You need to go back to the verses on the roles of wives and husbands so that you can saturate your heart and mind with them, because everything in the world today is opposing this mindset, this biblical worldview that you and I are walking in.  That word we talked about, ladies, of being the weaker vessel is not demeaning.  That word is powerful, though, and you might want to write it down.  This “weaker vessel” doesn’t mean “slightly weaker.”  It doesn’t mean the men can bench-press 150, and you can bench-press 100.  The word in Hebrew means “strengthless, no strength.”  Ladies, you have no power as it pertains to this relationship, an order that God has established.  I made a note here in my notes to myself.  What it’s speaking of here, again, is not character.  It’s not worth.  It’s a role of order, and strengthless means you’re without authority over a man in every circumstance.

Strengthless means you can not in any way.   God has ordained it.  He has proclaimed it.  Ladies, you are strengthless.  You have no authority or power to take over the role and usurp the role of the man.  We think of it that way.  Don’t think of it as a weakness of character or quality of life.  Think of it as biblical order and receive your role with gladness and thanksgiving, because God does everything right; amen?  When we can look at it that way and see it for what it is, then it becomes a much more precious gift to us.  It becomes a much more precious role to us.

In the Scriptures, throughout the Old Testament, we see a woman’s role being quite a bit more severe than it is in the New Testament.  Women were mere chattel in the eyes of men.  They were property.  They were viewed as that in the eyes of their husbands.  Redemption changed all of that, and it revealed the sole headship of the Lord Jesus.  That establishes the true order in the home, because the man now has an intimate, ever-present Head over him; amen?  In the Old Testament, the husband had the right to break the oath that a woman might make to God for whatever offerings she intended to give to God.  In the New Testament, we don’t see that authority of the husband.  In fact, the Bible makes it very clear that the woman belongs to the Lord.  She’s bought with a price, the precious blood of Jesus.  She has a direct relationship with Him and doesn’t have to go through her earthly authority.  Let’s use the term, as I think it communicates it pretty well, “temporal authority.”

With that in mind, we’re saying, “Okay.  We have the husband and wife roles that we’ve kind of defined here a little bit better.  How do we approach it from a practical basis?”  We have talked about the wives’ duties.  In Titus 2:5 we see that one of the things that God has specifically declared is that the wife is the keeper at home.  I think this is a pretty important thing.  We spent a lot of time on it a few months back, or it could be years.  Of course, when we’re looking at this role in so much of our society today, this is being ignored.  You would not ever hear this brought up in most churches today as a theme or a subject being taught, but some will teach on it.  For many who are involved in teaching through the Bible, you can’t just not include this verse.  So, you have to address it if you’re teaching through the Bible.  Often, you’ll see what happens with that is that the teacher will address this verse.  They will read this verse, and then they give counsel somewhere along these lines.  We know a church here in this area that specifically addressed this, and we know, because we saw it and heard it.  It went something like this.  They said, “Well, this is what the Bible says, so my counsel is this.  You, husband and wife, should go home, pray about this, and see what God would have you to do.”  Now that seems like great, godly advice, doesn’t it?  “Go home, pray, and seek God about it.”  God has already given us revelation for this; amen?  God has spoken His mind on this subject.  It’s nothing that we can go back home, begin to pray about, and then ask for the will of God.  It has been expressed clearly.