Submission Can Change Your Husband

A wife's submission to her husband can create some wonderful changes in her marriage. She may not like submitting to a man who is insensitive; but if she can, it might bring about the changes she desires. It says this in 1st Peter 3:1-2:

"Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives, when they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear."

This is, of course, talking about an unsaved husband who comes to Christ for salvation because of his wife's quiet, godly example. He comes to Christ because he can see Jesus reflected in her. she is accurately portraying what a Christian should be.

But if that works to get an unsaved husband saved, you just might win over your insensitive husband to be the kind of husband he needs to be in the same manner. It may never happen, but it might. And how much easier is it to win him over with proper Biblical submission than with constant argument or nagging? Let love conquer evil. Let responsibility shame irresponsibility. Let grace, not hostility, win him over.

After all, how did Christ win you? 1st Peter 3:8-9 says:

"Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous; not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary blessing, knowing that you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing."

That blessing will certainly be a closer relationship with God, not to mention reward in heaven. But it just also might be a changed husband. Linda Dillow has commented on just that:

"I cannot promise you that if you respond with a blessing when you are hurt or
wounded, your husband will change. I cannot promise you a life of happiness and personal fulfillment, but I can promise you that you are living according to your purpose and calling as a Christian; you are obeying the will of God and there is peace in obedience. The first reason you are to respond this way is not so that you can secure a hoped-for change in your mate, but because it is God's desire that you make that kind of response."

Isn't that a great reason to be obedient? As Gary and Betsy Ricucci write, "A magnificent marriage begins not with knowing one another but with knowing God." Are you drawing closer to God. Your marriage to a difficult mate might be a tool in the process.

Let me tell you what won't work. One of the biggest complaints that wives have is that their husband won't take any responsibility. He is supposed to be the head of the home, but he isn't. He goes off playing instead of taking his responsibilities like a kid who never grew up. So what does a typical good wife do? She takes over. He doesn't pay the bills, so she gets a job and pays them. Now he doesn't need to worry about that, so his money can go to buy his toys. He doesn't discipline the kids, so she takes over. Soon, he doesn't have to worry about anything. What has this good, God fearing woman done? she has allowed her husband to continue in his irresponsibility. She has let him get away with it.

Now the husband and wife are supposed to be a team, both pulling together. And there is nothing wrong with a wife taking over a lot of the household duties. But your husband will never become the leader in the home that way. Nor will it work to belittle him every time he fails. How much better to step back and say, "You are the head of our home. What is your decision? We will abide by that." Let hem make the decisions and face the consequences for them. Again, you have to decide where the line is to be drawn, and you can't sit there and let the kids starve, but you need to let him take responsibility for his family. You can help him become the husband God has called him to be.

Submission is Not Absolute

Over the past couple of weeks we have been talking about submission from Ephesians 5:22. If you add in the parallel passage from Colossians 3;18, "Wives, submit to your own husband, as is fitting in the Lord," we see that God considers submission an appropriate thing. That is what fitting means. Submission is the right thing for a wife to do. For her to submit to her husband is a beautiful thing - a thing that pleases God.

Also, this is an unqualified command. This command is made to every wife regardless of her spacial standing, education, I.Q., or spiritual maturity. It doesn't say submit to your husband unless you happen to be smarter, better educated, etc. - and if you are, then it is OK to usurp his God-given authority. It doesn't say that.

This command is to every wife. Later in Ephesians it will also command the wife to respect her husband. That is why young girls really ought to be careful in who they pick. I've seen way too many young girls let their mothering instinct kick in, and they pick some maggoty, drug riddled loser to marry because they think they can reform him. Then they wonder why they can't stand to live with him. Why can't he hold a job? Why can't he stay out of jail? Or whatever. If she wants to reform him, she should become a social worker, not marry him. Or they pick some carefree guy who makes them laugh all the time and have fun. Then they wonder why he can't ever stop joking and talk with them or take life's responsibilities seriously. They need to pick carefully, because God expects you to live and submit to that man you have chosen. He is to be the leader of your home. Young women can't pick their spouse for all the wrong reasons then not like who they have picked and use that as an excuse not to submit.

It says in Ephesians 5:24 that the wives are to submit "in everything." This means in every area of life. Now there is a caveat to this. As with many commands of Scripture, they are not absolute. They are not required in every situation. For instance, the command, "Thou shalt not kill," doesn't apply in times of war. God sent Israel to war many times in the Old Testament. Also capital punishment was required buy God - the execution of a convicted criminal. Lying is another of the Ten Commandments. But Rahab was commended by God for hiding the spies and lying about whether they were there. There are legitimate exceptions.

Likewise, the wife is to submit to her husband "as unto the Lord," but not against the Lord. The Lord is the Big Boss. If your husband wants you to rob a bank, you aren't required to because God already told you not to steal. And he's the Big boss. Nor does a wife have to involve herself in wife swapping if her husbands wants her to, God has already given a command against adultery, and her first submission is to God. Then her submission is unto her husband "as unto the Lord." But not in place of the Lord. Not in spite of the lord.

Nor does this mean that a wife has to put up with physical abuse or tolerate it toward her children. She has an obligation to protect them. If her husband is physically or sexually abusing her children, she needs to call the authorities and have him thrown in jail. Her highest responsibility is to the protection of her children.

She should use her head, of course. There is a distinct difference between a firm disciplinarian who may spank Biblically and a husband who abuses. A sting on the bottom might be exactly what that child needs at the moment, and it isn't abuse. Most people know the difference. But physical or sexual abuse is never acceptable. Get help quick in that situation. No wife should ever sit idly by as her children are hurt - NEVER! So learn the proper balance.

Submission is a general rule for wives. they are required to submit to their husbands. But the submission is always first to the lord.

Submitting to an Insensitive Clod - Part Two

The sad fact is that many wives are married to men who are insensitive clods. For them to obey the command to submit to their husbands seems to be totally unfair and onerous. Why would God ask them - no, command them - to submit to someone like that? What possible reason could God have? How can a wife ever be happy in a situation like that?

Let me offer you a different perspective. Maybe the primary purpose of your marriage isn't to make you happy, but to make you holy. have you considered that just maybe God intended your marriage to be about remaking you; that maybe this is about making you more holy? That would be a higher priority to God, wouldn't it? In Romans 8:29 we read, "For whom He foreknew He predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son."

God wants to make us more like Jesus. Maybe God is working to transform that wife into the image of Jesus Christ who humbled Himself even to the point of death, even the death on the cross. Maybe this is more about changing her than her spouse. Francis DeSales wrote way back in the 1600s, "The state of marriage is one that requires more virtue and constancy than any other. It is a perpetual exercise in mortification. From this thyme plant, in spite of the bitter nature of its juice, you may be able to draw and make the honey of a holy life."

Did you hear that? marriage is a "perpetual exercise in mortification." That means we must continually put to death our old selfish natures if we want our marriages to work. We must daily be crucified with Christ. As Galatians 5:24 says, "And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." Our selfish natures must be daily crucified. Our selfish natures must daily be put to death. No longer our flesh, but Christ must rule in our lives. As Paul said of himself in Galatians 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me."

The marriage relationship allows us daily opportunities to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Christ. Jesus told us to do just that in Matthew 16:24-26, "Then Jesus said to His disciples, 'If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?'" Getting your own way isn't going to count for much with God, is it?

Your marriage might be the place where you have to deny yourself daily and bear your cross. But it can make you a better disciple of Jesus if you do. Being married to someone, living with them day in and day out; that more than anything will reveal what is inside of us. That will show us more of our own selfish nature than anything else. It will be like a giant spotlight revealing our ugly side that needs to be conformed to the will of God.

As Katherine Anne Porter writes, "[Marriage] is the merciless revealer, the great white searchlight turned on the darkest places of human nature." Marriage will allow the wife who is submissive to God to truly make the changes in her life that will most glorify God; because the command to submit isn't primarily directed at the wife to submit to her husband, but for her to submit to God. Ephesians 5:22 says, "Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord." Submission first is to the Lord.

The issue is truly the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Is He really Lord of your life? Will you really do what He asks? Or will you do only what you feel will make your life easier and more pleasant? This shows what kind of a disciple you are, because in submitting to your husband, you are submitting to Christ.

Time to Work it Through, Not Bail Out

What is a wife to do if she is married to an insensitive clod? Must she submit to a man like that? The people of the world would tell you that if your old man doesn't toe the line, you have no obligation to be a good wife to him. Stand up for your rights, they would say, and battle him tooth and nail. And if he doesn't straighten up, dump him! Get rid of him! Get the big 'D."

But God says, if you are my child, you ought to act differently from the world. You ought to obey my commands. In the book of Leviticus 18:1-5, it says:

"Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 'Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: I am the Lord your God. According to the doings of the land of Egypt, where you dwelt, you shall; not do; and according to the doings of the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you, you shall not do; nor shall you walk in their ordinances. You shall observe My judgments and keep My ordinances, to walk in them: I am the Lord your God. You shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments, which if a man does, he shall live by them: I am the Lord.'"

Don't live like the Egyptians or the Canaanites. In other words, don't live like the world. Don't do what they do. Instead, follow the commands of God. That's pretty clear. The Lord wants you to do things His way, and His ways are different from the ways of the unsaved pagans.

Or in the New Testament, it says this same thing. Ephesians 4:17 teaches, "This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind." Translation? You are a Christian, so act like it. Don't live like the World lives. There is nothing but futility if you live that way. It shouldn't matter if the whole world walks to a different drummer, you should obey God. You should listen to His drumbeat.

The simple truth is, for a Christian, divorce in those situations isn't an option. Way back in the book of Malachi, we can read this truth. Malachi 2:16 says, "For the Lord God of Israel says that He hates divorce, for it covers one's garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. Therefore take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously." Divorce is a violent thing. It tears apart hearts and homes. It destroys the lives of children. And God hates it.

Jesus went all the way back to creation to make that point in Matthew 19:4-6, "And He answered and said to them, 'Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate." It is a violent thing to tear apart a family. And God hates it!

Certainly there are exceptions to the No Divorce rule. In Matthew 19, Jesus even gave the one of continuing sexual sin on the part of a spouse. But God's intention for marriage is that it last till death do you part. There is no exception for your husband being an insensitive clod. As a Christian you must preserve your marriage and learn to make it work. Your choice than is this: Do you make the best of it, doing your best to please God and obey Him? Or do you follow the world and trash your relationship with your husband? But to trash your relationship isn't going to please God. The choice is yours.

Submitting to an Insensitive Clod

It is easy to paint a rosy picture when talking about submission. We can do that by pointing out that perfect husband who actually lives out the command of Ephesians 5:25 to love his wife sacrificially as Christ loved the church. That kind of husband would be easy for a wife to submit to. He would want to serve his wife. He would voluntarily help with the dishes and volunteer to rub her feet when they hurt. He would be attentive to meet her needs. Ah, if every wife had that kind of a husband, life would be great. Marriage would be beautiful.

Unfortunately, not every woman is married to a man like that. Instead, some women are married to a selfish pig of a husband - to an insensitive clod who couldn't see a dirty dish if it was set on the table in front of him. He wouldn't care if his wife's feet hurt just as long as she was well enough to meet his needs. He might not even notice if his wife were dying on the couch as long as she didn't interfere with his view of the TV. That kind of a man is hard to submit to - incredibly hard. Nobody denies that. And lots of women are married to men like that.

But quite frankly, even the best of husbands are at times insensitive. Even the best of husbands will hurt their wives at times. Even the best of husbands will get too tired to notice their wife has a need. Some good husbands have bad days and get so frazzled that the last thing they want to do is have meaningful conversation or spell their wife in watching the kids. All they may have energy for is crashing on the couch and vegging.

A wife in that situation may be tempted to retaliate - to get back at him for being so insensitive. She will be tempted to treat him as bad as she feels he has treated her - to disrespect him and ignore his needs - or tell him off in no uncertain words.

But that's counterproductive, isn't it? Doesn't that just compound the problem? When someone sins against you, when has it ever helped to add a second sin to the mix? In Gary Thomas' book, Sacred Influence, he writes,

"Fighting your husband's irresponsibility with irresponsibility of your own is like pouring gasoline on a fire; it just makes things that much more explosive, that much worse."

He's right! It does! Because now there are two of you acting irresponsibly and violating God's command, not just one.

Yes, that kind of a man is hard to submit to, no doubt about it. That kind of a man can make marriage seem more like a ball and chain than the joy it was intended to be. And that kind of man is, unfortunately, all too common. So what is a Christian wife to do? How can she submit to someone who only wants to walk all over her? If that's the kind of husband she has, how?

Here's the bad news. Even in this, she really ought to obey God. Whether it is difficult or easy, she really ought to obey God.

Submission is Mutual

We ended last time by looking at the context of the command to the wife in Ephesians 5:22 to submit to her husband. We saw that the command was in the context of having a husband who obeyed the command to him in Ephesians 5:25 to love his wife as Christ loved the church. That shouldn't be surprising. Submission to one another is a Biblical mandate. Just prior to this section dealing with the husband and the wife, there is the general command of Ephesians 5:21, which says, "submitting to one another in the fear of God." Within the body of Christ, we are all supposed to submit to one another - me to you, you to me, each of us to each other.

And we are told how to do this. Philippians 2:3-4, part of a longer passage dealing with Christ humbling Himself and coming to earth to die on the cross for us, teaches us how this submitting should be done. Philippians 2:3-4 says, "Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others." That's how it is supposed to work within the church - the body of Christ, the Family of God. Then Paul shows us who did it first. In Philippians 2:5 it says, "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." Jesus gave us the example of submission. He submitted to His Father, even to the point of death. He died on the cross for us who are so unworthy.

In that way, husbands are as obligated to submit to their wives as to any one else, but even more so. They must be willing to die for their wives, as Christ was willing to die for the church. Now certainly, if we are supposed to submit to one another this way in the Body of Christ, how much more so should we be willing to submit to our husband or wife - the one person in all the world we have chosen to live with for life? How much more ready should we be to esteem them better than ourselves and to put their needs ahead of our own?

So think about the context of the command for the wife to submit to her husband. Who is her husband? If he is the man of God he should be, he will be living out the command to love his wife as Christ loved the church. He will be considering his wife as better than himself. He will look out for her interests more than his own. He would willing die for her if it were necessary. Nothing is more submissive than that. He will be a good person to live with, and an easy man to submit to.

Unclouding the Concept of Submission

Most people have a cloudy concept of submission, especially within marriage. That's why it is so rarely practiced within the home, and perhaps why it is so disliked by wives. When a wife hears or reads Ephesians 5:22, which says, "Wives, submit to your own husbands, as unto the Lord," they instinctively react with self preservation, fearing that they will be dominated by an overbearing husband. From our previous discussion, we learned that this is part of the curse. It was not God's original intention for the home. And our purpose is not to live in and perpetuate the curse, but to roll back the curse in our homes.

But if people have the wrong concept of submission, what is wrong with what they have been taught? And what is the correct Biblical teaching? The word for submit as found in Ephesians 5:22 is hupotasso. It is a compound of two Greek words - hupo, which means under, and tasso, which means to order. Thus the word simply means to place in an orderly fashion. That sounds like a great concept for marriages doesn't it - to have things nice and orderly?

But the problem comes when the original Greek usage is brought incorrectly into consideration. Hupotasso was first a military term meaning to rank or line up under. The corporal would line up under the sergeant, and the private would line up under the corporal. But, just because that's how it works in the military doesn't make it a very attractive definition for the home. Who wants a marriage patterned after the military?

No wonder wives rebel if all they are ever taught is that their husband is the drill instructor while she is the buck private who has to jump at his every command. If not, she gets yelled at, screamed at, intimidated, threatened, and have to do push ups. Who wants a relationship like that? That any woman would willing get married if that was what marriage was like is truly amazing. But it isn't - at least, it's not supposed to be.

May I remind you, that wasn't God's original intention for marriage. That kind of relationship (a drill instructor husband with a dominated, groveling wife) arose because of the curse. It is exactly what Ephesians 5 is trying to correct. Submission like that isn't going back to Eden, but it is perpetuating the status quo of the curse. Yet, that's exactly how I have heard Ephesians 5;22 taught. BUT THAT'S JUST PLAIN WRONG!

No! God calls wives to submit, not to a drill instructor sergeant, but to a loving husband obeying the command of Ephesians 5:25, "Husbands, love your wives as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her." This husband will love his wife so much, he would die for her. If he loved her that much, he would willing serve her in life. The wife's submission is not to men in general, but to her own husband - the one man she has chosen from all the men in the world to love and serve, and who has chosen her as the one woman in all the world he will love and serve with his very life. Submission, therefore, has to be understood in the the context of this passage, in the context of mutual sacrificial love. For the wife to voluntarily respond to and submit to him isn't slavery, buy a joy.