A Challenge to Women to be true Bible believers!

We were having a discussion at our young women’s Bible study the other night. The topic was “Biblical submission”. Some of our women were telling what the world thinks of women who try to be in submission to their husbands as the Bible tells them to be. They think we who believe this are either “old-fashioned”, or are “letting our husbands walk all over us, thus being doormats”, or we are “losing our own identity”, or are “not becoming the strong, independent women we should be”. I am amazed when I hear of women everywhere following this world view. Many of these women are supposedlyGod-fearing people who claim to believe the Bible means what it says and believe it is their final authority! I think it would be good for all of us to examine the scriptures and do as the Bereans of Acts 17:11, of whom it is said, “These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” Ephesians 5:22-24, says, “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.” In studying the word “submission”, I find it defined as: “The act of yielding to power or authority; obedient to the will of another; humble.” The word “submit”, defined as, “to surrender; to yield oneself in any way to the power, authority, or control of another.” Would it not be true, then, that for a wife there is no submission where there is no yielding of the will to that of her husband? To submit to something we would want to do anyway, is not a yielding of the will. There is no submission where husband and wife agree to something. Submission involves the laying down of the will of one person for that of another, and the scriptures tell us that we are the designated ones! Where there is no yielding of the will there is no submission.Colossians 3:18 says, “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.” Submission isn’t conditional upon whether the husband deserves it, or makes the right decisions, but we are to submit to our husbands because it is fit (fitting, or right) in the Lord to do so. Verse 23 of the same chapter and in the same context, says, “whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men”. We are to be in submission to our husbands because the Lord tells us to do so. We should do this heartily, not begrudgingly. Submitting to our husbands IS submitting to the Lord. Women everywhere say, “I just don’t believe that. I don’t see how God could expect us to do that!” The question is, “What saith the scriptures?” It is important to note that this instruction for wives spans all of the dispensations. It began with the sin of Eve as her punishment. Genesis 3:16 says, speaking of her husband, “...and he shall rule over thee.” Passages for a future dispensation also include instructions for wives to be in submission to their husbands. We see this in I Peter 3:1-5, where verse 1 admonishes, “...ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands, that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives.” I believe it is very clear here that the Lord means for a woman to be in submission to an unsaved husband as well as to a saved one who does not obey the Word of God. This truth is not supported in many “Christian” circles today. Again, we can ask, “What saith the scriptures?” I would guess that in Paul’s day, wives wanted to believe that since they were now in the dispensation of grace and no longer under the old testament law, that they no longer had to be in subjection to their husbands. (Sounds like a good argument to me! My, how the flesh hates submission!) However, the Lord, through Paul, refutes this idea clearly in these verses in Ephesians 5, Col. 3, and in Titus 2, where verse 5 says, that wives are to be “good, obedient to their own husbands”, as well as in other verses. I, myself, admit this is so hard! I have found that to know the scriptures is the easy part. To put them into practice is another thing. If we give it some thought, however, we “grace women” know our King James Bible is perfect and therefore the Lord would not in it tell us to do something that He does not want us to do nor equip us to do. I also believe that anything He tells us to do will be for our benefit and for the benefit of our marriages. The Lord instituted the marriage unit and knows what makes it work best! He wants our marriages to be happy and fulfilling! Not only does the Lord tell us to practice this submission, but He reinforces it with scriptures about the order of the marriage unit. I Cor. 11:3 says, “But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.” Eph. 5:23 says, “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church...” We learn from these passages the proper order that God has ordained for our marriages. If God has ordained it so, then any time we try to change the order will cause the marriage to suffer. Learning all of this truth was certainly an eye opener for me years ago, when I found my marriage to be falling apart. I began to see in studying the scriptures, that a lot of what was wrong in my marriage was my own doing. And, to think, I had always thought my husband was the problem! I praise God for how His Word has changed my marriage into one that is loving, happy, and fulfilling. I would like to challenge young women everywhere, to study the scriptures to see if these things be so!

Happy studying,
Mary
(Grace Bible Church, Chattanooga, TN)