Wives Submit? Part 2: What’s the Big Deal?

Yesterday I started a week-long series on biblical submission in marriage with, Wives Submit? What Does the Bible Say? Today, in part 2, let’s see what the big deal is? If my marriage seems to be working without it, then who cares?

So what if my marriage seems to be working? I propagated that lie in my head for years. But my logic was based on faulty reasoning. My marriage wasn’t working. I didn’t  call the best of out of my husband with my gentleness, rather I emasculated him with my challenging, domineering spirit. And I was miserable.

I longed for him take initiative and to lead, but my actions bore much different results. I shut him down and locked myself  in a lonely marriage for a decade of my life.

So, who cares? Well, God cares. I have tried to work my way around this. I have tried to excuse it. I have tried to find a reason to negate the teaching. But the truth is the bible says this:

  • But there is one thing I want you to know: The head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. 1 Cor. 11:3
  • In the same way, you wives must accept the authority of your husbands. 1 Pet. 3:1
  • And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. Eph 5:21-22
  • Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting for those who belong to the Lord. Col 3: 18

So why do I fight this?

There is a little thing that happened in Gen. 3:18 called the curse. Eve was cursed with pain in child-bearing.  We can’t deny that one can we ladies? But God also said, “You will desire to control your husband.” Oh! My desire to make decisions, my fear of trusting his decisions, my need to get in the last word, to be right and to run the show is a consequence of the blackness of sin. God didn’t make me that way. Sin did. And sin leads to death.

So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death… For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. Rom 8:6-7

SO, if the God spoke directly on the subject and I refuse what does that mean?

“God will not bless an environment of rebellion. If  you are in rebellion to your husband you are in rebellion to God.” – Tony Evans

Living in rebellion to God is a devastating situation that will end up being cut off from God.

Rebellion is as sinful as witchcraft, and stubbornness as bad as worshiping idols. So because you have rejected the command of the LORD, he has rejected you… 1 Sam. 15:23 

OK, I can read it. I can acknowledge that I fight it. I may even accept that I’m in rebellion if I don’t do it. So why does submission seem contrary to my best interest? Why do I feel so defensive about it? I think it is because Satan, using the feminist movement as a mouth piece, has convinced us that we are weak if yield to another person.

But even feminists yield to other people every day. The most die-hard women’s liber yields to the speed limit, to her boss, maybe even to her peers every day. But when it comes to yielding to your life’s partner it is somehow caustic.

Really, that just doesn’t make sense. To live a selfless life of dedication to another person is an emblem of strength. We honor people like Mother Theresa, yet fail to see the beauty in the opportunity a wife is given each day to restrain her will for the will of her husband. Submission is not insulting, weak, or pathetic. It is a replica of the beacon of Christ’s love.

In your life together, think the way Christ Jesus thought. He was like God in every way, but he did not think that his being equal with God was something to use for his own benefit. Instead, he gave up everything, even his place with God. He accepted the role of a servant, appearing in human form. During his life as a man, he humbled himself by being fully obedient to God, even when that caused his death—death on a cross.  Phil. 2:5-8

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about what submission is NOT.

Serena
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Wives Submit? What Does the Bible Say?Wives Submit? Part 3: What Submission is NOT
Comments: 5
  1. 11 years ago

    It’s worth noting that the most unsubmissive wife is sometimes not the loudest one, just as the most spoiled child is not always the one who throws the biggest fits. Unfortunately, many have equated calm and peace with godliness. And while calm and peace will accompany godliness, the reverse is not always the case. Sometimes calm and peace accompany a husband who has given up or a parent who lets the child run the house.

    Great reminders… this is something I struggle with as well, and I hope to raise my daughters to have a better idea of what they should and should not do as wives. I don’t remember having a lot of concrete conversations about this as a young woman. It was just “Submit,” as if we knew going into marriage what that looked like. The internal workings are *nothing* like what we see on the outside of a marriage, even up close as in the case of living with parents who are married. I just wish I had been given more tools. We went through the Love & Respect series when we had been married eight years, and while it was life-changing, old habits die a very hard death and it is a constant battle for me (and probably also for him) to live that out. I guess my hope is that as we learn better and try to do better, we will not only do that for our own marriages but also display that and share it with new couples so they won’t make the same mistakes we did. Thanks for your article. 🙂

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  2. Paul
    11 years ago

    It is indeed so that many a ‘quiet’ wife is not truly submissive as things appear. Sin is, perhaps above all else, deceptive. I believe that many wives have convinced themselves that they are in submission to their husbands because they are quiet, and perhaps think that the comments they make to their husbands to ‘encourage’ more godly behaviour is actually taking the lead. It is revealing that 1 Peter 3:1-2 specifically mentions “without a word” and that the husband would be won “by [her] conduct”.
    I do not pretend to think this an easy thing for a wife; like many things God commands, they seem ‘backward’ to our logic. His ways are not our ways.
    I taught my daughters from the time they were very young the importance of choosing a faithful christian spouse. Further, I emphasized that they needed to think long and hard about their choice in a mate because Yahweh commanded them to be in submission to their spouse. I advised that if they didn’t want to be in submission to a man, then don’t get married [but I made clear that it would be essential to be in submission to the elders at church and to be in silence as the scriptures demand.
    I also added that it was a ‘tall order’!

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  3. Pat
    10 years ago

    Paul, you are leaving 4 choices for your daughter. 1) become a slave of some man 2) staying single 3) live as a lesbian 4) death. When I heard in church, that women were the lowest form of human life (God is head of men, men head of women….) as a yourg adult, I chose death. It didn’t work out, but I vowed to never marry and I hate both men, and myself. Your daughters are being told how low they are, how they are to become slaves of some man (even if they are nice), and that the only way for freedom is to become a lesbian or stay single. I certainly hope your daughters don’t feel degraded enough to attempt suicide-but what are you teaching them? It was only the priest reading the bible that sestroyed me, if my father would have told me that my only purpose in life was to become a slave-well…I’m sure I would have finished the job. Think of it this way…if your daughter takes your advice,and becomes a sort of slave to her chosen master, what if her master orders your daughter to not see you any more? Would you commend her for being a proper submissive wife to her new master, or would you miss her and want to see her? What if kids were in the picture? These are your grandchildren-and your daughter’s master will not allow her and the kids to visit you. You say that your daughter’s should choose nice masters, but people do change-and your daughter could think she is getting a nice master until it’s too late. I know these examples may be extreme-I would think that even a christian submissive wife would take advantage of her secular rights-secularly-she has no master ruling over her, but my point is that you may be doing your daughters terrible damage, and in effect you may be hurting yourself in the process. If she takes your ideas that women are slaves of men, then she may have low self-esteem, and thus, depression. Depression is a major cause of suicide. If she takes your advice, and does decide to be a slave of some man, what will her life be like? Sure, he may be nice when she marries him-but people do change-and if she gives absolute power to him…well, power corrupts (sometimes even the nicest of people). Please think about what I have said- I’m thinking deap down-you really don’t want slavery for your daughters.

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  4. Pat
    10 years ago

    Plus, are you telling your daughters to shut up? That they have nothing important to say?

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  5. pat
    10 years ago

    Please, tell your daughters that they are no less than men. When I heard those horrible shut up and submit verses was when I first started planning suicide – how could God think of me this way. And my dad never told me to be a slave of a man or to shut up. ! Nobody knew-on the outside I played happy and content-but this was all a lie because inside I was feeling so hurt that God thought I was the “lowest form of human life”. It’s been 30 years since then, and even though I have rejected the bible, I stll am damaged beyond repair. Even though I have rejected the source (bible-not God), the damage done to me that day, when I heard how low, and how God wanted “hell on earth for me-ruined my life. I don’t know how some people cannot be negatively affected-if not destroyed-by those words. Does Paul also tell his daughters how unclean they are? I ache for those girls. Let them decide how they want to live their lives. There are more choices than the 4 I have mentioned-5) live freely as a secular (or egalitarian) lifestyle-where you are free, and not a slave. Instead of a master/slave relationship, they would be equal to their husbands. Their husband would not be their master. It’s okay to anyone who chosses this lifestyle, but please-don’t continually harp to your daughters about how inferior and low they are. If the golden rule of christianity (what I got out of it) is treat others as you wish to be treated, does that mean that Paul really wants to be a slave in marriage, and severely restricted in his church. I think not-then why would he demand it of women, especially his daughters-who he is supposed to love. If that is love, really, what is hate?

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Serena
11 years ago 5 Comments Marriage, Submission in Marriage, Womanhood, 700