Submit

“Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.” Ephesians 5:21-32.  If there is one verse, that most women would love to eliminate from scripture, this is it. That little misinterpreted word, submit, is the culprit, and we can’t get beyond it.  Let me “submit” to you what God really wants us to know about this controversial phrase.

When Paul wrote this, the worldwide state of marriage, within the three major population groups, Jewish, Roman and Greek had fallen into a horrible mess.  The Jews, and by that I mean the men,  had had only one reason for obtaining a divorce, indecency.  “If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house..” Deut. 24:1.  An indecency originally meant only adultery, but as “learned” men intervened, it became anything a husband found unpleasing about his wife. The Greeks kept their wives at home, in private apartments, where they raised children and saw to the household.  Wives didn’t get out much, but the men rounded out their own lives with prostitutes and  concubines.  The lusty Romans, men and women, married over and over, some up to 20+ times.

Needless to say, the idea of a loving, equally beneficial, covenant-based relationship was unheard of.  Enter Christianity with a brand new doctrine of equality and mutual submission: wives to husbands, husbands to wives and both to Christ.  Which brings us back to that pesky word, Submit. You’ll notice it says, “as unto the Lord”.  Jesus has all of our best interests at heart, he wants to fulfill, encourage and love us, always.  Who wouldn’t want to yield or submit oneself in that kind of a relationship?  Now, here’s the clincher, our husbands, who are to be in submission to Christ, are to love us exactly the same way as Jesus does, even to the point of laying down their lives.

We should be celebrating, instead of  balking at a misunderstood word.  Sadly, we are not taught our true roles, within Christian marriage, very well. Submitting does not mean the wife becomes a doormat for the husband, nor that she has no say in marital decisions. Under God’s perfect plan for marriage all things work together for the common good.  Get in the word and check it out for yourself, then begin, you and your spouse, to implement this fantastic plan.