From a very young age, I was exposed to evangelism in practice. My childhood church used to do outreach events during summers in highly trafficked places, like the beach or public parks. They’d rent the big town pop-up stage and stand out from early in the morning to after the sun had set cycling through worship teams, street preaching, and people sharing their testimonies. 

All the while, there were people walking through the crowds, asking people if they needed prayer or sharing Jesus with others. Occasionally, there were people who were led to believe in God, or wanted to be baptized.

The Proverbs 31 woman is the church’s best example of an exemplary wife, mother, and friend. Maybe we roll our eyes sometimes at how cliche it might be, but the fact of the matter is this: there is a reason she stands out from the rest. And if she is the model for all women to strive for in their Christian walk, then logically, she must fall in line with what we’ve been talking about. That’s why I wanted to end our series about submission here: at the pinnacle, the best among us. So that, hopefully, after all this unpacking of, “Wives, submit to your husbands,” we could have something to aspire towards and remind us of the fact that when Paul tells women to honor their husbands, it isn’t to hide them away, but to help them flourish in the space God has given them to occupy as women.

For the past few weeks, we’ve been discussing what Paul really means when he tells wives to be submissive to their husbands in Ephesians. It is my deep desire that, if you’ve been reading along, you have found peace surrounding the subject and that the Lord’s character has shone through. This week, I want to further delve into the subject by taking the key verse through which the other side of the argument stakes its claim to validity. And I’m not talking about those that just flat out renounce God and the Bible. I’m talking about Christians; those that believe that wives being submissive to husbands is an “antiquated cultural ideal” that died off with tunics and the Roman Empire. The thought process on that end of the spectrum is that there should be no submission between genders when God has declared us all as one.