Chapter 5's opening question is: "Do you have enough fear of God not to question his Word?" Oooooooooooooh this is gonna be good! I'm right there with ya, Mrs. Pearl!!!!! :-) And she didn't say this, but I'll add, "And do you have enough fear of God not to twist His Word? Or to take it at what He says rather than what someone says He says?"

She opens with a letter from the wife of a husband who is a lazy bum. The wife wants to know what to do - serve him anyway??? And Debi replies

You have two choices. You can doubt God and say, "I know God does not expect me to honor this mean man." Or, you can say, "God, I know your Word teaches me to be a woman who is there to help meet all my husband's desires and dreams. Make me that woman."

She then goes on to encourage this woman to ask God for wisdom to become the very best help meet, telling her that until she embraces the fact that this is what she was created to be - a help meet to her husband - she will always be struggling.

When I first read this, I thought, YES! That's it! But then as I sat down to reread it again for this blog, her advice jumped out at me a bit more. I asked my husband about it as well, and he agreed that there was something not quite right.

The main thing that hit me was that, NO, God's Word does NOT teach me to be a woman who is there to help meet all my husband's desires and dreams. God's Word teaches me that I was created to be a suitable, complementary helper for him. But just what am I supposed to help him do? Fulfill all his desires and dreams? Possibly...if those desires and dreams line up with what God wants. But what if what my husband's desires and dreams go against what God wants for him? My job is to help my husband follow God. Usually that means that yes, I'll be doing things to help meet all my husband's desires and dreams. But sometimes I may have to do something else, in order to gently encourage my husband to follow God.

Now, am I saying that I need to "stand on my righteous indignation," as Mrs. Pearl puts it, in defiance to my husband? Am I to tell my husband what he can/cannot do? Am I to call him names, tell all my friends what a sorry jerk he is, and feel sorry for myself for marrying him? Am I to tell him, "You just aren't spiritual enough, here is what God is telling me"?

NO.

But there may be a situation in which you may have to say, for example, "Honey, I know you want to buy this thing. And if that is what you want to do, I cannot and will not stand in your way. But because this goes against Biblical principles, I cannot sign my name to it. I cannot keep YOU from signing YOUR name, and I will support you in every way I can, but I cannot put my name on it."

What a husband does after a wife says something like that is still up to him, and his wife has no authority to tell him what to do. However, in this situation she has been a truly BIBLICAL help meet - she is trying to point him to God rather than becoming a partner with her husband in disobedience to God.

So, I FULLY agree with the PRINCIPLE that she sets forth in this chapter: We must ask God for wisdom. We must find out what His Word says about being a godly wife. We must find out what His Word says about our role as a wife.

But isn't that what Mrs. Pearl is telling us in this chapter? What the Bible says about a wife's role?

Sort of. She tells us what she says the Bible says about the wife's role. Is it what the Bible says? I have a novel idea.

Hold onto your hats.

Ready?

Read the Bible and find out! :-)

Mrs. Pearl has joined the COUNTLESS number of authors that, though very well-intentioned, have written "how to" books, cited Scripture to prove their points, and then added in their own opinion, calling it "God's Plan for XYZ." (XYZ = marriage, parenting, career-building, you name it.)

MY encouragement is for people to just read what the Word says PERIOD! And to ask God for wisdom. He does not intend for His Word to be some mystery that only "Bible scholars" can understand. His Holy Spirit will reveal to the average Josephine what He wants her to know. "If any of you is deficient in wisdom, let him ask of the giving God [Who gives] to everyone liberally and ungrudgingly, without reproaching or faultfinding, and it will be given him." (James 1:5)

But I think I may have gotten off on a slight tangent there LOL!

Mrs. Pearl shares a letter from a woman informing her of her errors in her position on women as teachers over men, etc. LOL Mrs. Pearl lets her know real quick that she used the wrong argument on the wrong person!

Page 52:

You will notice the huge amount of Scripture we will present that deals with God's will for a woman. I have not had to redefine, retranslate, restate, or deny the words as they are recorded. I believe God has given and preserved his words so that the average woman can know what he means without having to go to a man who claims to be smarter than the words of God. If God's words are so misleading and difficult to translate that the fifteen English translations I have and the four Greek versions my husband has (all in agreement on these verses) are not able to speak the truth about women, then He is not the God I have worshiped these many years. Why would God allow his words to be consistently misleading, teaching the exact opposite of his will? How is it that for 1,900 years, all translations in Greek, Syriac, Coptic, German, French, Spanish, English, and two hundred other languages have gotten it wrong? Would you have me believe that only in these last few decades, as the world shifted to a "women's liberation" philosophy, that suddenly a few preachers who "studied Greek" in college for three years should discover that the world is right after all? Do you believe the Bible has been taught in error ever since it was written, and that all the Christians during the first nineteen centuries were living in error? We are not talking about two or three verses in one or two books. They would have us believe that 500 verses, found in twenty-five different books of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, have been consistently mistranslated or misunderstood by all sects, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and Baptist alike.

Then at the bottom of page 53, in a larger and bolder font, she writes, "Now let us see what God says, just as he said it." She then lists 3 verses (Ephesians 5:22-24, Colossians 3:18, and 1 Corinthians 11:3), gives 3 instructions that she pulls from those verses, and then stresses that we are to obey God's Word even though our husbands may not be. All of which is RIGHT ON. Unfortunately she leave it at that, though, as though those three verses and those 3 numbered instructions are "God's Plan for Marriage." I know differently, that there is MUCH, MUCH more the Bible has to say. But for women who will not turn to the Word themselves and read just WHAT the Bible says, I believe Mrs. Pearl has done a disservice, making it seem like these few paragraphs sum up what the Bible says.

But on to page 55:

I thank God that wisdom is not earned; it is a gift.Your life will be full of dumped trash bag situations. Your husband will be selfish. He will be unkind. He will not respect your rights. He will be foolish. He may be cruel, and that son of Adam may actually walk in sin. But he cannot victimize you unless you react outside of the wisdom of God. You can decide to be in a constant state of anger and bitterness, or you can ask God for the wisdom to live each day in a state of honoring your man for God's sake.

You need the precious gift of wisdom to be able to hold your tongue and be thankful when your flesh would strike back in anger. You need wisdom to see how feeling sorry for yourself is far from the heart of God. You need this gift of wisdom as a constant reminder of the limitations of your female undersanding. The gift of wisdom will remind you that God's rules are not there to put you in bondage, but to help you make a man want to cherish, protect, and love you. [Kirstin's note: I don't entirely agree with this statement but will discuss it in chapters to come.] Most of all, the gift of wisdom will enable you to serve and honor your husband because you are serving and honoring God. You will find fulfillment in your nature as a woman.

This is so true!!!!! God will give us the wisdom, if we ask for it, to deal with our husbands in a godly manner. Where I differ from Mrs. Pearl, however, is in the application in every situation and every marriage. As I've stated in some of the replies to the comments on previous blog entries, the principles Mrs. Pearl is sharing are ones that I agree with (for the most part). I take issue with her black and white applications of these principles.

The key in determining just how to apply these principles is the Holy Spirit. We must immerse ourselves in God's Word. We must become so in tune with the Holy Spirit that He can guide us through each interaction with our husbands. We won't have to stay to ourselves, "OK Mrs. Pearl's book said that in order to submit and honor my husband I need to xyz." When we continually put ourselves under the Lord's authority and leadership, we can be confident that He will lead us according to His Will. When we memorize and study the Bible, He will teach us how to apply it to the situations we face.

Sometimes the Holy Spirit will reveal that we need to apply God's Word in a particular way. And, *gasp!* it may go against what Mrs. Pearl's practical advice is for wives. What then? Do we need to second-guess what the Bible says? We may want to do some more in-depth study, to make sure that what we think we are reading, we're really reading. But when you come right down to it, The Bible trumps Created To Be His Help Meet every time.