No, Your Husband is not Told to Make You Submit
As I pointed out in the recent articles, What is Biblical Womanhood?, Yes, Women Can Be Leaders, Too, and Women Teaching Men: What Does the Bible Actually Say?, there is a balance to be had when discussing what actually constitutes a "Biblical manhood and womanhood."The egalitarian camp of the church tends to lean towards the unBiblical idea that wives should not bother with submitting to their husbands. The complementarian camp also leans towards an unBiblical idea sometimes, and that is the idea that a husband should, if all else fails and spouses cannot come to an agreement, make his wife submit. Neither idea is true and neither is found in Scripture. To strike a Biblical balance, refute both of these wrong ideas, and to see what the Word actually does say, let's turn straight to the Bible itself.
Ephesians 5, Colossians 3,and Titus 2
We read in Ephesians 5:22-24,Colossians 3:18, and Titus 2:5 that wives are commanded by God to submit to their own husbands. The same Greek word is used in each passage-hypotasso. What is interesting about this word is that it is referring to a voluntary action on the part of the one who is submitting. It signifies a choosing to submit, an intentional, conscious choice to bring oneself under the protection and direction of another. Hypotasso was a Greek military term well-known for referring to the voluntary action of "arranging under", "subjecting oneself", and "yielding to one's admonition or advice."
Clearly, then, it is only ever the wife's responsibility to choose-on her own accord!-to subject herself to the direction of her husband over their family affairs. Nowhere in Scripture do we ever see the husband given the duty to force his wife to submit or to "bring her in line." In fact, let's turn for a moment to study what we actually do see husbands being commanded to do.
"Husbands, Love Your Wives"
In Ephesians 5, directly after Paul tells the wives that they are to submit to their husbands, we read this:
"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, (v. 25)"
The same teaching is found in Colossians 3, as well:
"Wives, submit to your own husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be bitter toward them. (vs.18-19)"
That's it. The husband's responsibility is to love his wife in a Christlike, sacrificial, tender, cherishing way. What his responsibility clearly is not is to make his wife submit to his leadership. Just as wives are not commanded to make sure their husbands love them the way they are supposed to, so likewise husbands are not commanded to make sure their wives submit as they should. Each party is individually responsible before God to be faithful to their own calling, and that is it. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.
Loving and Leading Like Christ
Furthermore, in order for a husband to truly love his wife in a Biblical, Christ-like way, he actually cannot force his wife to submit. To do so would be to go against the very example of Christ and His love which he is supposed to be emulating. Nowhere in Scripture do we ever see Christ making anyone submit to anything. Neither does He do so to us in our daily walk with Him. This is because there is a such thing as human responsibility, and if Christ made us submit to Him, it would not be true submission at the heart-level. It would mean nothing and be good for nothing. The Lord is only ever interested in the condition of the heart, not in making someone do something. So for a husband to put his foot down and try to "make" his wife submit is for him to be in direct contradiction to the Lord he has been called on to emulate in his marriage.
In the Case of a Disagreement
You may be wondering now, "If a husband is not supposed to make his wife submit, but a couple comes to a crossroads where a decision has to be made and the wife does not agree with her husband's position on the matter and therefore is not wanting to submit to him, what are they supposed to do?" That's a good question.
First of all, as long as what the husband is wanting his family to do is not in direct contradiction to Scripture, it would, again, be the wife's responsibility to choose to submit to his leading. Ephesians 5:22-24 makes it clear that her submission should be "as to the Lord" and "in everything," while Colossians 3:18 says she is to submit "as is fitting in the Lord." It is fitting for a wife to submit to her husband in everything, so long as the direction of the husband is not in contradiction to the Word (this is yet another reason why it is so crucial for women to know their Bibles!) It is in contradiction, then she should obey God rather than man (Acts 5:29).
Secondly, it is not a sinful decision which the couple cannot come to an agreement on, but the wife is still choosing to not submit, then I believe both spouses need to spend some serious time in prayer, asking the Lord to guide and direct them and to change hearts where necessary. Both spouses need to pray for humble, tender hearts which desire to please Him above all else. The Lord can move in mighty ways through prayer and can certainly change one spouse's heart or the other (or both, if need be!)
Thirdly, if time passes and an agreement and conclusion to the matter at hand can still not be found, then I believe it would be time to bring in an unbiased third party (i.e. your pastor or another trusted Christian adviser) to help you through that situation.
It's Up to Us, Ladies!
Here is my charge for all of us wives today: let's know the Word of God! Let's study it diligently, and seek to be faithful students of it who can rightly divide it, handle it well, and interpret it faithfully (see 2 Timothy 2:15).That is the first step towards our being the kind of wives we have been called by God to be. The second step is understanding that the whole "submission thing"is on us, not our husbands. It is not Biblically appropriate for a husband to "lord it over" his wife or to make her submit. But it is appropriate for us as wives to choose voluntarily to submit ourselves to our husband's headship of our family. May the Lord help and equip us to do just that!
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