The family is God’s primary institution and it was to the family that the dominion mandate was given. Thus, it is important to marry and live in marriage according to God’s rules and commands. Too often, it is easy to act as though, since we are Christians and redeemed in Christ, we have little reason to examine and re-examine some of our presuppositions when it comes to the various callings in our lives — marriage and family being among the most important. In the following essay, which I am reprinting in its entirety, R. J. Rushdoony’s words help to clarify the biblical position and reorient couples away from some of the pitfalls of wrong thinking on the part of both women and men.
Is It a Man’s World?[1]
One of the things I dislike more than women’s lib is the attitude that “It’s a man’s world.” When I hear a man say this, I regard him as both stupid and anti-Christian.
Of course, there are many men who would like it to be, or believe it really is, a man’s world, and some women have become brainwashed into believing it is true. Not so. It’s God’s world, and you had better believe it.
“The earth is the LORD’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein” (Ps. 24:1). It is suicidal for any man or woman to believe otherwise. It means living in terms of a lie.
Some men will at once object that the Bible places men in a position of authority over their wives. They are unwilling to add that whatever authority God gives to anyone, to parents, husbands, wives, churches, states, or anyone else, has only one purpose, that God’s will be done, not man’s. Whatever authority God gives to anyone is always and at all times and places totally subject to and under His authority. No man has any authority in and of himself, or for the purpose of pleasing himself.
Even Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, exercised no independent authority. The governing principle of His life was simply this, “Lo, I come … to do thy will, O God” (Heb. 10:7). His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane was, “[T]hy will be done” (Matt. 26:42). If Jesus Christ could not exercise any authority apart from God’s will, then how dare any man do so?
The next time anyone tells you, “It’s a man’s world,” or any kind of world other than God’s world, set him straight. Our world’s problems are due to such thinking. People are trying to make this into man’s world, and they are destroying themselves and others in the process. Such thinking is basic to man’s original sin, his desire to make God’s creation over into man’s world, in which man is his own god.
The world is not your oyster, nor mine. Even more, we are not our own but are ourselves the property, whether regenerate or unregenerate, of the sovereign God. Stop damaging and misusing God’s property. Put it to the use, service, and calling He intends for you.
[1] R.J. Rushdoony, A Word in Season, vol. 4 (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 2012), 11-12.
The Kingdom-Driven Family 