiritual and practical daily leadership in the home and the church given to men, “young men”/”sons” (Psalm 119:9,97-105; much of Proverbs; Ephesians 6:4)? Because it is a singular responsibility (family), not a joint or corporate one (church).
This in no way means that a loving, right thinking husband never informs his wife of decisions that need to be made and what his thinking is related to rightly making said decisions. Nor does it mean he never seeks his wife’s thoughts/input on decisions. It is worthy of note at this point to call attention to the fact that there is never a Scriptural reference to seeking any input from children in making leadership decisions. To ignore/reject this fact is to contribute to creating, contrary to God’s order, a child centered home (a home where the decision making seeks to
“keep the children happy”) rather than a God centered home (a home where principles of Biblical truth determine the basis for decision making).
What it does mean is that, as a husband and father, a Christian man understands his God-ordained, God commanded role and responsibility to lead and that it is his responsibility and his alone. His supreme objective should be to obey God so as to be faithful and pleasing to God, whether his wife, children, parents, in-laws, etc. understand or agree.
No place in Scripture where a man abdicates or acquiesces his leadership to accommodate a woman or his children did it ever result in anything but obvious disobedience of God’s clear command and the inherent result was discord, chaos, disaster, and the judgement of God on them all – Adam, Lot, David, Solomon, Samson, Ananias – just to name a few.