Before you tell a woman to submit… Read this
Before you tell a woman to submit… Read this
1 John 4:16- God is love.
Exodus 34:6
…The LORD — the LORD is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth,
Love- proof of Christ in us
If we are to know what love is, we must then know God. And any display of “love” that isn’t Christlike is not actually love. (Speaking the truth “in love” while being rude, harsh, and unkind). This also applies to marriage. I see too often men constantly reminding the woman/wife to submit while he is in no way showing love. If you think you can take the two verses that tell wives to submit while ignoring the rest of the Bible, then you do not understand love or submission. I want to briefly point you to what the Bible has to say about love, and it is in no way gendered but is a command given to all of those who claim the name of Christ. Love is also given by God, it is a fruit of the Spirit and is a sign that a person is united to Christ. Submission is not listed as a fruit of the spirit nor is it an attribute of God… It is however a command given in Eph. 5:21 to all believers, as is the command to love God and neighbor...
1 John 4:7-21
Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him. Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us. This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent his Son as the world’s Savior. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God — God remains in him and he in God. And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.
God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. In this, love is made complete with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears is not complete in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And we have this command from him: The one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.
Romans 5:5
This hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
Galatians 5:22-23
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The law is not against such things.
Love: Fulfilling the law
The law is summed up in love God and love neighbor. Then we read in Galatians 6:1-3
Brothers and sisters, if someone is overtaken in any wrongdoing, you who are spiritual, restore such a person with a gentle spirit, watching out for yourselves so that you also won’t be tempted. Carry one another’s burdens; in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone considers himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.
Galatians 5:14
For the whole law is fulfilled in one statement: Love your neighbor as yourself.
We fulfill the law when we love our neighbor, and in loving our neighbor we also love God as is evidenced in the following:
Matthew 22:37-40
He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”
Romans 13:8-10
Do not owe anyone anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, Do not commit adultery; do not murder; do not steal; do not covet; and any other commandment, are summed up by this commandment: Love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Love, therefore, is the fulfillment of the law.
John 13:34-35
“I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
John 15:12-13
“This is my command: Love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends.”
Romans 5:8
But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 8:38-39
For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 12:9-18
Let love be without hypocrisy. Detest evil; cling to what is good. Love one another deeply as brothers and sisters. Take the lead in honoring one another. Do not lack diligence in zeal; be fervent in the Spirit; serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; be persistent in prayer. Share with the saints in their needs; pursue hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud; instead, associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own estimation. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Give careful thought to do what is honorable in everyone’s eyes. If possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.
Philippians 2:1-4
If, then, there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, make my joy complete by thinking the same way, having the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others.
Philippians 2:5-11
Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive. Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. And let the peace of Christ, to which you were also called in one body, rule your hearts. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell richly among you, in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
One Body
Romans 12:4-5
Now as we have many parts in one body, and all the parts do not have the same function, in the same way we who are many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another.
Galatians 3:28
There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; since you are all one in Christ Jesus.
1 Cor 12 discusses how we are all members of one body, and no one can say they are more important than another part of the body. Verse 23-26 says:
And those parts of the body that we consider less honorable, we clothe these with greater honor, and our unrespectable parts are treated with greater respect, which our respectable parts do not need.
Instead, God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the less honorable, so that there would be no division in the body, but that the members would have the same concern for each other. So if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.
THEN, after that it goes into the famous "love chapter".
1 Corinthians 13
If I speak human or angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give away all my possessions, and if I give over my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put aside childish things. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known. Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love — but the greatest of these is love.
Ephesians 4:1-7
Therefore I, the prisoner in the Lord, urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit — just as you were called to one hope at your calling — one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.
Now grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.
Ephesians 4:15-16
But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into him who is the head — Christ. From him the whole body, fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament, promotes the growth of the body for building itself up in love by the proper working of each individual part.
Colossians 1:18
Ephesians 5:1-2
Therefore, be imitators of God, as dearly loved children, and walk in love, as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God.
Love and submission
Now into Eph 5
Ephesians 5:25-31
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word. He did this to present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless. In the same way, husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own flesh but provides and cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, since we are members of his body. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.
Colossians 3:18-19
Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and don’t be bitter toward them.
1 John 4:18-21
There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears is not complete in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And we have this command from him: The one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.
Love can absolutely look like submission, as submission looks like love
I always find it interesting that many who teach so vehemently about women's submission, often say that it is deference to the desires of another. They say things such as the wife should dress the way the husband likes, wear her hair the way he likes, teach the kids the way he likes, ect. out of love for him, and that is submission. They would pay lip service and say that it isn't forced, and that it is mostly just deference. Submission, they claim, is simply giving up what we want for the sake of the other. Now, then they give many instances where it actually looks like subjugation based simply on the fact that the male is...male, and therefore has some sort of authority by way of him being male, not by him being worthy of it. They ignore passages such as Titus 2 verses 1-2, and 6-8 in favor of verses 3-5. However, lets look at verses 1-8 all together:
But you are to proclaim things consistent with sound teaching. Older men are to be self-controlled, worthy of respect, sensible, and sound in faith, love, and endurance. In the same way, older women are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not slaves to excessive drinking. They are to teach what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands and to love their children, to be self-controlled, pure, workers at home, kind, and in submission to their husbands, so that God’s word will not be slandered.
In the same way, encourage the young men to be self-controlled in everything. Make yourself an example of good works with integrity and dignity in your teaching. Your message is to be sound beyond reproach, so that any opponent will be ashamed, because he doesn’t have anything bad to say about us.
Look at the parts that say "in the same way". That seems to imply a sort of equality to me...
I like to share this illustration based on how I have seen submission discussed:
Husband: I want to go out to eat tonight. I am in the mood for Chinese food.
Wife: Eating out sounds nice, but I am not in the mood for Chinese but would rather have Italian. But the thought of not making dinner and cleaning up sounds nice, to I'll go wherever.
Husband: Well, I would rather have Chinese, but I love you, therefore I want to please you. Italian food it is.
The husband just submitted to the wife. He deferred to her desires because he loves her. He sacrificed what he wanted for the sake of what she wanted out of love. If that doesn't sound like submission, I'm not sure what does...
My pastor, Tony, shared in this sermon:
“Love is others centered, not self centered. Love is not turned inward, love is outward oriented. The best definition of biblical love that I have ever heard of or come across is this: that love is a joyful sacrifice for the sake of another”.
So live in freedom and love and don’t let others bind your conscience as to what is or is not submission.
Yes, submission is in the Bible. It is however a secondary command to loving others. It is only mentioned along with love. Love is much more central to the theme of the Bible and the Christian life than submission, and it is for men and women.
If THIS, love, is not the foundation for our discussions on marriage, for men and women, then it makes the headship/submission teachings mean something it was never intended to mean. If love is not at the center, then submission is nothing more than subjugation and oppression. And too often, we see subjugation and teach it as submission.
True Authority: Given, Directed, Limited, and Accountable | Unconquered amid the night “Toxic authority assumes that somehow the individual themselves has earned the right to be obeyed.”
Women In The Church- A Redemptive Historical Approach
Genesis 3:16 | My Only Comfort
Husbands, love your wives | My Only Comfort
https://margmowczko.com/mutual-submission-ephesians-5_21-1-peter-5_5/
*all scripture quotations are taken from the CSB
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