Answering a Question on Submission

Hello people, its another week, and another fruitful and satisfactory week it will be for us in Jesus name. I want to address a question from a friend on today’s post and pray that it will make loads of meaning in the lives of those who read it.

Her Question:

Hello Derin dear, may grace be on the increase in your life daily. Please, I would like you to give an insight on marital submission in the home. Does the command to wives to submit to their husbands in all things mean the wives should be doormat to their husbands or dumb? Does it mean a wife should earn salary and give it to her husband?

Response

In order to have clarity on this issue, we need to go back to those Bible scriptures were the command to submit are found and try to really understand what it is all about. Even though we have gone over this several times, we will continue to go over it until proper clarity is achieved.

Ephesians 5:22-24

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

1 Peter 3:1-2

Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. 

So we will look at this command bit by bit and understand the mind of God on this issue of submission. And the very first thing I want the wives to understand is that it is not the husband that requested for the submission that you are giving, but God; it is not your husband that gave the command to submit, but God. And obedience to God’s word is what we are considering now. There is no point affiliating yourself to Christ or calling yourself a child of God when you cannot obey His word because you have concluded within you that such a command does not make sense to you or it does not suit you. Just like God commands us not to tell lies, and not to cheat, and not to murder and to honor our father and mother, and to keep the Sabbath day holy, so also did God command us wives to submit to our husbands as to the Lord. If you can hold all the other laws and commands of God sacrosanct, so also should you hold the submission law sacrosanct.

When you faithfully obey God and do His will and commands for your life, then you can be sure that He (the Lord) will faithfully grant you the desires of your heart because He is a faithful God who keeps His promises. Psalm 37:4 says “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” So when you obey God in your marital life by submitting to your husband as God has commanded you to do, He will grant you the desires of your heart by blessing you with a beautifully joyful marriage.

The problem with a lot of wives is that they focus more on their husbands when it comes to the issue of submission in marriage rather than focusing on God as though it's their husbands they are accountable to in this matter. They then hold on to the negative attitude of their husbands as an excuse to disobey the word of God. It's not your husband that you will give account to when it comes to obedience to the word of God; you are accountable to God. And for these wives, when things are not working well in their homes, they either claim that God is unfair or take the law into their hands in some cases and walk out of the marriage forgetting that the answer to prayers for a loving marriage resides in their obedience to God’s word.

Paul said in Romans 12:19 that “Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay, says the Lord.’” It is only an ignorant husband that will turn his wife into a doormat, because any wrong done against you will be avenged by God if you are patient enough to let God’s process take its course in your situation. 1 Peter 3:7 and Malachi 2:16 tells us that a husband who does not treat his wife properly risk his prayers not answered by God. Now in your own understanding, can any man escape the wrath of God? If your husband wrongs you, he will pay for whatever he has done against you and if you disobey God’s word by not submitting to your husband, then you are an offender yourself and you will be rewarded accordingly.

Another problem that wives have is that rather than obey their husbands to a point where such husband is drawn to God in full repentance, they harbor hatred for him. They curse their husbands in their minds and with their mouths, yet they want God’s intervention in a case where they are just as guilty as the husband. And then we wonder how God will judge such a matter without the two being punished.

Romans 12:14, 17-18, 21

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

If God will give you this command concerning those who are just meant to be your neighbors with no peculiar attachment between you and them, then how much more will God require a double effort from you when it comes to your husband? Remember 1 Peter 3:1-2 says that it is through the purity and reverence of your life that springs from your submission to your husband that your unbelieving husband will be won over to God. So your submission to your husband is a tool in the hands of God to bring to repentance and holiness your unbelieving husband. If your husband is the only soul you win for Jesus through your submissive lifestyle, I am confident that God will reward you richly.

On the issue of submitting your income, I will say this: If God should ask for your money and you can give Him willingly; then if your husband should ask for your income/money, you should not hold back. The instruction from the Lord says submit to your husband as to the Lord.

If your husband did not ask for your income, please keep your money to yourself and spend it as you wish because you worked for it. But if he demands it of you, the word of God says submit to your husband in everything.

When you are a Christian and you are aligned with God and obeying His words, your words are law, because you will declare a thing and it will come to pass. This is a powerful weapon that is useful in your marriage. When you are doing the will of God, you will command peace, joy, love and abundance into your marriage and you will see it manifest. When you declare increase in the life of your husband and you serve a God who fulfills the words of your mouth, then you can be sure of increase in the life of your husband that will make your own income be like peanuts to him; he will have more than enough that he won’t need your income not to talk of demanding of it.

I believe this post has revealed a lot to us, enough to help a lot of troubled marriages and I pray that the Lord will heal many homes and joy, peace and love will return into many marriages in Jesus name.