Is God a hierarchy? Or could we be modeling our societies as well as our God after our own fallen nature?
Reading the book The Shack was surprising; for the first time in my Christian life I got to see a portrayal of the God-family unit–not as hierarchy–but as a co-ministering family, each person displaying leadership abilities, with no one person dominating the other. This was so different from how Christian leaders usually portrayed a Godly family.
Should Men Lead?
I had been taught early on in my Christian walk that men were to lead their wives, and for the longest time I tried to believe this, thinking if God were a family, this is how He would do it. I often read books that suggested how to go about living as a Godly submissive wife. One author advised that I make my husband an extra yummy lunch and then put my underwear in there with it…because men like wives who are like this (really?!). I just had to test this theory. At 12pm I got the phone call from my hubby, asking me why I left my underpants in his lunch sack. (Just the fact that I made him a lunch that day threw him off). I told him, “men like that kind of stuff.” He replied, “This doesn’t sound like something you’d do.” (And he was right–I would be more inclined to toss a giant pair of granny panties into his lunch–just for a hoot!) FYI—my husband actually makes his own lunch.
The truth is, my husband and I have abandoned the “men be the leaders of your wives” theory. We did this simply because in a relationship based on love and trust, having one person lead was impossible. It just didn’t work. Instead, we constantly fell into “relationship.” We constantly “submitted to each other in love.” In this kind of scenario, neither of us was leading the other. Instead, we were seeking advice and help from each other. Also, we were (and we still do) seek relationship with God. We seek the Holy Spirit–the Wisdom of God–to lead us both. The joy of relationship gets us where we need to be.
