It is interesting reading various translations and editions of the lesson this week, including Ellen White comments on the texts. It is clear that Ellen warns against using Scripture to prove that man was to have a dominating role over the wife.

Reading some of the EGW comments I get the impression that the text stating that because of sin the husband was to rule, that this was really a result of sin. Man would discover that he was physically stronger and get tempted to use this fact to dominate over his wife. With his strength he could not only subdue her, but get the idea that he also had the strength to subdue and sin against other women. This is really the curse of sin and this sin is not to flourish within our church.

This is a great warning to us.

Which statement of hers are you looking at?

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Such as AH 117.

There is also in her writings a warning against using Scripture to prove that man has a dominant role.

And where is that statement?

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Mrs. White was a staunch supporter of men being the head of the house, as the following statement from her pen reveals.



The beauty of Mrs. White's writings is their balance. She is against tyranny, and says that tyrannical men have no right to speak of their headship. She does not, by so saying, mean that they have not the headship of the home, simply she is saying that they do not exercise it properly and in the love of Christ. When a man has Christ, and God's love refining and softening his character, he is able to be the proper head of the home that God wishes him to be.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Here is another clarifying statement that demonstrates that the man being the head of the home is God's plan, not simply an after-effect of sin. God intends for it to be thus ordered, in order to institute peace in the home.



She laments, as we all should, that men have gone to extremes in exercising their superiority. But she acknowledges that it was God who established men's superiority, and as in the statement I posted earlier, she tells men that it is their duty to maintain their position as head of the home "with all meekness, yet with decision." In modern vernacular, those last two words would be converted to "decisively."

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Since you have the ability to find all of those statements, you should also be able to find some of the statements which balance them so beautifully.

Johann,

I think it would be futile to try to find the statement you are claiming, considering it would contradict her other statements and the Bible.

God established the headship of men over their women. It is biblical.

Instead of trying to find Mrs. White saying that the Bible should not be used to support it, why not see if the Bible does support it? If the Bible supports something, it would be contradictory for Mrs. White to say it doesn't, right? I don't expect that she would have so egregiously erred as that.

Here are some of those passages:



These are but a portion of the texts one might gather on the topic. Others include the qualifications of elders and deacons, including that they are men who rule their households well.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Quite interesting. Here Ellen White states that it is Christ who is the head of the church, and not man. Then that man is the head of the home when he is thus refined in God's love and also willing to yield to the wishes of his wife. It is a balance which works both ways.

Just last night we heard on the news that society has in recent years become so corrupt that men use their physical strength to show their superiority and ability to dominate over girls and women all around them.

From our living room window we see the bright lights in a large prison. Every ninth prisoner there is incarcerated for sexual crimes against women, one of them a 14-year old girl I know. Are any of those criminals Seventh-day Adventists? Unfortunately. You may never have served as a pastor.

One of the "saints" came to me as his pastor when he had served for two years in prison, claiming he was innocent, and lamenting the lacking support of his fellow believers. They should have told the judge what a saint he was. There was a girl sent to his farm from an Adventist mother in a city so she could be in safety from the city corruption.

Fortunately his wife was able to do all the chores with the cows so he could stay in bed with the girl to protect her. The time had come when the girl needed to know if she was sexually mature, so they prayed together to be protected from sin as they experimented together - just for her sake. So there was no sin involved.

I came to the district about the time he got out of prison. He explained to me what a good Bible teacher he was, and could not understand why he had not been re-installed as a Sabbath School superintendent and teacher. It was my duty, as his pastor, to see to it that he got his old jobs back in church.

This is just one of many similar experiences I have had through the years. A conference president once told me that one of the most difficult parts of his responsibility was dealing with saints in the church who were great spiritual leaders, but who used their male headship roles to have sexual relationships with young girls in their own families.

This is not a local phenomena because I have experienced similar things in several countries where I have worked.

It is about time that some of the saints wake up to the realities in life and stop supporting sin in the church with some seemingly supporting quotations to please the sinfulness of humanity.

May God have mercy!

Johann,

I see many good points in what you have posted. I also see a trend in society to vilify men and to "angelify" women. If you see the commercials that are becoming prevalent, men are always made to appear foolish, and women wise. This is having an effect on society's views.

Consider this: In light of the lessons this quarter on "origins," where did sin originate on our planet? Was it not with Eve? And how did she sin? Was it not on the point of appetite?

Eve lusted for food.

But Adam did not care for the fruit Eve brought him. Adam had no interest in that fruit at all. He did not desire it. His sin was not on account of lust for the fruit. He wanted her.

To this day, women tend to have appetites for food, and men have appetites for women.

Here's where those shouting "equality" should sit up and take notice: Why are prisons filled with "sexual sinners" but not filled with "food abusers?" Why do we criminalize a man's sin, but gloss over a woman's?

I will readily acknowledge that there are degrees of sin, and some sins are worse than others. But when we as a society fail to rebuke certain classes of sin, we do not realize how the evils of those sins end up affecting everyone.

Take a look at the following statement, for example.



So Mrs. White tells us that diet is the beginning of sin. How many women, over their own appetites, feed their menfolk that which in turn encourages them in sin?

It is the same story as in the Garden of Eden. Only, the men seem to get all the blame.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.