I’ve shared my concerns about Love and Respect in part 1 and 2. I shared why I believed he is misinterpreting Ephesians five. Paul is not telling us men need more respect and women need more love. I would like to go through several other verses he uses and explore whether they really say what he says they are saying. I’m not going to be exhaustive at all. I simply want to show how he has a habit of twisting scripture to make it say what he wants to say. Much of what he teaches is not from the Bible. Some of it contradicts the Bible.
On page 37, he is explaining how very different men and women are from each other. He cites 1 Peter 3:7. He says husbands are to treat their wives in a specific way “since she is a woman.” I cannot find a translation that uses that wording. Here’s the verse,
“Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.”
This does not say “treat her differently because she is a woman.” It’s not a proof text of how different men and women are. He is to honor her even though he is stronger because they are similar. They are both heirs in Christ.
Eggerich builds on his interpretation by explaining women see everything through pink glasses and men through blue. In other words, men and women see everything in life from different perspectives. What does this have to do with her having a weaker body? I’m not sure and I’m suspicious this is why he changed the wording. Whether his blue/pink glasses idea is true or not, it is not what this verse is saying. And we shouldn’t pretend this idea is from the Bible. I do believe his pink/blue glasses idea , while having some merit, is overly simplistic., but I want to stick with specific verses I believe he misreads.
On page 36, he referenced Ephesians 5 again. He points out God only tells men to love in this verse, and God never tells women to agape love. He only commands them to philio love. It’s true God doesn’t specifically tell wives to agape love, but He repeatedly tells all of us to agape love, which would include wives. We don’t stop being Christians when we marry. All those other verses still apply.
The reason I am concerned about this is he goes on to say women naturally love more than men (which is why God doesn’t command them to love- they already do it) and men are naturally more oblivious. In his examples and explanations, there seems to be a devaluing of a woman’s sacrificial love. After all, it comes naturally to her. And an excusing of a man’s selfishness. After all, loving is harder for him.
One example of this: He talks about a man who always forgets his wife’s birthday. One year, he remembers at the last minute. He sprints into a store, grabs a card, and proudly presents it to her. The card is an u n-signed “Congratulations on your baby!” card. The women are told, in these situations, they should think, “At least he remembered my birthday. I should be grateful for the effort.”
Later he talks about a woman who always forgets her husband does not like pepper on his eggs. She makes him breakfast and mindlessly peppers the eggs. This is a similar situation to the anecdote above. On both cases, one spouse is forgetting another spouse’s preferences. If Eggerichs were to treat men and women as equals, he would tell the man to think, “At least she’s making breakfast. I should be thankful for her effort.” Instead, the man in the first story is praised and the woman is censured for not unconditionally respecting him. In the second story, the man is praised and the woman is censured for not unconditionally respecting him. Throughout his book, men are praised for minimal effort, while women are censured if they do not meet an ideal standard.
On a side note, he then separated Philio love and agape love in a strange way. He talks about a woman who agape loves (because we all do that naturally), but is being rude and impatient. He says she needs philio love. But 1 Corinthians gives a description of agape love. “Love is patient. Love is kind. “ So why is he saying a rude, impatient wife is having agape love? It often feels like he makes a premise and then does cartwheels to fit everything into that premise, rather than admitting his premise was a little off.
On page 87, Eggerich talks about a woman he counseled. She was married to an alcoholic husband who had ptsd. He had also cheated on her. He treated her in an unloving way most of the time.
Eggerich pointed this wife to 1 Peter 3:1-2, “Likewise wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they are your respectful and pure conduct.”
Eggerichs seems to set up a false dichotomy. He says a woman in this situation can either rant and rave or she can quietly submit “without a word”. Again, Peter is talking about how we should all defer to each other. And in context, he seems to be talking to Christian ladies who are married to non-Christian men. Paul is saying when it comes to apologetics, actions speak louder than words. He’s not giving a formula for dealing with being grievously sinned against. It’s possible to respectfully rebuke a person and hold them accountable.
Nowhere in the story does he acknowledge the extensive pain this lady has been through. She has been cheated on. While I don’t know her husband, most alcoholics are at least somewhat emotionally and verbally abusive. Readers might not be aware, but there are trauma groups for families of alcoholics. Alcoholics tend to be manipulative and deceitful. Living with one can physically and mentally break a person down. Not all, but it’s more common than not. The only advice or help she is given is to be quiet and submit respectfully. The story does not say whether the man has made any amends for committing adultery. While Eggerich seems to be non-empathetic to this lady’s plight, God does give more merciful answers.
Matthew (ch.5) would say she is free to divorce. In chapter 18, Matthew would exhort her to set boundaries and bring her husband to the elders for his alcohol issue.
Not only does Eggerich seem oblivious to the very real trauma this woman has gone through, he seems to lack empathy for the man as well. You can’t heal a person with ptsd and alcohol problems by being real respectful. He’s drunk! He won’t even notice. And the man in this example has ptsd from war. He has his own very real internal trauma that is spilling out as abuse toward others. He needs two things to happen at the same time. He needs his wife and others in the church to hold him accountable in a firm, loving, respectful way. If he wants his marriage, he will need to take steps to deal with his ptsd and alcohol habit. This would be the most loving thing the wife could do. Keeping his alcohol needs to become more painful than giving it up. This would be good for both the wife and the husband. Once he is sober, he can benefit from counseling that would help him untangle the trauma in his soul so he no longer needs to hide behind alcohol and the false flattery of other women.
This story is a good example of how reducing everything to the crazy cycle can be harmful. Eggerich admits this man is an unloving alcoholic because of his ptsd from war. Yet, his answer is the same canned formulaic answer. She needs to respect. But being respectful without setting boundaries in this circumstance is enabling his behavior, and therefore not loving or respectful at all.
I also noticed Eggerich doesn’t seem to acknowledge many Christian married couples have children in the home. And these children are watching daily harshness. It is common for these children to be set up as either an abuser themselves or someone willing to submit to abuse.
On page 230-231, Eggerich writes about the Garden of Eden narrative. He has a way of twisting everything in the story to make it about the point he wants to make.
In the pages before he talks about the garden, he talked about how men and women think and make decisions differently. He believes men use logic and facts to think and women have intuition and gut feelings. He believes women dismiss what their husbands say because it “feels” wrong, and encourages women to actually listen to their husband and take their insights seriously. Eve was a typical female using intuition and emotion to make a decision. She should have listened to her husband. But instead he listened to her and was punished for following her lead. On page 234, after he has established men make more logical decisions, and encouraging women to consider they might be deceived like Eve, he talks about male headship.
He uses the Garden narrative to exemplify his point. He changes and adds so many things in Genesis 2-3, walking through all of it could be an essay in itself. So, for brevity’s sake, I’ll give bullet points for his narrative and then compare it to the actual story found in the Bible.
His narrative and my response in parentheses:
~God put Adam and Eve in the garden. God commanded Adam to not eat the fruit and Adam told Eve.
(Many assume Adam told Eve. The Bible does not say how she knew about the command. Eggerichs makes a big deal about Eve not listening to Adam and uses it as a cautionary tale for those ladies out there believing their own intuition over their husband’s logic. Moses does not say this, but he does say God directly commanded *both* Adam and Eve to take dominion of the animals – which would include serpents. Moses seems to focus on Adam and Eve not listening to God. Eggerichs speculates a main point is that Eve did not listen to Adam – a thing Moses doesn’t even bother to mention. Somehow Eggerichs does not make a big deal about Eve choosing to ignore God.)
~The serpent tempted Eve and Eve ate the fruit
~ She looked for Adam and found him because she thought he should eat the fruit too. She thought this was “best for them”.
(The Bible says Adam was with her when she was being tempted. She did not go looking for him. He heard the serpent and apparently chose to not interrupt. )
~Adam and Eve had an argument as to whether they should eat it. Adam didn’t want to eat it! But Eve wouldn’t “let it go”.
(He added this. The Bible does not say this anywhere. But he needed it so the passage could be an example of how wives should listen to their husbands.)
~Maybe Eve led Adam by a “ring in his nose”
(Again, he added this. Adam could have interrupted the serpent at any time. )
~instead of listening to Adam, Eve “orchestrated” things to manipulate Adam in to listening.
(More stuff he’s added to make his point. Nowhere in the Bible. Paul says Adam was not deceived, so the idea that Eve deceived him contradicts scripture.)
~they both ate.
~Eve led when Adam should have been leader.
(His definition of “leader” is common in complementarian circles. They believe women should not lead, and having any influence is leading. The problem wasn’t just the idea that Eve offered *forbidden* fruit. The problem was that she offered any fruit at all. This was leading because she had an idea and then Adam followed. Many complementarians believe if a woman has an idea and says it out loud to a man and he follows her idea, she is then leading because the man of following. And they believe women were not designed to lead and bad things happen when they do.
By this definition, the lady in proverbs 7, calling for young men to repent, would be sinning. Women would be “leading” by sharing the gospel, suggesting a restaurant or even smiling to make someone happy. They would be leading by choosing what they make for dinner. Any influence would be leading. The implications are ludicrous. The Bible never speaks like this.)
~God punished Adam for listening to Eve. She should have been listening to him.
(He’s taking this phrase “because you listened to your wife” out of context. They believe part of Adam’s sin was listening and following his wife’s idea. They believe it would have been wrong even if Eve had a good idea. This is taking a phrase and reading none sense into it. An example: Say you have two kids and they both get into the snack closet. You rebuke them and one child says, “It was her idea! It’s not my fault! She wanted me to do it! So I ate all the cookies.”
What would the parent say? Probably something like, “You are to blame too. You didn’t have to listen to your sister. You could have said no. But because you did listened to her and ate the cookies you are still in trouble.”
The parent is not telling him that he needs to lead his sister and should avoid being influenced by her or listen to her at all. The parent is simply not allowing him to make excuses and blame shift. God was not telling men to avoid listening to women. He was not allowing Adam to blame shift. )
~wives today tend to be self righteous. They make decisions based on feelings. They need to listen to their husbands like Eve should have listened to hers.
(He seems to think Eve is an archetype for how all women act. But Paul tells both men and women to avoid being deceived like Eve. Being deceived is not a gendered issue. The Bible never says men are logical, while women make decisions based on intuition. And the Bible would not blame being deceived on either of those things anyways. Paul, along with many of the prophets, tells us why we become deceived. We want to sin. That is what happened to Eve. She wanted that fruit and she wanted to be wise and she needed to believe that it was ok to disobey God to get what she wanted. Both men and women do this. The problem was not Eve leading. The problem was both Adam and Eve were not following God. Instead they followed the serpent. They were supposed to be taking dominion over him as part of creation. The solution to being deceived is not for wives simply to listen to their husbands. Of course we should all be careful listeners, and we need a multiple of counselors, but the solution here is to trust God.
There are so many other verses I could go through, but I hope I’ve shown Eggerich has a habit of twisting verses to say things they don’t say. Yet, he will claim in his book this is all from the Bible and we must submit to God.
He uses Ephesians 5 to prove men need to be respected more than women. He uses 1Peter 3 to show a woman must respectfully submit to being grievously sinned against. He uses Genesis 2-3 to prove to us women tend to make bad decisions based on intuition but are too self righteous to listen to their husbands.
I don’t want to take the time to go page by page through his other logical inconsistencies. But I’ll put some other basic observations out that a reader can look for.
Watch how he uses adjectives to describe the genders. Compare the types of descriptive words he uses for women compared to men. Then guess which gender he respects more. (Hint: he’s following his own advice. )
Take tally of how often he empathizes with male victims as opposed to female victims and notice the adjectives he uses to describe their pain.
Notice the comparisons he makes and make and female behavior. Is he comparing equal situations? I’ll give one example of this. He says women are more self righteous than men. He gives a comparison to prove this. If a man tells his wife she is getting fat, she gets upset. This shows women are prideful and don’t like to be criticized. Yet when a man voluntarily shares something he has done wrong, such as watching porn, she also gets upset. This also shows she is self righteous and can’t have mercy. look how the woman is angry at both her own sin and at his. While the poor man isn’t angry at all.
Let me reframe this. The man tells his wife she is getting fat. She lives in a porn culture where her sexuality is her main value. Whether she is seeing things accurately or not, saying she is fat feels like a rejection of her personhood. She is angry because she feels insecure. She wants to know he doesn’t just love her as a porn star, but as a person. She feels attacked, so she is angry. When he says he looked at porn, he is admitting he was treacherous against his wife. She feels insecure and attacked again. Both these situations leave the woman feeling vulnerable and under valued. Yet the man is lauded for his humility (not getting angry) and the wife is censured for being self righteous.
Lastly, Eggerich makes outlandish claims about what women are like. I mentioned the logic/intuition dichotomy he pushes, but he also believes women try to control their men because they want to have stuff to tell their girlfriend. If they run out of stuff to talk about, they must control their husbands to make them do something worth talking about to their friends. He also says women value birthdays because they give birth. The book is filled with insights like this, so ridiculous that they are humorous. His generous use of stereotypes, sadly, can have the same effect as his overuse of the crazy cycle. The men and women think they know all about each other without actually getting to know each other. And the stereotypes he peppers throughout the book are usually quite insulting to women.
So, in part 1https://laughingsarah.wordpress.com/2023/02/02/is-the-book-love-and-respect-biblical-part-1/ I showed how Eggerichs twists Ephesians 5 to say something it does not say, and then builds his book on that faulty foundation. In part two, https://laughingsarah.wordpress.com/2023/02/12/is-the-book-love-and-respect-biblical-part-2/ I show the implications of reducing everything to the crazy cycle, and now I’ve tried to show how his interpretations are sloppy and biased in general.
Sarah Laughing 