TO WIVES; WHAT SUBMISSION DOES AND DOESN'T MEAN

Few commands in Scripture strike our modern ears as more offensive than those commands to submit. Read through Ephesians, for instance, and you can’t avoid Paul’s admonition to wives:

“Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of the body. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives are to submit to their husbands in everything” (Ephesians 5:22-24 CSB).

For some women, I can imagine that Paul’s instruction to submit to your husbands just about makes your heads wants to explode. Or at least it’s not something you’re going to have cross-stitched on a pillow anytime soon.

Much of our bristling response against submission, however, is a result of the ways that the idea has been twisted. We hear “submission” and immediately add in ideas of inferiority, tyranny and abuse. But submission in marriage, Paul says, was a gift of God designed to help us grow and make us more like him. God’s call for you wives to submit to your husbands, far from diminishing your worth, is an invitation for you to reflect Jesus in how you submit to that leadership.

What Biblical Submission Doesn’t Mean

There are a few things submission doesn’t mean:

1. The dominance of the man

A wife does not exist as a serf in her house to cater to her husband’s whims. Just a few verses after Paul’s command to wives, he tells the husband to lay down his life for his wife and love her “as Christ loved the church” (verse 25).

2. Abusive relationships

I wish this didn’t need saying. When Paul says to submit to the husband “as to the Lord,” that means “as a way of serving God”—not “in the place of God.” This means that if your husband tells you to do something that would make you disobey the Lord or if his leadership ever puts you or your family in harm’s way, you need to get out of there, and you need to get some counseling to help you heal.

3. Submission in all areas

Paul’s command doesn’t mean that all women everywhere should submit to all men, as if women can’t lead (for example) in the workplace. Paul is only talking about the marriage relationship.

4. Using this verse as a tool to wield over your wives

Notice that the verse is addressed specifically to women. Men, it’s her verse, not yours! As D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones said, that means you shouldn’t quote it at your wife. It’s hers to obey, not yours to demand. If she’s not doing it, all you can do is be the kind of leader it would be a joy to submit to. You play your role, and trust God with hers.