“Wives, submit to your husbands, as to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:22 NKJV).
Time and time again, that verse is met with skepticism and, sometimes, disgust. “Why do I have to submit to my husband?!” seems to be the outcry of women who want to maintain their independency – and equal rights, as it were – in marriage. However, it’s often taken very largely out of context; that verse is the opening statement to an eleven-verse-long passage (Ephesians 5:22-33) about the guidelines husbands and wives should follow when they embark on the covenant-bound journey of the marriage relationship.
Will things always be peachy-keen and fair if we submit? Of course not, but that doesn’t mean we should assert our independence – especially us women – at every chance we get when it’s really, truly best – and outlined in God’s Word – that we submit.
How does submission apply to us today in this sense? Let’s look at three ways that it does just that.
Submitting is an act of selflessness.
What happens when you submit to someone? What is involved in that action exactly? It’s the active practice of yielding to another person’s needs before yielding to your own, and more often than not, it benefits the person you’re submitting to in some way. Wouldn’t you want to help your spouse, friend, or boss if they need it? Peter tells his audience, “Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh” (1 Peter 2:18). While we shouldn’t be doormats if people mistreat us, it’s a good idea to put yourself in the other person’s shoes if you feel like your position of submission is unfair. Maybe submitting would be a good idea if your spouse had a hard day at work, or if your parents are dealing with something stressful, or if your supervisor has a lot on their plate. When you treat submission as an act of service, and especially as an act of love, it’ll be a lot easier to do so, and you’ll feel a lot better for it.
Submitting is a two-way street in the marriage relationship.
Let’s go back to Ephesians 5 for a minute. After Paul tells wives to submit to their husbands, he almost immediately turns to the husbands to say, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her” (Ephesians 5:25). Paul actually gives Jesus Himself as an immediate example for men to follow in dealing with their wives. Husbands are to love, wives are to submit. Husbands are to love and nurture their wives because women generally need to feel nurtured and supported emotionally as well as physically, mentally, and spiritually. Wives are to submit to their husbands out of respect, because they are heads of the household, and when they are treated with such respect, they feel adequate and ready to nurture and support their household. And so they cycle goes. It’s only when this harmony is disrupted – a wife doesn’t respect her husband’s wishes, or a husband doesn’t show affection to his wife – that things become strained. Because this is truly a two-way street, men and women in marriage relationships need to be conscious of how they relate to one another, and work out any conflict in a healthy way.
We submit to more things besides marriage, regardless of gender.
Here’s the thing: Submission is just another way we serve not only our spouses, but also our parents, our bosses, the police, the President, and any other authority figure you can think of. And this applies not just to women, but to men as well. Women shouldn’t assert their independence from men just because they’re women, nor should men put down women because they are the “weaker sex.” Everyone is in the same boat when it comes to doing this thing we call living, whether they are CEOs, students, or anyone else; it’s a matter of respecting those who have authority and most of all respecting and following God’s commands. In Matthew 22, during a conversation that the Pharisees were having with Jesus, one of the men asked Jesus about whether or not it was “lawful” to pay taxes to Caesar (Matthew 22:15-17). The question was meant to trip Jesus up, but He told them to look at their coins and tell Him who was inscribed there, and when they said “Caesar”, He told them to “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:18-21). Jesus doesn’t want us to completely eschew authority, but rather to embrace it, because He hand-picked each and every leader for His purpose, even when it seems unclear to us. “Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves” (Romans 13:1-2).
Essentially, submission is one of many ways that we put others before ourselves, whether they rule over us in the government, or they are our own spouse. It’s a Christ-established model that He wants us to embrace, and when we do so, we may find that doing this thing called life, while it may not be easy, may be more rewarding, because our influence may bring those around us closer to God’s grace and Heaven.
By Savannah Cottrell
