Submission

I cropped this graphic from a photo taken before their wedding. Recently, looking through some of their family ephemera, they ran across the photo and shared it. Four children and a couple of jobs later, they looked back and so did we. I’ve known them since before they met. I enjoyed watching him grow in faith through high school.

He lived his faith. He led Bible studies for other students. He attended and graduated from Bible college. He dedicated his life to service our Lord, and has done so as student, Youth Pastor, and now serving as Pastor of a Baptist church.

I knew another young man, in the same group of young men at our church whose common goal was to serve the Lord. He, too, attended and graduated from Bible college, served as an evangelist, Youth Minister, pastored a church, married and had two children – but walked away from his church to become what Paul described:

which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck: (1 Timothy 1:19b KJV)

What was put away was:

Holding faith, and a good conscience;  (1 Timothy 1:19 KJV)

Both wives trust scripture as to how to live with their husbands. We share respect for these verses:

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. (Ephesians 5:22-24 KJV)

In the first example, the husband and wife continue to serve the Lord together. In the second example, the marriage did not survive substance abuse, physical abuse, and lack of a job to provide for their children. Too long she followed the verse her husband drilled into her that she was to submit to him, his desires, and his life, although her husband had overlooked the verse before Ephesians 5:22:

Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. (Ephesians 5:21 KJV)

And the one following verse 24:

That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. (Ephesians 5:26-28 KJV)

There is a serious problem in picking and choosing verses to be used to accomplish our own desires. The Bible has very few stand-on-their-own verses, and even those raise questions and require additional definition. All scripture is to be studied in relation to God, not to each other.

No woman is required by any Bible verses to submit to a man who cannot submit himself to God. There is nothing biblical about a man who will strike his wife in front of their children. There is, in fact, verses that speak to anyone who damages a child’s faith:

Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come! It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones. (Luke 17:1-2 KJV)

There is a verse, too, about a man who will not provide for his family:

For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. (2 Thessalonians 3:10 KJV)

Yes – I have quoted verses here without their surrounding context, and I encourage you to read them in the Bible to verify they have not been used to change their meaning. That’s the true purpose here, to encourage Bible reading.

“Me? Obey Him?’ is an excellent question that is answered in the Bible. It depends on the “Him.” For a wife following Christ married to a husband following Christ, my answer is an unabashed affirmative.

For a wife following Christ married to a husband who has abandoned his faith and conscience, my answer is an unabashed “NO!”

Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. (2 Timothy 3:5 KJV)

Please read the verses preceding 3:5. There are several descriptions, but they all are to be shunned. Just as those listed here:

If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself. (1 Timothy 6:3-5 KJV)

Do not submit to those whose actions and words are anti-Christ.