Biblical submission. You will be shocked!

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Submission

Is the action of accepting or yielding to a superior force or to the will or authority of another person. (According to lexico.com)

Why submit?

a) I believe submission is important, because any entity with more than one leader at the same level of authority rarely ends up successful; so, there needs to be one leader who makes the final decision. Therefore, for the excellent growth of a family, God chose who is to be the head.

When I think about it sometimes, I feel like God would have chosen the wife to lead, but maybe the men would have complained too. Either way, He had to choose one of the two, and He chose the husband. Fair enough He left every woman with the liberty to choose for herself the man to submit to.

b) Because "This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans..." (1 Corinthians 1:25) If He suggests that you submit or lead, then it's the wisest idea even when not the easiest thing to do.

Ephesians 5:24-25

 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. 

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. 

Biblical submission should be:

1. As much as you would love your church leadership to submit to the Holy Spirit.

I (I believe you too) wouldn't want to be a part of a church that is not hungry to submit under the instruction of the Bible and of Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. 

I guess it's the same way children don't enjoy belonging in a family where the mother doesn't submit to the father, let alone one where the father is selfish.

2. Not be against your submission to God.

1 Samuel 25 shares an interesting story of a wife who went against her husband's will. The husband had refused to share food with David and his men. So his wife made a feast, met David without telling her husband, and gave him (David) the food and gifts. In so doing, she saved not only her husband's life but also his entire lineage.

If we know King David and his reputation at battle, we know he would have killed Nabal, the husband, and everyone that shared a string of his blood like he had promised to.

She submitted to God instead of submitting to her husband's folly.

On the other hand, the wife who chose to submit to her husband's foolishness as opposed to respecting God, died instantly! And this happens right in the New Testament, which testament is usually pointed to as being gracious.

We see this in the book of Acts chapter 5, where Ananias chose to lie to the Holy Spirit and his wife agreed to consent to that decision. They both died instantly. Peter asked the wife in verse 9,

"How could the two of you even think of conspiring to test the Spirit of the Lord like this? 

He didn't even call that submission, he called it a conspiracy. Asking this question means that Peter expected the wife to respect God as opposed to "submitting" to her husband.

Let us not forget our beautiful queen Esther. She was not allowed to go to the King unless called upon, and for 30 days she respected her husband's wish, even though she might have really wanted a thing or two. But when she was tasked to choose between submitting either to God or her husband, she chose submitting to God even when that meant she could have been killed.

Esther 4:16 

... And then, though it is against the law, I will go in to see the king. If I must die, I must die."

3. Not to every man, it is to a Husband.

It is sad when some men, (even women) believe that every woman is to their submission. The Bible is clear: "Wives, submit to your Husbands". Other than that, the Bible encourages both men and women to play both roles of submission and selfless leadership in life.

In Marriage:

Husband- love your wife as Christ loved the church, giving up yourself for her.

Wife- submit to your husband as the church submits to Christ.

In Life:

Submit to one another.

Do all things for the benefit of others, not yourself.

Die to self so that Christ lives in you.

We all take on the roles of submission and selflessness, but in marriage, the Bible directs specific tasks to the wife and to the husband so that you don't find a husband or wife only leading when things are easy and submitting when leading gets tough, let alone finding both wife and husband choosing to submit/lead at the same time.

It is important to note that good leadership acknowledges and nurtures other people's strengths and weaknesses, and may choose to let the wife lead in a certain area of the family because she does better at it and not because he is cowardizing from that particular area.

What then is Biblical submission?

Biblical submission in the context of marriage, I believe, is both of you submitting your lives under the will of God.

It would be quite erroneous to conclude that Biblical submission means totally yielding to the husband, yet we still can't say it is yielding to the husband only when he seems to be in line with God. 

We can only say submission to the husband is allowing God to lead us and show us when to or not to submit.

He is the one who knows when submitting to your husband is wiser in a given situation than submitting to what you may believe is God. For example, in many cases it is wiser to submit to your husband's will not to go for overnight prayers every day of the week, which overnight prayers might look like they're the will of God.

He is still the one who can warn you not to submit to your husband's new business idea (for example), knowing that if he goes ahead with it, it may mark the end of his financial and mental peace. 

No, submission is not that obvious, it is a daily walk with God.

Thanks so much again for passing by and taking off time to read this week's article. I do hope you've been blessed. Don't forget to share your thoughts in the comments below. God bless you!