Gender Hypocrisy!!!

Please allow me to rant a little bit, but do read on.  I have a problem with hypocrisy in an example that I will provide:

A friend of mine traveled to a local ball field to watch a softball game.  He went with his wife and his little baby girl.  They arrive at the field and the husband gets out of the car, he grabs two lawn chairs and places them where they will sit together, he then proceeds to sit down.  He leaves his wife to get the child from the car seat, grab to stroller from the trunk, set up the stroller, put their child in it, and then bring the stroller to where her husband is already seated.

To all you women out there thinking “Who would marry him?” Yeah he made a bad decision.  He made some dumb mistakes, especially when confronted.  Another friend of mine confronted him and asked, “Hey are you going to go help your wife?” To which he responded that, “She is fine.” Again a very bad mistake.  I could write numerous negative comments on his character and mistakes that he made, that go completely go against what Christ and the Apostles taught a husband should be and do towards his wife.  But that will be for another time.

So I talked to the individual, a female by the way, the neglecting husband.  She replied, “If my husband did that to me.  I would smack him.”  I quoted her verbatim.  Albeit she was sarcastic, but I confronted her on that.  I told her she shouldn’t hit her husband.  She replied that she wouldn’t and she couldn’t hurt a fly, then said she would verbally abuse her husband.  Again she was sarcastic.  I replied to her that two wrongs don’t make a right.  She says that she has a “right” to be upset, too which I immediately responded “NO!!!”  We don’t have a right to be upset.  It is not her right to respond in a negative, sinful way to his neglecting manner.  Let God judge him and confront him.  Too that, she scoffed and walked away.

Alright, my example is finished, let’s get to the point.  Scripture is Ephesians 4:26 says, “Be angry and do not sin.”  Does this passage give us a right to be “upset” when wronged by another sinner? No, I don’t think so!  When we are angry, the likelihood of us not sinning is slim to none.  We are sinners, no getting around that (Rom. 3:9-18, 23).  No, I think that this passage in Eph. 4 does not give is a right to be angry.  I think it’s a statement of when you do get angry, because you will, don’t sin! Can you get angry? Yes! Will you get angry? Yes! Should you get angry? No! I don’t think we have a right to anger or to being upset because anger leads to hate, but love covers a multitude of sins.

This is my first point.  (Really this whole post is in response to the conflict I had with my friend, this is not entirely concerning the neglecting husband).  There is no right to be upset.

Secondly, I want to move onto the sarcastic replies, “I’ll smack my husband”, “verbally abuse my husband”.  Okay sarcasm, I get it, I really do.  I’m trying to have a serious conversation, but she is trying to be funny.  But saying is the first step towards doing it and she is a sinner so it’s very likely she would do it too!

“But Jakob, she was sarcastic!” No I get it, I really do! But I really want to think about it.  If you are in Christ, He never tells you to repay evil for evil.  No, He tells you to repay evil with love.  Romans 12:9, Love must be without hypocrisy.”

By getting angry, or upset, at your spouse due to their negligence, it won’t help the situation at all.  It will probably, more than likely make it worse.  There are much better ways to address the problem, ones that involve love and don’t involve repaying sin with sin.

One final thing I’d like to address is gender roles.  The big bad word: Feminism.  My friend, though she will deny it vigorously, she has a very similar mindset to what would be dubbed an ‘evangelical feminist”.  Basically what that means is a woman claims to be of Christ, but she disregards the Biblical basis of the gender roles.

Why do I bring that up? Because if I ever said anything like, “I would smack my wife” or “verbally abuse my wife”, the things that would and could be done to me are so numerous because of the society we live in of “women’s rights”.  Even if I did so sarcastically like my friend did, it wouldn’t matter.  As males, as a gentleman, we just don’t say stuff like that.  Is it too much to ask the same of the females?

“Dude you are totally over-reacting!!!”  We complain about how much the church is conforming to society’s ways and conforming to their standards.  Let’s take a step in the right direction and follow after God’s way.  Let’s listen to what Scripture has to say about gender roles and here I am trying to take a stand.

Ladies, if you don’t like being treated or joked about being treated negatively, than please do not do it to us men.  Men the very same applies to you and treat a woman right!

Treat others as yourself!

That is all!!!