Pastoral Marriage Killers 2

I will start with a point I forgot to mention in my last post.

If she gives you money or things without her husband’s express permission, you are a thief, stealing from another man’s house, after stealing his wife.

If she tithes to you without her husband’s express permission, you are actively destroying her marriage.

And if the husband gives you permission to go to minister with her in his absence, that man is also and idiot who has no idea that his wife has long departed from him.

According to the Bible, the husband is the spiritual head of his wife. And there can be no other head for her. God treats any other head as open adultery whether sex happens or not.

No wonder she is told to seek answers from him when she doesn’t understand anything in church.

Allow me to go to the next point in this message.

And it is guided by an erroneous teaching that has been circulating in Christian circles for the longest time though its source is the source of all things unscriptural.

It is the oft repeated teaching that a wife is her husband’s determinant for ministry.

What I mean is that common church teaching is that it is sin for a man to serve God without his wife’s permission.

Though it sounds logical and a tad spiritual, there is nothing godly in it.

Imagine Abraham seeking Sarah’s permission before taking Isaac to the altar!

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26)

David’s wife laughed at his worship. Jacob’s wife stole idols from her father. And so on.

A man’s call excludes everybody else, even the wife, especially the wife.

I know men who abandoned clear calls to ministry and ministry direction because their wives refused to join them. I know men who have watered down their sermons because their wives did not fancy their tough sermons. I know men who became corrupt in ministry because their wives prodded them through their constant demands.

Ahab is the clearest case of this. Plus of course Solomon.

A man is answerable directly to Christ for his spiritual responsibilities. He answers directly and only to Christ for his call.

Accountability structures are there to ensure that that call is better managed.

Though there is nothing essentially wrong with telling her before all others about what God is ordering you to do, there is everything wrong with taking her word as final. Because God is the One who does the calling. And He does not seek anybody’s permission to do so.

That is why I pity a girl who decides to follow a man for his wealth and position without considering his spiritual account. Because she must bow to that spiritual kid’s spirituality as happened to Abigael.

We are therefore killing marriage when we make a wife the determinant of a husband’s calling because women crave comfort and no calling leans toward comfort. They also crave control and submitting to God takes that from her.

It is therefore the rare woman who will agree to her husband’s calling outside the comfort zone.

That is why we have pastors who must incorporate their wives into ministry because that is what the wife craves and because of the perks and authority it confers.

Putting a wife in the position of determining her husband’s calling elevates her even above God.

No wonder we have pastors who have refused to retire, changing church constitutions to continue in those positions because ‘mama’ is not ready to leave the limelight.

That is why we have pastors who have refused to move to places God is calling them because it looks like a demotion to her.

That is why we have pastors who have opted to split churches instead of moving on as God directs because she is not through with her assignment, the assignment of a full belly and status.

That is why we have pastors who have refused to repent or face their sin because she feels doing so could put her out of the picture. And of course it gives her more leverage on his ‘ministry’.

Some men, however, have chosen to follow God’s orders and lost their marriages, many ending in divorce.

Yet these rebellious women will find great welcome and accommodation in the places their husbands had been commanded to leave, many times being allowed to take over ministry from their radically obedient former husbands.

That a pastor and church can take a woman divorced from her obedient husband into their bosom is what I describe as wickedness. Yet it is happening all the time in church.

I know I am sounding gross to some.

But I would rather be on the side of scripture than on the feminine agenda.

God calls a man and a godly wife unquestioningly follows him where God leads.

That is what I read in the scriptures.

Anything else does not proceed from God.