I do not know what your background is, my dear fellow student of the word. As we approach scripture together, I try to encourage each of us to leave your backpack of preconceived ideas at the door, right? I still want us to do that, but I want to clarify what I mean by that.
If you are following along in our study of Ephesians, we are currently in 2:10 and interpreting what Paul means by the word walk. A bit of doctrine has come up that keeps popping up on my radar and I want to discuss why I’m not leaving one of the items in my backpack by the door. There is a specific example in my mind that we chat about in Bite 34 when we get to Colossians 2, but I think we can apply it to a broader scope here.
Giving you a little window into my backstory, there is a way that I’ve come to understand the why of the OT. Having studied the Bible inductively for years and listened to teachers like Tim Keller, Matt Chandler, Dr. Robert Stein, and my former pastors Dr. Bryan Haynes and Dax Swanson, I’ve come to understand that the OT was written for the purpose of showing the Law’s inability to save and pointing to the pre-believer’s only solution which is Christ, the one who came to fulfill the Law because we couldn’t.
This is a doctrine that I do hold. I’ve studied and have a file in my mental file cabinet labeled “This I Know” and this doctrine is in it:
God came in the flesh, lived a perfect and sinless life, died the death that each human should have died, rose from the dead conquering Satan, sin, and death. Since I believe in the God-Man Jesus, all has been accomplished to secure my salvation so that I have a relationship with God the Father where he sees me with Jesus’ perfect record. I needed to bring nothing to my courtroom hearing which ultimately freed me from my bondage to sin. In fact, I could not. This remains the case. There is nothing I could have brought or could now bring to make myself more perfect in my Dad’s eyes. Jesus did it all.
When I call us to leave our backpacks at the door, I would like to clarify that I’m not saying that we leave everything that we have in such a file by the door. Studying scripture should be changing us from the heart out. If we already know everything, why would we study? As students of the word, we are in the process of refining what we do know and having it be closer to what God reveals in his word.
What I think the backpack is more akin to is the situation I had this weekend. While preparing to go snowshoeing, I needed to tune my backpack for the current adventure. It had been tuned for summer hikes, complete with bug repellent and sunscreen. I needed to remove those items in favor of those little hand warmers and extra socks.
When we come to scripture, we need to remove any kind of opinions we have from our backpacks and even consider that the items that we know we will need may need to either come out or at least be rearranged. Like the sunscreen, maybe I should’ve kept that…though analogies are always flawed. Let me give you a real life example in my spiritual journey.
Now, before I share this, understand that this is the result of my own study and we are not going to go into the details of the study here because that is not this author’s current purpose. Although, the study of this will come up again since this is doctrine I learned while studying Ephesians the last time. Then I will have another opportunity to examine what is in my backpack and see if it needs tuning.
One of the items in my backpack used to be how the wife is to be the “help mate” or “helper suitable” or however you want to phrase it. That she was the one that helped her husband achieve all of his hopes and dreams, facilitating and organizing. This was how I thought about my life for over 20 years of my marriage. Then I learned from scripture that isn’t exactly what the wife is called to do.
I had some preconceived ideas that were in my backpack that needed to be adjusted to line up with scripture. Yes, the idea had been somewhat productive and we had a lovely marriage, but that isn’t what a wife is exclusively called to based on scripture. Therefore, what I thought before had to be left at the door and be replaced by correct doctrine. Then I could put it back in my pack and move along with this corrected doctrine now in place.
What is my corrected doctrine? Even though it isn’t really the point, it might help you understand better what I’m talking about. Please keep in mind this is highly abbreviated, but part of what revealed more correct thinking was that the husband is to Christ and the wife is to the church. Put another way,
Christ:husband Church:wife
It’s in Ephesians 5:22-33. When studying this, I came to see that the wife is called to submit to her husband as she would submit to Christ because he is her head. Then the husband is called to be like Christ is for the church, defined as being her head, she being his body, he is its Savior. Let me just lay it out. Like I said, I’m not studying this right now, I’m sharing with you what I learned a few years ago.
| Wife | Husband |
| Submit to husband 5:22 | Head of wife 5:23 |
| Respect husband 5:24, 33 (2x!) | Love wife 5:25,28,33 (3x!) |
| Give himself up for her 5:25 | |
| Present her clean, holy, without blemish 5:26-7 | |
| Nourish and cherish wife 5:27 |
As I had a similar list in front of me in my study, I could see there was not so much a relationship with the wife providing all the means for the husband to have goal and dream achievement as much as there was a call on the husband to provide an environment for the wife to flourish and blossom. What a revelation.
If you think about it, when does the church get called to help Jesus? It is completely the other way round.
As a result, the contents of my backpack that was all about the doctrine of living my life to nurture my husband was removed. In my role, submission (which is also called for in every relationship if we look at the context) and respect are the calls on me. My preconceived ideas needed to change in order to line up with scripture. My life needed to change and to let my husband actually nurture and cherish me without me shutting him down, without me denying his God-given role to have me bloom and grow.
From this adjustment to the contents of my backpack came dramatic changes to my life. Included in the changes are an Etsy store where my husband encourages me to sell my beautiful and functional artwork, an awesome Jeeping adventure where my husband rode and spotted me while I was the female in the group who drove the Rubicon Trail herself, a confidence to expand my abilities and strengths in fitness, and even the encouragement to write this blog that I get to enjoy with you!
Hopefully this Basics helps you to better understand what I mean by leaving your backpack at the door. Requesting that we leave them behind is about understanding what is in them. If we closely examine them, some of the items belong in a “maybe” file and some belong in the “this I know” file. And all of them are up for further examination.
Common in my life is the realization that I don’t know everything. The longer I live, the more I recognize that the water is deep for knowing God. And everything else. Deeper than I first imagined. Which means we get to continue learning. Isn’t that great? Can you imagine how dull and flat life would be if we finished learning everything? If we aren’t learning, we’re dead.
The conclusion of this Basics is that we are attempting to fill our backpacks with solid doctrine derived from disciplined study of scripture that will make our daily lives more about God and who he is and less about ourselves. In my own personal life, having a fuller and more round understanding of the marriage relationship allows the living painting of Christ and the church to be seen in the world. Every day that a godly wife gives her husband opportunity to love her and nourish her, the world gets to see a little bit more what Christ is to his bride, the church. Isn’t that what we Jesus-lovers want? The world to know Christ?
As we carry our backpacks that we all have around, let’s have minds that allow the items in there to be examined. We want to continue to be learning and growing and have our theology line up with what God says.
