Submission: Demystifying the Dirty Word
“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.” (Ephesians 5: 22-24, ESV)
Submission.
In 2021, that’s an uncomfortable word when it comes to relationships. In a “woke” culture that champions girl-bossing, equality, and feminism, submission feels like a dirty word. A social taboo that culture twists to say, “See? The Bible is an antiquated book. Why would you live by that? It devalues women as the lesser sex! Only a bigoted jerk would still follow it!”
And the only reason people can get away with saying that is because the church has done a poor job at explaining the subject of, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.”
I’ll admit, I was a teenage girl who wholeheartedly believed that this was a section of the Bible that needed to be read “within the context of the culture.” Meaning, I used to feel that Paul was writing on something that made perfect sense in 60 A.D., following some sort of socially normative construct way back in Biblical times that was lost along the way as we progressed into modern eras. I used to be part of the camp of people that wondered why Paul would write that way around women. After all, my parents were my best example of Christian marriage, and my mom didn’t grovel to my dad. All my life they were a team. Surely, that’s what God wanted from a Christian marriage!
And in short, yes, that’s exactly what God wants from Christian marriage: a team made up of two members that harmoniously exemplified the way God loves us and followed the order God left for us to partner with Him.
So over the next few weeks, I want to break this subject down for you, and hopefully make the word ‘submission’ less cringey whether you’re widowed, married, almost married, or single and wanting to be in a God-honoring marriage one day. Today, I want to simply break down how Paul’s choice of words, translated into the English language for us to study, is not some tyrannical order from a generation long gone.
Our key verse is from Ephesians 5, where Paul advises wives to submit to their husbands, because husbands are the head of the family over wives, just as Jesus is the head of the church. The first thing to understand, is that when Paul uses the words ‘submit’ or ‘be subject to,’ he’s not ordering wives to be mindless slaves to their husbands. The Greek word used, hypotassō, can also be translated to yield or obey, which is the same word that we see over and over again when the same subject comes up in other New Testament books. And when Paul says it, he’s not talking about forced submission or misogynistic power. He simply is saying that wives should prefer their husbands and honor them above other men.
Which, let’s be honest, is something that a woman should have no issue with, having entered into a marriage relationship with a man.
But more than that, it helps a familial unit maintain a Godly order that allows them to be this beautiful picture of how God regards His church. The husband is the head of the family, just the way that Jesus is the head of the church. This is even more apparent when we take Ephesians 5:22 in the context of the verses that come before it.
The preceding verses in Ephesians 5 focuses on the importance of being holy and righteous before God in everything we do. Paul encourages the church to constantly be discerning how our actions please the Lord, because it is important to make the best use of the time on this earth we have. Verses 20 and 21 go on to say, “giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.”
What does that mean? It means that as Christians, we are supposed to prefer each other over the evil of this world out of the deep respect we have for Jesus. From there, Paul pivots into the marriage relationship, saying just in the way that Christians should prefer each other, being united in the church under God’s covenant, wives should yield to their husbands being united in the covenant of marriage.
Because the fact is, submission is not a reward for the husband being the male over a female. Submission is the Godly order of a household, just like it is the Godly order of the church being subject to God the Father in a glorifying way. And as Christians, we have no problem submitting to God as the Bride of Christ, so why do some of us have such deep heart issues when it comes to wives submitting to their husbands in the same way?
And I have news for you: this doesn’t let the husbands off the hook and give them permission to be superior jerks over their wives. They have their own commandments to maintain the order required to be a Godly husband, and that’s something I want to dive deep into next week.
For now, I want you to search your heart. Do you feel deep offense over the words, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord?” Do you feel yourself trying to sweep them under the rug and excuse them away? Do you feel angry that God would ask you to submit to anyone? If you do, I say this with love because I’ve been right where you are, but you have a heart issue and you need to confront it with scripture within your heart.
I encourage you to be open over the next few weeks. Like we said last time, there will come a point in our faith where we have to move into the mature things of faith, away from milk and into something more substantial. By confronting these things within ourselves, we are ultimately refining our souls to be more like Jesus. Sure, it’s easy to accept the gospel for what it is– an invitation into eternal life and the deepest love ever known– but it’s the testing of these commandments within ourselves that will help us to be better stewards of that gospel. By confronting these issues, we open ourselves up to going deeper with Christ, and being a better example of His love for the world.
