I’m not always good at understanding everything a person is telling me. Sometimes I hear only the words and miss the context, the emotion, the depth of meaning, and the full purpose of what they’re saying. I will be thinking in very black and white concepts, so all I get is a surface understanding or even a misunderstanding of what they’re trying to tell me. Just ask my wife.
I think that has happened for a some people who have interpreted and taught the section in Ephesians we have come to: chapter 5, verse 21 to chapter 6, verse 9. This is Paul’s teaching on marriage and the family. You know – wives submitting, husbands being the head, children obeying, and slaves being good “employees.” All of that is in there, but if that’s all we hear, we’ll get it wrong.
Some have gotten it extremely wrong. 
There’s a brand of Christianity that says Paul was teaching a “chain of command” or “umbrella of authority” in the family. It goes like this: Christ is over the husband; the husband is over the wife; the parents are over the children. As long as the children stay under the umbrella of their parents and the wife stays under the umbrella of her husband, they will have an acceptable relationship with God. That’s a serious, egregious misunderstanding of this section of Scripture because it misses the context, background, and purpose of what Paul taught.
Continuing his teaching about being drunk on God or filled with the Spirit, Paul wrote, 5:21, “and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.” This is more Spirit-filled living. When Jesus established his Kingdom on earth by his death and resurrection he gave the Spirit to his followers so we can live in his Kingdom. Now, in Christ by the Holy Spirit, we can live by the ways of God’s Kingdom. We can live by the principles, the protocols, the values, the methods, and, most importantly, in response to the King of God’s Kingdom.
The way of the Kingdom for our marriages and families starts here: “be subject to one another.” The NIV puts it, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Then Paul shows wives how to do that. Then he shows husbands how to do that. Then he shows children how to do that. Then he shows parents how to do that. Then he shows slaves how to do that. Then he shows masters how to do that. But there’s even more to it than those specific roles in families. We’ll get to that later.
The coming of the Messiah and his Kingdom was a re-start for humanity. We get to start over and do things differently (from how things were left after “the fall” in Genesis 3). When reading what Paul wrote about wives submitting to their husbands and children obeying their parents, we need to understand something about the re-start for women and children in the Kingdom of God. Pastor Lloyd Ogilvie sums this up well. Here’s some of his description:
We must understand that the position of women and children was radically altered by the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. It was unheard of for a rabbi to say, “Let the children come unto me…” Christ’s words set in motion a revolution that changed the attitude of the world toward children. He lived in a time when children were not allowed to speak in public, because they were considered insignificant. In the Roman context, a newborn child was laid before the father for judgment. He had the power to decide whether to keep the child as his own or to kill it. Sometimes inferior children were drowned. Often, children were sold in the marketplace.
[Let me add that sometimes the Roman father would reject a baby because it was a girl and she was taken out into the countryside and left for wild animals. Christians often rescued those abandoned girls.]
Dr. Ogilvie continues: Jesus also changed the place of women. It was inconceivable that a rabbi would speak to a woman and treat her as a person rather than as an object. It was unprecedented that any leader would have women in his band of followers. It was astonishing that the early church had women as well as men in leadership. Women were playthings for men. Men could divorce their wives with a brief document that needed little explanation. For the apostle Paul to say, “Love your wives as Christ loves the church,” was revolutionary. (Enjoying God, p176f, edited)
We have to see that these instructions about submitting and obeying are not put-downs or demeaning or degrading. They are not saying that some people are less important or less human or less loved by God than others. Paul also wrote in Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” In the Kingdom of God, all God’s people are equal.
Something else to see in Paul’s instructions: we’re equal but we’re not identical. New Testament scholar N.T. Wright says, “Paul assumes, as do most cultures, that there are significant differences between men and women, differences that go far beyond mere biological and reproductive function. Their relations and roles must therefore be mutually complementary, rather than identical.” In God’s Kingdom, people – men, women, children – don’t get homogenized. We don’t get stirred up until we’re all the same. There are distinctions and differences, and there are different roles, different functions, different purposes that we are instructed to fulfill.
About those instructions. Paul addresses each person in the family: wives, husbands, children, fathers. Each one of us needs to pay attention to the one that is addressed to me and not the instruction given to others. If you’re not a wife, you don’t need to focus on what he says to wives. If you’re not a husband, don’t focus on what he says to husbands. Same thing for children and parents. You need to understand what your role is, how God intends for you to function in your family, and not be too concerned about the others.
Each one of the instructions has a significant qualifier. They all say something like “in Christ” or “as to Christ” or “of the Lord.” Our roles have a connection to Jesus our Messiah. How we function in our families is to be shaped and evaluated by Christ and our relationship with him. He is the model, the guide, the standard for what we do in our families. And he is the power and wisdom and grace for being able to fulfill our responsibilities. Our places in our families must be Christ-centered.
“Wives, be subject to your own husbands…” “Husbands, love your wives…” “Children, obey your parents…” “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger…” Those all add up to the first verse we read: “be subject to one another…” “Submit to one another…” Family life in the Kingdom of God is mutual submission. Each one caring about the others as much as they care about themselves. Each one looking out for the needs and interests of the others. Each one committed to the good of the others.
Author and business leader Fred Smith stopped at a doughnut shop in East Texas. He sat down near a young couple. After they finished their doughnuts, the man got up to pay the bill but the woman remained seated. Then he came back and stood in front of her. He bent over a bit and she put her arms around his neck, and he lifted her up, revealing that she was wearing a full-body brace. He lifted her out of her chair and backed out the front door. He carried her to their pickup and gently placed her in the cab. Everyone in the shop watched all this in silence. Then a waitress remarked, almost reverently, “He took his vows seriously.”
We are to be servants to each other. Wife a servant to her husband. Husband a servant to his wife. Children servants to their parents. Parents servants to their children. Mutual submission.
But submission is a bad word in American culture. Not just America, of course. Any way of life outside the Kingdom of God does not endorse submission.
Let’s be clear – submission does not mean you give in to being dominated and manipulated and bullied by another person. It doesn’t mean you stay in an abusive relationship with a spouse or parent or friend or anyone. You don’t live as a doormat. Submission is voluntarily setting aside your rights and wants and conveniences to serve another person out of love in the name of Jesus.
But outside the Kingdom, the driving force is I deserve my rights and wants and conveniences. I deserve to have and to do what makes me feel good. Therefore I will decide for myself what I will be and what I will do. I will not allow anyone to limit what I believe are my personal entitlements.
This gets carried into how people view God. I want my life to be this way and I deserve to have it this way, and God should be my supplier. God’s job is to make sure I have whatever I want to make me happy. I decide for myself how I will live, and God ought to be my enabler. God’s job is to help me carry out the choices I make for myself.
Now we’re getting to the context and meaning and purpose of this section of Scripture. Submission to Christ is the way of life in God’s Kingdom because that’s how life works best. The word for submit or subject is a combination of two words: under and arranged. It means “be arranged under.” The arrangement, the structure, the formation of life in God’s Kingdom is being under the Lordship of Christ and living that out by being servants to others. Submission in family relationships is a means for living in submission to Christ and an expression of living in submission to Christ.
We’re instructed to submit to submission. Accept submission as the way of life for a Christ follower. Willingly take on serving others out of love in the name of Jesus.
In his book, Descending Into Greatness, Bill Hybels tells about a woman named Angie Garber. Angie lived and served as a missionary on a Navajo Indian reservation in New Mexico. It’s pretty much isolated from the rest of the world, 30 miles from the nearest town. She lived in a 3-room house. Her luxuries were a small organ, a portable radio, and a small cement pond with goldfish. At the time Hybels wrote about her, she had just been given a TV, the first she ever owned. Almost every day, Angie got in her small pickup and drove throughout the reservation seeing different people. Sometimes she read to them from the Bible. Sometimes she gave them food or clothes. Sometimes she just checked on how they were doing and talked with them. Angie explains what she was doing this way: “Christ says to love. That’s the great thing he wants you to do. If you love somebody, then you are going to be a blessing to them. You don’t even feel like you are being a servant to someone, if you love them… The best thing about love is that you know the Lord is working in you. People don’t love you for how wonderful you are; they love you because you belong to the Lord. They can see him in you.” More than 40 years earlier, at the age of 38, after having polio and after caring for her mentally unstable mother and never marrying, Angie moved from Indiana to that reservation. She submitted to submission. She accepted the arrangement in God’s Kingdom of being a servant to Christ and to people.
Let’s remember that we’re submitting to the One who loved us and gave himself for us. The One who humbled himself and became a servant for us. The One who obeyed his Father all the way to the grave for our redemption. The One who gives us life by giving his life. The One who makes us free and healed and joyful. We don’t have to fear that submitting to Jesus will make life miserable or boring or destructive. It might be difficult or dangerous, but it will be life abundant. Missionary pioneer Hudson Taylor said, “When the heart submits, then Jesus reigns. When Jesus reigns, there is rest.”
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Very well said.
Thanks