Part Four of the gentlemanadventurer.org's People You Shouldn't Marry
Don’t
Be a Jezebel
Lastly dear heart, as
important as it is that you should not marry an Ahab, it is just as important
that you should not be a Jezebel.
Jezebel – Even the mere
mention of the name conjures up images of a woman who is morally-loose. As a
culture we associate Jezebel with the temptress, the sorceress, the seductress.
There are vague impressions of too much makeup, of muslin veils and dimly-lit
palaces. But, when it comes right down to it, Jezebel is really much simpler
than that. Jezebel is probably a very nice girl to hang out with and it’s quite
likely she goes to church. She has a normal family, and given time she will
almost certainly marry, or at least date a good deal,
because she is the kind of woman for which the Ahabs of the world are looking.
First, Jezebel attains
her self-worth and self-identity through idolatry. In ancient times, a person’s
name carried great power and significance. It told you something about that
person, and in a very real way it was their identity. Jezebel’s name,
literally-translated from her native tongue, means “The Prince Baal Lives,” or
“The Prince Baal Exists.” As I’m sure you know by now, Baal is a Canaanite
fertility and weather god, worshiped by the same Syro-Phoenicean religion of
which Jezebel’s own father was high priest before he became king of Sidon.
But in Hebrew, and this
is a most unfortunate play on words, Jezebel’s name can mean, “There is no
nobility.” The point, whether or not you put stock in the meaning of Biblical
names, is that Jezebel was a woman who found her identity and her fulfillment
in promoting her false religion – in promoting idolatry. In this way, she is
not so different from the Jezebels of our own time, who seek for their
fulfillment and self-worth on all of the pagan altars of the world: On
Facebook, in their career, in their physical appearance, in ministry,
and in men.
Of course the problem
with this is that looking to any of these things for the fulfillment that you
can only attain via a personal and vibrant relationship with Jesus Christ is
the very essence of idolatry, not less than Jezebel’s altars and asherim. A
woman who does this is not just rejecting her God-given purpose as a woman, she
is rejecting what it means to be a Christian. Such a woman I hope and pray that
you will not be, and such a woman is not ready or fit to be a helpmeet.
Secondly, Jezebels will
cater to a man’s selfishness. Going back to 1 Kings 21, we see Ahab sulking
because Naboth would not violate the Mosaic law and sell his ancestral
inheritance out of his tribe. Jezebel, perhaps history’s worst example of an
enabler, took matters into her own hands and had Naboth brought up on
trumped-up charges and promptly executed.
Tirza, if you remember
nothing else of this little talk, remember this: A woman who will cater to her husband’s selfish impulses will be
the single most destructive influence in his life.
One of the things that I
have always admired about your mother, and one of the things which first
endeared her to me, was the fact that she has quite simply never put up with my
crap. Lovingly, gently, she has maintained high expectations of the man I ought
to be, and she is ever holding me to them. I think it is something that she
does unconsciously, and frankly I find it unnerving at times. But she expects
manhood of me, and that affects my behavior because I love her and want her to
be happy.
I don’t mean to sound as
though your mother somehow bullies me into Christianity, because that is not
the case. But you need to understand that very much of how a man behaves is
based upon the expectations that people have for him. If people will tolerate
or reward his selfishness and unrestrained ego, then that is how he will
behave. But if you treat your man like a Man, and lay upon him all the
commensurate responsibilities and rewards, he will very quickly grow into them.
If he doesn’t, then he’s not the man you are looking for.
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