Forever Beloved

When you mention submission to the world, they are quick to voice their opinion.  Why are you so stupid?  You’re equal to men, not beneath them.  Women like you make us look weak.  You should be expressing your opinion, not silencing it.  You should be calling the shots, not letting him lead.  Your marriage should be 50/50, that’s only fair.  Don’t be a doormat.

But ultimately, what matters is your following Gods word.  Not the world’s opinion.

So, let’s travel back to the beginning of the Bible and read a few key verses that directly tie in to submission.

I think we all agree that God created Adam first.  Then God made a decision, that we see revealed in Genesis 2:18

And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
Genesis 2:18

As you can clearly see, it doesn’t say I’m going to make man someone to rule over him, someone to sass at him or someone to disrespect his every decision.  It says “make him a help meet”.  So, what exactly is a help meet?  It carries the meaning of aid, succor, one who helps.  Hebrew scholar Robert Alter has spent years translating the book of Genesis.  He translates it “sustainer beside him”.

When God creates Eve, he calls her an ezer kenegdo.  The word ezer is used only twenty other places in the entire Old Testament.  And in every other instance the person being described is God himself, when you need Him to come through for you desperately.  Most of the contexts are life and death, by the way, and God is your only hope.  Your ezer.  Kenegdo means alongside, or opposite to, a counterpart.

Boy, that sure sounds different than what the world would define “help meet” as, doesn’t it?

God created woman from man’s rib, brought her to the man and they became husband and wife.  In Genesis 2:17, before Eve existed, God has given Adam some instruction.

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Genesis 2:17

And what do we see Eve do next?

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
Genesis 3:6

Oh, Eve.  Why?  Then she gave it to Adam, and he took a bite too.  Yikes.  So we see clearly that Eve took the first bite then gave it to Adam.  So she sinned first, right?  But in Romans 5:12 we see that “sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin”.  But, how did sin first enter the world through one man, when the woman was the first to sin?

What we see is the first picture of headship.  Adam was who God gave the instruction to.  Adam was responsible for his and Eve’s sin.  I’m going to tell y’all, if I was Adam I would have been a little irritated with Eve.

So did Eve get off scott free?  No, not so much.  When we look at Genesis 3:16 we see God deal directly with the woman’s sin.

I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.
Genesis 3:16

So you know all that pain during labor?  Yep, thank-you-very-much-Eve.

The second part of the verse basically means you will want to rule over your husband but you won’t be able to.  Why?  Because God’s design for man was to be the head of the household.

And that, sweet ladies, is where marital strife was born.

We read it, roll our eyes, and say “oh no you didn’t, not this woman, this girl is not about to submit”.  And we go on about our marriage.  Having bouts of contention here and there.  Years go by, the contention gets worse, and now we are irritated.  Why can’t this marriage thing just be easy?  Basically because there is a battle for leadership happening.  Remember that sassy girl that said “oh no way” and had to honor and obey removed from her vows?  Well she obviously wants HER opinion to he heard and HER ways followed.  I mean, isn’t she entitled to that?

And I’m fairly sure most men don’t want their wives to rule over them ladies.

And here is when we come right back to Ephesians 5.  That is the only way to end this battle.  Let’s look at all the verses.

21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy,cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Ephesians 5:21-33

And when you live an Ephesians life, your marriage will look different to the world.  That sure doesn’t mean it’s wrong.  I think there is a pivotal point when we need to decide who we want our marriage to glorify, the world or God.

The key is that when you are in an intimate relationship with Christ – when you have fully surrendered yourself to Him and desire Him and find your life in Him alone – then obedience to God’s commands is a joy and delight.  And yes, even submission can be a joy.  When you are convicted to obey Him, His words will bring joy, peace, contentment, fulfillment and freedom for you!  And in turn, your life will bring glory to God.  Isn’t that what it’s all about?

So this week, sit down with your husband and read over Ephesians.  Talk about your marriage, your roles and who your marriage is glorifying.  And go on a date, just because it’s amazing reconnecting with your love!

Submission.  That dreaded “S” word.

Submission is a word that holds many definitions among the world.  Offensive, not acceptable, inferior, controlling and not politically correct are among the few.  But yet, it’s something we, as Christian wives, are called to do.

First, let me share my story…

As a woman who spent her entire life striving to be viewed as strong and independent, the thought of being submissive to anyone, let alone my husband, scared me to death.  And I have to say, at first it made me angry.  So angry that I completely rebelled against it and refused it.  I was a child rebelling against what my Father had not only told me, but commanded me to do.

I rebelled so much that I took the words “honor and obey” out of my vows.  (Side note, completely embarrassed and mortified that I actually took that out of my vows. What in the world was my 20-year-old mind thinking?)

I was a strong-willed, in control wife.  I controlled the finances, the household and my husband.  Throughout the first few years of our marriage we had lots of ups and downs that I fully contribute to my strong-willed attitude.

And then I heard it, God calling me to be submissive.

I had no idea how to be submissive, or why I should be.  Instead of writing God’s Word off as irrelevant and outdated, I needed to study more. I needed to learn God’s intentions and purposes behind the seemingly dreadful “s” word.

I read, listened, prayed and tried to learn all I could about Biblical submission.  And through this study I will share what I learned with you all.  I cannot tell you what a huge impact it had on my marriage when I allowed my husband to lead and stopped standing in his way.

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Ephesians 5:22-24 22 

When did submission begin?  Submission never really began, but has eternally existed in the relationship between the Father and the Son in the Trinity.  The Trinity is a relationship of Equals.  Jesus is not inferior in any way to God the Father.  They are One.  The Father has the position of authority, the Son honors His Father’s authority.  He is not a second class citizen, a slave or of less value than the Father.  In fact, His willingness to submit to and honor His Father leads to His own glory later.

Definition of submission: The word SUBMIT, according to Strong’s Lexicon is the Greek word hupotaso which was originally a Greek military term meaning “to arrange troop divisions under the command of a leader”.  In non-military use, it was “a voluntary attitude of giving in, of cooperating, of sharing a burden”.  In other words, when the word submit is used in the Bible, it refers not only to a yielding and obedient attitude of the heart, but also, and equally importantly, to an attitude of co-operation and support.  Without co-operation and support, things just don’t work the way they should.

When we look at the relationship between Jesus and God the Father, we can see the yielding and obedience play out.  We see the essence of this in these words “Not My will, but Yours be done!” spoken by Christ, Himself, within hours of His betrayal and then His crucifixion.

What is submission? Submission is the acceptance of God’s order for our lives.  As wives, we are to submit to Christ and submit to our husbands.  Submission by a wife is to be voluntary.  It’s part of our obedience to the Lord.  There aren’t conditions to this submission either.  We are called to submit to our husbands, even if we feel they don’t deserve it.  We are to trust in their leadership, even if we don’t agree with it and submit to them even if we feel they aren’t meeting their roles.

Christian marriage is intended to be a picture of the relationship between Christ and His church.  Let me say that again, because it blew my mind when I first learned it.  Our marriage was designed specifically to mirror our relationship between Christ and His church.  We are acting out a living parable where husbands represent Christ and wives represent the church to bring glory to God and to help our children and others around us grasp what God is like in a more concrete way.  Does that change the way you look at marriage?  It sure did with me.  God intended marriage to mirror His relationship with the church so that we could basically be a testimony to others and SHOW them what God is like.

A marriage with Godly submission should be a faithful, intimate and loving relationship.  Boy, doesn’t that sound like a far cry from what the world tells us submission is?

So it turns out submission isn’t a sign of weakness, like this silly girl thought all along, it’s a sign of respect!  And of course I want to honor and respect my husband, I love him.

What submission is not: Submission is not abusive.  God does not want women to be submissive to abusers.  As wives, we have to be confident of our husband’s goodwill.  Remember, the command to wives to submit to their husbands is followed by the command to husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave his life for her (Ephesians 5:25).  In cases of abuse, there is a urgent and important need for an intervention and Godly counsel.  If you are in an abusive relationship, I would urge you to reach out!  Reach out to your Pastor, to elders of your church, to your Pastor’s wife, to anyone you feel safe around!  Focus ministries  is a Biblical based non-profit organization that offers counseling by phone, email, or in person.  They want you to know you aren’t alone and you are oh so valuable to God!!!

Submission also shouldn’t be used for leverage.  Submission absolutely comes with no strings attached.  It is a heart desire to please God and do what is best for your family.  I mean really, what wife doesn’t want to live in peace?  Don’t we all desire that?  There is such an inner peace that comes from living in harmony with our husbands while obeying God.

As women, we are quite good at knowing how to manipulate our husbands to get them to do what we want.  Oh come on girls, we all know we’ve done it at one time or another.  That is definitely not submission.  And it’s something we should never, ever do.

Chuck Swindoll said this about submission:

Webster says that manipulation means “to control or play upon by unfair or insidious means, especially to one’s own advantage or to serve one’s own purpose.” In other words, secret manipulation is an unfair, insidious technique that results in getting what one wants. When handled cleverly, a wife can substitute secret manipulation for a quiet, submissive spirit.

Submission also doesn’t mean women need to submit to every man.  The Bible instructs a wife to submit herself to her own husband; not to men in general.