Yeah, I know some guys are like “bah don’t feminize me!1!!11!” with this kind of language. Except it’s the language of the Bible. 😉 It’s exactly the reason why submissive women can be such a powerful ministry to men, because they can model to men how we are similarly submissive to God (1 Peter 3).
So on that note . . . I mean to write to the audience of men who are on guard. 1 Corinthians 11:3 begins describing the hierarchy of God to Christ to man and to woman. In that model, Paul says “he is the image of God, but woman is the glory of man. Man was not made for woman, but woman for man.” This is an important thing to remember with so much language used today which really inverts this stuff–of course men need to be considerate and minister to their wives in love, but a lot of language used to describe marriages starts to sound an awful lot more like an attitude of men being made for women as much or more than vice-versa, even in the “biblical gender roles” circles.
Back to 1 Peter 3, however, we can see how wives minister to their husbands not by preaching, but by being the model of Christ’s submissive bride to her husband. But for men who are on guard to protect themselves in the post-feminist world, let’s make sure we’re not feminists toward God, as a matter of opportunity for meditation.
*Do we truly understand that God was not “made for us,” just existing for the sole purpose of being useful to us for what we want? Or do we realize that we submit to Him in everything, that we were made FOR Him and not the other way around?
*Do we realize that life is all about being molded to God’s lead, to be conformed constantly to His purposes?
*Do we realize that we are not “independent” or “strong” or “like a boss” before God just as women are not to be so before men? Or can we learn to embrace our fundamental need for Him for every aspect of our provision and protection, quiet and listening (James 1:19), and vulnerable?
*Do we serve God because we are trying to “earn” or “prove” something, or is it out of love and obedience to Him, and in humble gratitude for all He’s done for us?
Hm . . . it’s sad to think of how scarily similar the attitudes of men and women both towards God can look to the way feminists treat men. Feminism is a fundamental rebellion, of course, and many recognize the fact; but I believe it makes for a useful meditation for searching our hearts and removing any pollution. 😉
Self-Defensive Christian Man 
Amfortas
/ October 2, 2015Good one. Food for MRA thought, there. And for the Church itself.
selfdefensiveman
/ October 2, 2015Yeah it’s been a lightbulb for me a number of times. Of the extensive harm that feminism does, I think it includes leading astray people’s (and men’s) attitude toward God just as 1 Peter 3 shows how a godly woman helps lead toward God.
Johnny McCracken
/ October 19, 2017Point taken. On target. Well worth rumination.
On a related note: The plain, blunt, non-apostate message of 1 Peter 3:1-6 is, to nearly all “evangelical” churchians of the West, rather like garlic to vampires.