The word of God tells us that our first submission should be unto the Lord. “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” (Matthew 22:37).
God does not force us to follow Him nor does He want us to submit to another human being forcefully. He wants us to lovingly submit to Him and to each other.
Scriptures give us a guideline on how human beings are to submit to another. For our homes to be conflict-free we must understand what submission in marriage is.
In marriage, women are to be subject to their husband’s headship, and both of them are to submit to the Lord. In the flesh, the man is the head and should guide his home and family, while in the spirit, Jesus Christ is the head of the family and He guides us all.
Men have to love their wives like Jesus loves the church and laid His life down for her. Men who demand their wives to submit to them do not know the right way to win them because they are to love them with the love of God.
Ephesians 5:22-33 “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.”
When we talk about wives submitting to their husbands here, it does not mean a woman is to be a slave in bondage to that man, but rather it is to be done willingly in love. This submission is to be practiced by men and women in our homes and in our church family as well.
“Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honor preferring one another.” Romans 12:10
Both husband and wife should be submissive and loving and the love of Christ must rule in the home. When the submission by the wife is over-stressed then it can lead to many problems that cause the marriage to be out of balance.
“Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything” (Ephesians 5:24). The word “everything” here does not mean submitting to your husband when he is doing evil things.
Women need to submit to their husbands as the church submits to the lordship of Jesus Christ. He would never ask anything of the church that went against God’s Word and similarly women are never to submit to things that are not in line with the Bible.
