Submission is nothing new. We must submit to the police, to government, children must submit to their parents, workers must submit to their employers. The Bible says the head of every man is Christ and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. Even Christ submitted to his Father, remember how he asked if there was a way for the cup of judgement to pass from him, if there was some other way? Then he said, “not my will, but yours”, then continued on to bear the entire weight of all the sin in the history of mankind, in his perfect and sinless being. Being obligated to submit doesn’t mean one is inferior to the other, just that there must be a way to have an ordered society, workplace, marriage, anything.
Again, I will check comments AFTER I say my piece. Before we launch into this topic of a wife’s submission to her husband, I will note that although she is to be obedient or submissive to her husband “in everything”, that is not the case if her husband asks her to sin, to do something she knows is wrong. The head of the woman is the man, but the head of the man is God, and if the wife is told to do something sinful by her husband, she is to disobey him, because he is not submitting to his authority. He is to ask her to do things that are in line with God’s will for them, not opposed to it.
You’re going to hear a lot tonight that might bother you, or it might be music to your ears, but it will be the truth, and personally, I don’t see why, if understood properly, this idea of submission and even sacrifice of the husband is all that difficult to accept. This will also give you a chance to think of a comment. Ephesians 5:22-33 New International Version (NIV) 22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing[a] her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body.31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”[b] 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33
However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
