chapter 22 (and chapter 23).

This is the chapter on that part of Titus 2, where the older women are to be teaching the younger women to be "obedient to their own husbands."

I think I will be fairly brief on this chapter.  I feel that much of the chapter doesn't focus on obedience so much as honoring and serving - both which can be aspects of obedience but really as specific to the topic as I would have liked to see. 

Mrs. Pearl first reviews several relevant scriptures - Genesis 3:16 and I Corinthians 11:3.  While discussing the latter, Mrs. Pearl  points out that her husband does not lose any dignity by being in subjection to Christ, and likewise she loses no dignity in being subject to her husband.  (I'll point out here that the verse says the head of Christ is God, so obviously Christ does not lose any dignity in having someone "over" Him.)

She lists Eph. 5:22-24 and I think brings out something that is so often missed - that wives are to submit to their husbands "as unto the Lord" - meaning doing it like we are doing it to God Himself.  If we realized that we are actually obeying God when we obey our husbands, I think there would be a big attitude improvement in many of us.

She points out that the Ephesians and Titus passages spell out that a woman is to be obedient to her own husband.  There may be times when submitting to another man may be right, but never to the extent one does to one's own husband. 

She doesn't discuss this, but here I'd like to point out that sometimes being in employment can cause a conflict right here when the employer is wanting something from a woman (like staying late, or out of town trips) that the husband does not want.  It puts a woman in a difficult position when she is confronted with situations like these.  If the woman is working because the husband wants her to, then he will need to deal with such situations with grace, without putting stress on his wife, or help her come up with some mutually satisfactory solutions.  If he is not really wanting her to work, then she is not walking in obedience anyway, and any time she does what the employer wants instead of what her husband wants, she is walking further into disobedience.

Mrs. Pearl deals with the issue of obeying an unspiritual lout by referring to I Peter 3:1-6 and calls our attention to the fact that God knew that the command to reverence and obedience might sound shocking and so tells us "not [to be] afraid with any amazement.  She includes a touching story of a young girl who put into practice these verses and won her husband over in time.

Mrs. Pearl includes some discussion about anger and bitterness in this chapter and while worthy of reading, I have some problem in understanding how it falls under the topic of "obedience."  Oh well.

Much of the rest of the chapter is spent on discussion three key issues.  My husband and I would agree, probably on two of them and disagree with one, although there is one aspect of her discussion of the third that we would most likely agree upon.

Chapter 23 "To Obey or Not to Obey" discusses several circumstances where women might feel they have a right not to obey, and gives principles of authority and right response to authority.  The Pearls do feel there are some circumstances where a woman must not obey but there are others where they feel a woman might be a little oversensitive.   I thought this was a very good chapter but I will not review it in detail.  After all, I am not meaning to replace the reading of the book!