But here’s the thing… you can tell women to submit if you like, as long as you obey Eph 5:21 “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ”….that would be taking the log out of your own eye before seeing to take a speck out of your brother’s eye.
Personally, I have never suggested that you do not love your wife. But you have implied that most of us on this board do not submit to our husbands.
This is a very strange comment to me. I honestly don't remember implying that women on the board don't submit to their husbands. I have probably pointed out that when the topic come up, some women will be like....uh.. don't submit if he tells you to rob a bank... as the first thing that comes to their mind-- the exceptions rather than the rule, because the topic is uncomfortable. I've disagreed with the approach to scripture of some posters, many of whom aren't active here now anyway. But I also realize that someone could take an approach to scripture I totally disagree with but in practice be a submissive person. It's not the same thing, though even a person is a submissive personality or mindset could cause or experience some problems from holding to the wrong ideas or interpretation. But I don't know what you are thinking of when you wrote that I implied most women on her don't submit to their husbands. I don't have any way of knowing that. If I think a widely held view of the doctrine on the forum is wrong, I have no idea what goes on in people's houses, and I don't think I've ever implied that I do.
So here is a new twist. Link you must submit to your wife out of reverence for Christ. It is scriptural, and for you not to do it, you are in sin, particularly when you expect her to submit to you.
This is a leap many egalitarians make without realizing that there is a kind of obvious alternative interpretation: delination. I'm not sold either way on mutual submission or delineation. I believe delineation is true, but that doesn't rule out the idea that mutual submission could also be taught in the passage.
What do I mean by delineation. An egalitarian may look at Ephesians 5 and say we all have to submit to one another. One website argues we all have to submit
equally to one another, which is a totally irrational interpretation of the passage, IMO that makes no sense in context.
The other way of looking at it is to read the command to submit to one another and say everyone has someone to submit to. One submits to one person and another submits to another. In this passage, it says submit to one another, and then says who is supposed to submit to whom. The next verse tells wives to submit to husbands. The passage goes on to tell children to submit to their parents and slaves to submit to their masters.
Are 'one anothers' reciprocal? A lot of them are. We take 'love one another' that way, and we should. Everyone is to love each other in the body. But what about the passage in the book of Revelation where soldiers killed on another with their swords. Did each of thousands of soldiers each stab every other individual soldier in such a way that each soldier contributed the exact same amount to each other soldier's death? That seems an unlikely picture for John's vision. It is more likely that one stabbed one soldier and another stabbed another. They killed one another. One stoldier killed one soldier, and another killed another.
And one believer submits to one believer, and one believer submits to another. The wife submits to the husband, and the children submits to the parents. We don't usually use that verse 'submit to one another' in relation to parents submitting to their children. A mutual submission leads to this conclusion. If that is the case, there is a much less degree of submission in this case and 'submission' means something different than it should for the wife to the husband. Mutual submission folks might say they submit to their children by taking care of them or listening to their wishes.
Is that really what hupotasso means? It was used in military contexts. That's one argument I've heard against the mutual submission idea, that it means to come in order under, kind of like a military unit organizing itself in ranks. That doesn't fit with mutual submission.
Peter illustrates the submission wives are to show to their husbands with 'even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord.' So this sort of submission involves obedience as well. That's a bit 'heavier' than submitting to each other by treating each other nice and caring for one another's needs.
And if these light ideas of submission are what the passage is talking about, and mutual submission is the right way to see it, then complementarians like myself 'submit' to our wives and children, too. I try to get my wife what she wants if she needs it. If she wants us to buy something for the household, we'll talk about it and usually try to satisfy that desire of her. We recently got another used vehicle. I'd have been happy with the old one, but I did want to meet this desire of hers.
I didn't say, "No, we aren't getting another van because I say so. Submit to me, woman." That's not what I'm talking about when I talk about submission. It is supposed to be something a wife does willingly. But there are a lot of things we are to do willingly that we may need some encouragement, rebuke, admonition, or instruction to help us do it.
But yet you seem to feel compelled to tell other women that they need to submit on an ongoing basis, and that those of us who choose to live in mutual submission are “wrong.” But yet mutual submission is absolutely biblical – from what we read. I think everyone on here has said you should do what works for you in your marriage, but you need to let others do what works for them in their marriages, which includes stopping telling us that how we do marriage is wrong.
For the most part, my conversation on the topic (which has probably been a couple of years and not too fresh on either of our minds) as I recall was primarily been on what passages say and mean and how important it is to accept that. I don't remember every telling someone that their behavior to their husband must be unsubmissive because they disagree with me on doctrine.
I do believe that older women teaching younger women on marriage should have the themes the Bible teaches in their conversation toward them, to love their husbands and children, to be kind, pure, and to be diligent about the home and submissive to their husbands. If that theme isn't there, but there's opposite themes, downplaying the importance of the stuff they are supposed to be teaching the younger women, I see that as a problem. And when I'm not writing that, I'm not trying to imply something about you personally as a poster, btw. Just some past conversations.
When I first joined the forum, I had very recently experienced something supernatural in my marriage. My wife had had a particularly moody pregnancy where she was getting upset with me about the slightest thing, which left me in a rather difficult position where it felt difficult to connect with her or communicate with her. And at times she was being grumpy and even disrespectful and unsubmissive over certain issues. She's always been a good wife in most respects and we all have flaws in certain areas. She'd gotten irritable at me and bumped me aside disapproving of the way I loaded the dishwasher once. I realized how disrespectful that was and it occurred to me how little accountability I'd offered her in the past and how I'd only prayed about it at times, and not as an ongoing thing. I'd fallen short in that area. So she got upset, really, over some very innocuous words that left me confused about how she could be upset at all. She was crying, disappeared from the apartment, and called me from a church friends house where she was getting some advice and comfort.
My wife had mentioned how the Lord had spoken to her something about someone and that person told her about it after the Lord had, and I was thinking of how she was able to hear the Lord on these things, and He could talk to her about our problems. I prayed a very detailed prayer for her a list of things like asking God to tell her things I couldn't discuss with her, like out of I Peter 3, my theory that her dad and step-mom's interactions had led her to have some wrong ideas about the roles of husband and wife in discussions, and various other detailed topics. That was a time I really prayed in faith and believed God and argued my case, so to speak, before the Lord in faith.
About two or three days later, she goes to this life-change Bible study meant to root out character issues in our lives and various other things. Her group leader asked if anyone had an anger problem. She thought 'not me.' The lady said if you get angry at how your husband does the dishes, you may have an anger problem. She started listening. She told me the Lord spoke to her about some areas in her life that related to our marriage.
She walked me through my prayer list in detail telling me how God had spoken to her about these things. I'd pray a line. She had a page. It was my prayer request, but dealt with angles I had no idea about. It was overwhelmingly detailed and one of those obviously supernatural answers to prayer. I've seen and experienced a lot of stuff that was supernatural, but this was a bit more elaborate and detailed than the typical thing I'd experienced.
So I was pretty fired up on the submission and respect topics, which related to some of those prayer requests, when I got on the forum, and it was an area of interest for me. It was an area I'd neglected in my own marriage, since I didn't think as a man my wife submitting to me was to be my concern, and I short-changed my wife because I thought this way. So when I got on this subforum, I was fired up to discuss the topic when I saw a thread on it and opened threads to discuss aspects of the issue.
Out of respect for her, I asked if she'd be okay with me sharing this personal aspect of our marriage for encouragement, and she said yes. I posted a very detailed post, something like 'Amazing supernatural answer to prayer' in this forum detailing the prayer requests and the testimony.
And imo, you should never “remind” your wife to submit because coming from you, it is likely seen as a control effort rather than the love Jesus says you should have for her. I am guessing this because that’s how I saw it in my previous marriage.
I wonder if you are projecting your own experience. There probably are a lot of domineering guys who can only quote that verse and do it quite often to 'keep their wives in line.' There are extremes in every direction, and I probably was on the opposite extreme early in the marriage, though both of us theoretically said that we believed in wives submitting to their husbands. And there were areas in our marriage where I was kind of passive, like leading prayer with my wife. She was so spiritual. Why should I initiate praying with her. She does that on her own? That wasn't a good attitude on my part as a young man. I did pray with her, but I didn't make a regular effort to do that or have devotions with the kids at first. Not leading in that and other areas opened up some areas for her to shoulder a burden she shouldn't have had to. And when it came to submission, I could have offered a bit of accountability, or offered more of an atmosphere where it could have occurred naturally as I led more in certain areas. And on occasions when she needed to be reminded to submit, I didn't offer the accountability. It was a hot button issue with her for a while if I did mention it, and I wrongly chose to go the route of least resistance rather than to lovingly confront.
Submission is always of one’s own volition, never ever reminded or used against a spouse. And that is the point of when I said that when you remind a wife that she needs to submit, you stop loving her like Christ does. Jesus expects our submission to him, but he does not go about reminding us of it if we ever step out of line.
Doesn't He? He did to the churches of Revelation. I don't recall His saying 'submit' but He pointed out areas where they weren't submitting or loving Him enough. Jesus is the Head of the church. He told His disciples if they loved Him, they would keep His commandments. He required their obedience and didn't make any apologies about it. That doesn't mean He lacked in love in any way.
