How to Be a Queen

By Contributing Writer, Leah Smith

An excerpt from the upcoming book, “Diapers, Dishes & Dominion: How Christian Housewives Can Change the World”, published by American Vision. Please stay tuned for the release date!

Have you ever considered how wives and mothers are, in a sense, the cornerstone of our whole civilization? Have you ever thought about how a woman’s role contributes to the advancement or breakdown of an entire society? It is true.

Before we talk about how awesome women are, I would like to acknowledge the critical role of husbands and fathers. There is an attack on all things masculine. There is an agenda to turn our boys into girly wimps. We saw in the previous chapter that humanists want to redefine words like “masculine” and “feminine” so they have no meaning.

This is the opposite of what God wants. Instead of making everything “gender neutral,” we need a great awakening of boys who will become real men. We need boys who know how to lead at young ages, as in former generations, in case something happens to dad or while he is away.

There are many stories in the last century of boys no older than twelve who had to take upon themselves the task of providing for their families, leading and keeping them safe. They had guns, and they knew how to use them. They had skills and understood basic commerce and business. They were young entrepreneurs.

Yes, desperate times may have placed those boys in such a position, but compare the ability and skills of those boys to the twelve-year-olds we have now. Some twelve-year-olds today hardly know how to make their own beds. They still get “time outs.” They are babies in mentality and have virtually no responsibilities.

The world system has taught that it is cruel and unusual for kids to have any responsibility. “Experts” tell us kids should enjoy childhood, free of any worries since adulthood will come soon enough. There is a serious long-term problem with that advice. It will produce incompetent adults. It then takes those adults twice as long to learn the hard lessons in life, thus delaying the good they might accomplish for God’s Kingdom.

Incompetent adults often delay marriage because of immaturity, making them even less appealing to anyone for marriage. No one wants to marry a man with the maturity of a fourteen-year-old, or a grown man whose mother still does his laundry and who has a permanent bachelor mentality.

When you think even more long-term, the delay of marriage results in the delaying of children too, which has exponential consequences when you consider the birth rates among competing religions hostile to Christianity. It is important that Christians have more children.

I think God put a natural instinct in us to desire marriage while we are young and to have kids right away. It is all a part of the dominion mandate God gave us (Genesis 1:28; 9:1–3). It’s only our modern society that has
influenced us to wait a long time to get married, and then wait even longer before we decide we’re “ready” to have kids.

I want to say for the record that while this book is all about how homemakers can change the world, I believe that strong self-respecting women submit and obey their husbands. That is where a huge revolution will begin.

Do not mistake submission for being a doormat. That is unbiblical too. There are gazillions of books written on biblical womanhood and manhood, so I won’t spend much time here. I will make the note though, that while both men and women are equal citizens in the Kingdom, we have different roles and responsibilities.

When men return to leading women as they ought and take on the role of biblical patriarchy, God will bless our nation again. This is not our design, but God’s design. Men are born to lead. And yes, they have authority over us. The reason that idea makes us cringe is because of what happened at the Fall.

It did not make Eve cringe before she sinned, but afterwards it did. God has always designed marriage to work this way, right from the beginning. It did not change later as the result of the curse. Our attitudes did, though. We are co-rulers with our husband, but we need to submit ourselves to his authority with joy.

Control Freaks

So while we consider how important it is that our men be real men and leaders of both home and society, let us consider how women influence those men. There is a huge difference between godly influence and worldly manipulation. Make sure to understand this distinction. If we understand our God-given ability to influence for the better, this will be a real key to understanding how women play a pivotal role in society.

We will start with Adam and Eve. Consider the eternal effects of Eve’s deception and Adam’s sin. If Adam was present at the time Eve ate the forbidden fruit (and the Genesis account implies this), he passively allowed her to fall to her spiritual death and failed in his responsibility to protect her.

Eve’s failure is certain. In her offering the fruit to Adam, she tempted him—although she herself deceived—to sin. And he chose to sin. As a result, they both brought down the entire human race in sin and death. That is the subtle power a woman can have. As part of the consequence for sinning, God said, “I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy, and in pain you will give birth. And you will desire to control your husband, but he will rule over you” (Gen 3:16, New Living Translation).

This was the beginning of the feminist movement. It is the heart of modern-day paganism, Mother Earth worship, and other cults centered on the “goddess” movement. That might sound weird, but when women elevate themselves and put themselves on a pedestal, and outside of the God-ordained sphere, it results in many weird ideas.

The fall of humankind was the beginning of a constant head-butting for control and authority. The woman will try to exert her own authority, driven by the mentality that she does not need a man over her. “I can kill my own snakes,” and “I can take care of myself ” is the attitude many women have today, even within the church.

I really learned something when I read what Matthew Henry had to say about the change in Eve’s attitude before and after the Fall. We all face the same struggle. Here is what he wrote about Genesis 3:16:

[Eve] is here put into a state of subjection. The whole sex, which by creation was equal with man, is for sin, made inferior, and forbidden to usurp authority, 1 Tim. 2:11, 12. The wife particularly is hereby put under the dominion of her husband and is not suijuri—at her own disposal . . . . This sentence amounts only to that command, “Wives, be in subjection to your husbands”; but the entrance of sin has made that duty a punishment, which otherwise it would not have been. If man had not sinned, he would always have ruled with wisdom and love; and, if the woman had not sinned, she would always have obeyed with humility and meekness; and then the dominion would have been no grievance, but our own sin and folly make our yoke heavy. If Eve had not eaten forbidden fruit herself, and tempted her husband to eat it, she would never have complained of her subjection; therefore it ought never to be complained of, though harsh; but sin must be complained of, that made it so. Those wives who not only despise and disobey their husbands, but domineer over them, do not consider that they not only violate a divine law, but thwart a divine sentence.1

He points out that it is a sin to despise your husband or disobey him. When we domineer over him, we have gone a whole step further in our rebellion. We need to remember that rebellion is as serious a sin as witchcraft (1 Sam. 15:23).

Yikes! I constantly have to remind myself about this. It is so easy to tell our husbands what to do or how to do it. It is so easy to complain when they don’t do something right. It is easy to be negative. Sometimes we need a wake-up call to remind us that our husband is a king in God’s Kingdom and we have to smarten up and act like queens.

The King’s Right-hand Woman

God in His wisdom knew it was not good for man to be alone. God knew man needed a companion, a helper and a confidant. There are hundreds of books on marriage and a woman’s biblical role, but I like to picture a king’s right hand man.

A king has the ultimate authority in decision-making. Often, he will have an adviser or aide, to whom he goes for advice. It is the adviser’s duty to help the king accomplish his objectives. We have seen through history how advisers can so persuade authority that it has often led to the corruption and destruction of a kingdom. We can also see how good advice and influence can make it thrive.

I believe God created woman with the innate ability to influence the family. Using that influence wisely is a heavy responsibility. Some of us wives have a strong personality and it is very easy for us to give into the temptation to dominate our husbands, especially if they are not as strong-willed or are very gracious by nature.

Some of us may think we are smarter or wiser than our husbands, or we may have a low opinion of his ability to lead. Some of us may actually despise our husbands. We need to recognize this dangerous thinking. We must realize that when we think this way, we violate God’s Laws, commands and purpose for marriage. We need to repent.

If God has given us smarts or wisdom, we need to use it carefully and with humility and meekness. Use it to inspire him to greatness. We have to change our attitudes about and perceptions of our husbands. We need to stop challenging their authority by trying to exert our own, but submit to them with strength and dignity.

This does not mean we suddenly have no opinions or that we change our personality. It means learning to give our opinions and advice in a different way. Perhaps we suggest our ideas more often than exerting them or declaring them in his face. Sometimes we need to wait a while before blurting out everything that comes into our brains. (I am never guilty of this… yeah, right!)

The Bible tells us to “clothe yourselves instead with the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God” (1 Peter 3:4). When we conduct ourselves in a manner that is gentle and meek, it is actually precious to God!

It is also a more effective way to communicate in general. When speaking with anyone, people hear not just our words, but our attitude and demeanor. If we want to have an effect, we need to consider the way we communicate so that it doesn’t put up walls. This is not manipulation; it is people skills. It is godliness.

In the story of Samson and Delilah, we see how a woman tried to influence her man by way of manipulation and nagging. The Bible tells us,

With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was tired to death. So he told her everything. “No razor has ever been used on my head,” he said, “because I have been a Nazarite set apart to God since birth. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man.” (Judges 16:16–17).

How often do we do this? We nag, pester and emotionally manipulate until we get our way. And if he just isn’t “getting it,” we think if we persist or make a bigger deal, then he will give in, and we will get what we think we want. This method of course led to Samson’s death and the death of many more. This is the ungodly approach to influence.

In contrast, look at how Esther handled herself. She gives us a wonderful example of how to influence a man—even a king. Two things come to mind: respect and food.

A lot of food.

Esther shows how a woman can be strong and bold, approaching her husband with important matters, even life-and death issues, without insulting him or challenging his authority. Her spirit of humility so enchanted the king that he did not even seem to notice that she broke the court rule of approaching him without having first been beckoned.

Her breaking the rule was bold on her part, but she had fasted and prayed. The Lord was with her. She prepared banquets and eased into her requests. She was not asking for some small favor either. She was asking him to revoke a decree that would annihilate the Jews and also condemn the king’s own wife!

She did not spring these things in his face. She did not nag or pester the king. Instead, with fasting and prayer, she approached him with a humble heart, respect and sincerity, always wanting to please him.

Esther was no doormat. She was wise. She was strategic with her requests and her manner of addressing her husband and king. The result: she saved her people.

We would be wise to follow Esther’s example rather than Delilah’s. It could make or break our effectiveness as godly women. When we stand before God, we will be accountable for the type of influence we had in our homes. We will be accountable for how we treated these men God has chosen to lead our families and us. I love the story of Esther.

Just think: if humble women can influence even kings, think of the potential influence ordinary mothers have on their children and how that ripples out into society. What we do with this role affects everything.

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