Twisted Christian

What does it mean to be the spiritual leader in your household?

A few weeks during one of our weekly small group meetings the topic of spiritual leadership in the home came up. Our small group consists of 3 married couples, and we were discussing what this looked like in our households.

The topic of the "spiritual head of the household" stems from Ephesians 5:22-23 where Paul writes,

"Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything." (NIV)

In 1 Corinthians 10:31 Paul also says,

"3 Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God." (NIV)

So from these verses one could infer that since the "husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church," that man is the spiritual head of the household. This is a role I embrace, and think it has been perverted by many. So what does this role look like? What happens when the man is a new believer and his wife is a long-time Christian? What about when the woman is a pastor, or knowledgeable about Christian theology?

Being the spiritual head of the household doesn’t mean being able to recite various scripture verses on command or having mad prayer skillz, being more spiritually in-tune with God or having the knowledge to interpret scripture or read the New Testament in Greek.

Being the spiritual leader means keeping the well-being of your family, both spiritual and otherwise in prayer. Being the spiritual head of the household means loving your family as Jesus loved the church. This involves sacrifice and being a servant. It involves listening with your heart, not just your ears, and being patient. It involves loving unconditionally, and forgiving every wrong action or thought. It involves teaching your family about God, and allowing them to make their own choices. We are to teach and instruct, but not to impart our will, for God gave us all free will. Most importantly, it involves talking to God about our family; keeping them in prayer always.

Being the spiritual head of the household is a role that all men can, and should, gladly embrace. It shouldn’t be a burden, or a chore. It is something that even the newest brother-in-Christ can do, and will help to strengthen your relationship with both your family and God.

People enjoy using these verses to show that the man is the leader and that women should submit to their husbands and obey their every wish. Unfortunately they miss the equally important subsequent verses, thus perverting the message. I’ll look at that in a future post.

An interesting aside: as I was looking around the internet for insight into this topic I found less conversation from the point that it is degrading to women, and more from women asking what can they do to help their men be the spiritual leader that they require? Just something interesting that I came across...


Use the comments section to let me know what you think.