Category: Relationship with God

If bowing is not automatically a form of worship, which the Bible shows it is not, then what is the difference between a woman bowing in reverence to her husband and a woman bowing in worship to God?

The answer is found in the intent in the wife’s heart and how she sees her husband verses how she sees God. 

Is the woman bowing to her husband in obedience to God’s command that she affirm her husband’s earthly lordship over her by bowing to him? If so, then her bowing to him is not worship which is reserved for God alone.

However, if a woman sees her husband as perfect, sinless and all powerful like God and that is why she is bowing to him – then she is engaging in an act of worship which is sin.

In other words, when we bow to God, we are and should be acknowledging his perfection, his sinlessness and his being the all-powerful sovereign of the universe.

I am often falsely accused by my detractors, whether they be Christians or non-Christians alike, of teaching that I think women should regard their husbands as gods.  And nothing could be further from the truth.

Instead, I teach what the Bible says that God has placed sinful and imperfect men as the heads of sinful and imperfect women.  God does not call women to submit to, reverence and bow to their husbands because these men are perfect and all-powerful beings.  God calls women to submit to and bow to their husbands in spite of their imperfections and weaknesses because of the position God as ordained men to over women.

A woman’s acknowledgement of her husband’s earthly lordship over her by bowing to him is an acknowledgement of Christ’s lordship over all creation and his authority to appoint her husband as her lord.

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Many Christians, even conservative Christians who believe in male headship and wives submitting to their husbands will object to this calling it a form of “husband worship” or a wife making her husband an idol.

But this objection to women bowing to their husbands is frankly rooted in cultural ignorance.  In 21^st century America when we think of the word “lord” or someone bowing to another we exclusively think of God and worship.

But if we were to go to Britain – they would not associate the word “lord” exclusively with God nor would they associate bowing exclusively with worship.  Because in their society they have many lords who are of a nobility class and they bow to their Queen.

In Africa, it is an ancient custom still practiced today for women to kneel before their men when being proposed to:

And traditional African brides kneel before their husbands as part of the wedding ceremony and feed their husbands:

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The reason for the difference in translation has to do with the Hebrew word “Shachah”.  The most literal meaning of Shachah is “to bow down”.  But sometimes when someone bows down, they are not just showing reverence, but they are also engaging in worship.  In other words, worship usually involves bowing of some sort, but not all bowing is worship.  Sometimes bowing is just reverence.

The easiest way to illustrate this is when Moses did Shachah in two different occasions.  In Exodus 18:7, Moses did Shachah toward his father-in-law so it is simply translated as “obeisance” which a synonym for reverence.  However, in Exodus 34:8, when Moses did Shachah toward God – it was more than just reverence – it was an act of worship and it was translated as such.

Psalm 45 presents a dilemma for translators when it comes to translating Shachah.  In this story, we see a King being married to the royal daughter of another king.  But the story here is a prophecy of Christ being wedded to his church.

So, while the KJV would not normally translate someone bowing to a king as “worship” they decided to translate it here as worship and to capitalize the “L” in Lord to indicate it is a prophecy of Christ.

The ESV translated it as “bow down” instead of “worship” because while they agreed that this is a prophecy of Christ and his church that it is using a human story of a King marrying a royal daughter and therefore her bowing down would not be an act of worship, but rather an act of reverence.

I can see reasons for both translations.  But in the end if we remember that marriage is a picture of Christ and the church than any reference to Christ and his bride has application to human marriage as well.

So, when applying this to human marriage and not the spiritual marriage of Christ and the church – Shachah must be understood in its most literal sense of bowing down in reverence.

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At the latter end of Psalm 45:11 the KJV renders the verse as “for he is thy Lord, worship thou him”.  Since this passage is a prophecy of Christ and his church and Ephesians 5:23 tells us the husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of his church – is God commanding the wives should worship their husbands?

The answer to that question is found in many passages of the Bible but Revelation 19:10 gives us an extremely clear answer where John fell at the feet of angel to worship him:

“And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”

We worship God and God alone.  So, we know that Psalm 45:11 is not teaching women to worship their husbands.  Does that mean we dismiss the latter part of Psalm 45:11 as not applying to human marriage at all? The answer to that is no as well.

To better understand how Psalm 45:11 applies not just to the spiritual marriage of Christ and his church, but also to human marriage we will look at this same passage in the English Standard Version of the Bible:

“Hear, O daughter, and consider, and incline your ear:

  forget your people and your father’s house, and the king will desire your beauty.

Since he is your lord, bow to him.”

Notice the big difference? In the KJV it tells the woman to worship the king who will be her husband.  In the ESV it tells her to bow to him.  And if you were to see the wording of this you would also notice that the KJV capitalizes the word “Lord” while the ESV uses a lower case “lord”.

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Psalm 45 is unmistakably a prophecy of Christ and his bride, the church.

The noble attributes of the king are mentioned first in verses 1-5:

“1 My heart is inditing a good matter: I speak of the things which I have made touching the king: my tongue is the pen of a ready writer.

2 Thou art fairer than the children of men: grace is poured into thy lips: therefore God hath blessed thee for ever.

3 Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty.

4 And in thy majesty ride prosperously because of truth and meekness and righteousness; and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things.

5 Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the king’s enemies; whereby the people fall under thee. “

And then in verses 6 and 7 we see that this is clearly a reference to God the father appointing Christ as King:

“6 Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre.

7 Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.”

And then in Psalm 45:10-11 the perspective changes from addressing the King to now addressing the bride who is about to marry the King:

“10 Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father’s house; 11 So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty: for he is thy Lord; and worship thou him.”

These two verses are filled with rich theology.  While Ephesians 5:33 commands women to reverence their husbands – it is these two verses from Psalm 45:10-11 which help to show what the reverence of a wife toward her husband should look like.

But before we can apply what these verses are saying, we need to address a translation issue.

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In Ephesians 5:22-24(KJV) the Bible says the following:

“Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.”

Ephesians 5:22-24 teaches us the important Biblical principle that God designed marriage to be a picture of the relationship of Christ and his church.  This tells us that we can and should look, not just at Ephesians 5:22-33, but also at all other references to how Christ and his church interact with one another throughout the Old and New Testaments to understand how marriage should operate.

A marriage built only on the principles of Ephesians 5:22-33 will be missing key and important attributes of Christ’s marriage to his church mentioned elsewhere in the Bible.  In other words, a marriage modeled exclusively after the attributes described in Ephesians 5:22-33 will not fully and completely picture the relationship of Christ to his Church.

For example, Ephesians 5:25-29 commands men to love their wives a Christ loves his church and lists several attributes of Christ’s love for his church including him sacrificing himself for her, him washing her spiritual spots and wrinkles with the Word of God and him providing for and protecting his wife as he would his own body.

But Revelation 3:19 mentions some other attributes of Christ’s love for his church not found in Ephesians 5:25-29.  In Revelation 3:19 (KJV) the Christ said the following to his seven churches:

“As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.”

A husband’s love for his wife includes not his spiritual washing of her, his provision for her and his protection of her – but it also includes his rebuking her and chastening her.

The Biblical truth that the wife is to picture the church in relationship to Christ and the husband represents Christs means that a wife is to obey all the commands of God to the church relating to Christ, with the notable exceptions of worshipping her husband or seeing him as her savior from sin.  Those qualities belong to Christ alone and not earthly husbands.  I will address the worship issue more as this post progresses.

And now that we have firmly established the Biblical principle that marriage is a picture of Christ and the church – we will explore another passage which shows other aspects of the relationship of Christ and the church which also apply to marriage.

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As Christians we know that not all cultural customs are Biblical.   And we also know that the commands of the Bible transcend all cultures and times.  In this post, I will prove that the ancient custom of wives doing obeisance toward their husbands is not simply a relic of ages past, but that it is indeed a command to wives found in the Bible.

But before we can present the Biblical command for wives to bow to their husbands, we must first present some other commands that form the foundation upon which this command is built.

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