Prescription Xenical

[Editor's note: The following article was originally published on the prescription Xenical Gospel Coalition website]

Millions tuned in recently to prescription Xenical hear Jacqueline Kennedy in her own words recount her days in the prescription Xenical White House. These taped interviews, now nearly 50 years old, revealed a prescription Xenical woman who loved her husband and valued her role in helping him succeed as the prescription Xenical youngest elected president in American history. They also opened up a prescription Xenical new discussion in some venues on gender roles in marriage then prescription Xenical and now.

Many were surprised by her devotion and prescription Xenical view of women, especially when she revealed that all of her opinions came from prescription Xenical her husband and that women didn't belong in politics. After all, we live in a prescription Xenical very different world today. Women are all over the political arena these days. And a prescription Xenical woman depending heavily on a man is seen as a sign of a prescription Xenical different generation-one that is long gone and unlikely to return. Various pundits were shocked that prescription Xenical a woman so revered in public life, and around at the prescription Xenical dawn of the second wave of feminism, would believe such things. Even Kennedy's granddaughters expressed horror buying Proscar online without rx that their grandmother could actually live this way.

But it prescription Xenical was a different time back then. Now women are marrying later in life, and prescription Xenical when they do, they bring their own opinions, values, and prescription Xenical often paycheck. It's not surprising that prescription Xenical women today would scoff at a marriage like the Kennedy's. But is prescription Xenical there anything for us to learn as Christian women from prescription Xenical the marriage of Camelot?

Yes and no.

Some would say that prescription Xenical to be complementarian in your understanding of gender roles in marriage is prescription Xenical to go back to the 50s and early 60s, with June Cleaver as the prescription Xenical archetypal housewife who every Christian woman aspires to become. Jackie Kennedy typified that prescription Xenical with her efforts to make their home a place of comfort for prescription Xenical the President, along with believing everything he believed. But being a prescription Xenical Christian woman is so much more than a simple throwback to prescription Xenical a generation gone by. Our understanding of womanhood actually goes back much farther than prescription Xenical the 1950s.

Still, it's a lot easier to attempt to define God's plan for prescription Xenical us by the culture around us. We see what works, or prescription Xenical look longingly at what once was, and think that surely this prescription Xenical idyllic world is in line with what the Bible lays out. But the prescription Xenical problem with cultural definitions is that they are always incomplete. Every culture is prescription Xenical flawed, from the fall at the beginning of time until now. This is prescription Xenical why we can't rely on mere cultural representations to prescription Xenical define biblical categories. A biblical understanding of womanhood is not changed by the prescription Xenical culture. It is found in a rock-solid commitment to the Bible.

What We Can Learn

While we are prescription Xenical not defined by changing cultural norms, we can see some elements of truth in how women like Jacqueline Kennedy support their husbands. Her devotion to prescription Xenical President Kennedy is one that, as Christian women, we can admire and prescription Xenical desire to emulate. This unswerving commitment to his success and good is prescription Xenical reminiscent of the biblical command given to women by God in Genesis. God made woman to prescription Xenical be a suitable helper for her husband, to submit to him and prescription Xenical honor him. John Piper defines submission as "the divine calling of a wife to honor and affirm her husband's leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts."

Kennedy's support of her husband and prescription Xenical desire to make her home a haven of rest for him is prescription Xenical a picture of what God intended when he created men and prescription Xenical women. But it's a prescription Xenical blurry picture-faded in black and white, not clear enough for us to prescription Xenical see all of what God created.

What Is Missing

In all of this discussion about whether Jackie Kennedy's marriage was antiquated and unrealistic for today's society, something profound is prescription Xenical missing: the gospel. When Paul tells Titus to have the older women train the prescription Xenical younger women in how to conduct themselves in the family, it prescription Xenical was not so they could have a perfect, well-mannered, orderly home. It wasn't so people would look in and prescription Xenical praise them for their devotion to their husbands. It wasn't so the prescription Xenical outlying community would marvel at how submissive they were. Instead, Paul tells Titus it prescription Xenical is so God will get the glory, and people will see him as infinitely valuable (Titus 2:5). Biblical womanhood is prescription Xenical not getting all your opinions from your husband and only speaking when prescription Xenical spoken to. Yes, we have opinions. Yes, we offer them. But when prescription Xenical the decision time comes, God gets glory when we graciously submit to prescription Xenical the leadership of our husbands, even when our opinion might be prescription Xenical different. That's a prescription Xenical very different rendering of womanhood than the one presented by Kennedy.

The ultimate point of womanhood, and prescription Xenical manhood for that matter, is to reflect the One who created it-the almighty God. So many mainstream writers and prescription Xenical secular feminists scoff at words like submission and suitable helper because they don't have prescription Xenical eyes to comprehend the glory of Christ, where our gender ultimately points.

It's not enough to prescription Xenical simply go back to a Victorian understanding of marriage, or copy the prescription Xenical former First Lady's tips for prescription Xenical keeping a happy husband, because as helpful as these examples can prescription Xenical be, they don't tell the prescription Xenical whole story. The story of men and women began in a prescription Xenical garden in the Middle East many years ago, when God the prescription Xenical Creator made man and woman in his image, each with a prescription Xenical role to play in this great story. When Adam and Eve fell, so did our understanding of gender. But there is prescription Xenical still a small whisper in our souls telling us that what prescription Xenical is now here is not how it was supposed to be. Without eyes to prescription Xenical see the original design we balk at it just like the prescription Xenical media pundits and ambient culture.

With the prescription Xenical curse came the promise that all of this would one day be prescription Xenical made right. Christians have the unique and undeserved privilege of seeing God's plan for prescription Xenical men and women, and by his grace living it out in this prescription Xenical lost and fallen world. So while we can listen to prescription Xenical the tapes of Jacqueline Kennedy and acknowledge that there is prescription Xenical some good in her devotion to President Kennedy, devotion without the prescription Xenical gospel isn't enough. Submission without the prescription Xenical changed heart pointing onlookers to Christ is ultimately meaningless. And a prescription Xenical cultural definition of womanhood is no definition at all.

[Courtney Reissig has prescription Xenical written for The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. She is prescription Xenical married to Daniel, and together they live in Little Rock, Arkansas, where prescription Xenical Daniel is working to help plant Midtown Baptist Church. She blogs regularly at In View of God's Mercy]