Headship

Bethlehem generally promotes a complementarian view of gender roles, in which Scriptural support defines men's and women’s respective roles in the church and home as complementary but different. Specifically, the relationship between husband and wife is defined by Ephesians 5:23-28, which states that “the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church” and that, with the husband representing the head and the wife the body, “...husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.”

Former Pastor John Piper defines headship as the “divine calling of a husband to take leadership, protection, and provision in the home.” Both former pastors Piper and Meyer warned against using this calling as an excuse to abuse or neglect one’s wife, pointing to Christ’s healing relationship with his bride the Church as an example of the proper way to enact headship. While the role of the husband is compared to Jesus’s sacrifice for the Church, Bethlehem makes sure this comparison is not taken too far: a church elder stated that “husbands are not Jesus and can never measure up to His standard.” Piper also stated that “...husbands are only similar to Christ in the relationship with their wives. They are not Christ. And one of the main differences is that husbands need to change and Christ doesn’t.”

“The husband gently and tenderly takes the lead in seeking to maximize his wife’s pleasure, taking her longing deeply into account, rather than pressuring her to adapt to his." - John Piper

Biblical headship and submission are both delineated by gender, and these roles of marriage are not arbitrary nor reversible. Piper suggests that the result of confusing God's intended distinctions is disillusionment, divorce, and doctrinal and spiritual devastation. Even passages that seem to imply mutuality are interpreted through the lens of headship. In a sermon titled ‘Sexual Intimacy and the Rights Over a Spouse’s Body in Marriage’, Piper describes 1 Corinthians 7:3-5 as a puzzling paradox that inevitably leads to a stalemate. The passage states: “The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.” The resolution Piper suggests to this paradox is that “the husband gently and tenderly takes the lead in seeking to maximize his wife’s pleasure, taking her longing deeply into account, rather than pressuring her to adapt to his.” 

Headship is described as leadership, authority, and responsibility. The husband is responsible for both protection and provision in the realms of the physical and the spiritual, including keeping bad influences out of the home, praying, providing food and shelter, giving spiritual guidance, and protecting their family from disease and intruders. Piper describes headship as setting standards for one’s wife and children, such as what TV programs, movies, and music are appropriate, and how low one’s daughter’s necklines are. The leadership of biblical headship is not inherently superior, but takes primary responsibility and initiative. 

As the living depiction of the covenant between God and the Church, husbands are also responsible for their wives’ spiritual and moral growth. A Bethlehem Elder states, “All our efforts to live out the “one flesh” union, including our kindness, gentleness, understanding, protection, etc., must serve this ultimate end: to bring our wives to God.”

Sermons and webpages the above work is based on: 

John Piper, “Lionhearted and Lamblike: The Christian Husband as Head,” Desiring God, March 18, 2007, https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/lionhearted-and-lamblike-the-christian-husband-as-head-part-1. 

Jason Meyer, “The Mind of Christ,” Bethlehem Baptist, January 17, 2015, https://bethlehem.church/sermon/the-mind-of-christ/. 

John Piper, “Marriage: Is It Only Forgive and Forbear, or Also Confront?,” Desiring God, February 21, 2007, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/marriage-is-it-only-forgive-and-forbear-or-also-confront.