Provocative Bible Verses: Submit to One Another
\”Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ\” Ephesians 5:21
Since the 1970\’s one of the mainstays of pop-psychology has been that in order to be an emotionally healthy human being you absolutely must look out for yourself first. You must make sure that you have a strong sense of self esteem. Most importantly, you must never put yourself in a position of considering others to be more important than yourself. That is seen as degrading and demeaning. You should be strong, positive, stand up for yourself, and rise above the others. In the corporate world that translates into winning by having people serve you, getting the corner office, making people bend to your will. In the marriage relationship it becomes, taking care of yourself, making sure that you are being fulfilled.
Certainly the last thing on the minds of pop psychologists and the liberated 21st century human being is that in order to really be fulfilled we should actually submit to others. Yet that is exactly what the Bible teaches, over and over and over again. The wisdom of God is completely counter-intuitive. Jesus said that if you want to gain your life, you must loose it. He said that if you want to be the greatest among people, then you must become the servant of all. The Bible says that if we want to truly live, then we must die to ourselves. In Ephesians chapter 5 Paul says that if we want to be truly fulfilled, then we need to empty ourselves and submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Somehow in our vocabulary, to submit means to give up and be the ultimate looser. It means that someone else is dominant and rules over you and you have no control of your life. Most recently being submissive is defined in terms of \”having no voice\”. It is the image of a person who, cowering in such fear and humiliation, that they can\’t even speak to defend themselves. What a sad and pitiful definition of a wonderfully powerful and empowering biblical concept.
Mutual submission is not about one person winning and everyone else loosing. It is not about having no voice or no power or no control. The reason it is none of these things is because submission as a biblical concept is fulfilled when everyone submits to everyone else because we love Jesus. Submission is never a one way street. Paul tells wives why and how to submit to their husbands. But he also tells husbands why and how to submit to their wives, and children to parents and even parents to children.
You see, what Jesus wants to see happen is that we never have to worry about guarding or building up our self esteem. We should never have to worry about ourselves because others are loving and serving us, even submitting to us with the result that we have every confidence that we are valued and loved. When we in turn submit to others and esteem them, not only are they built up, but we are too. We are built up because in submitting ourselves to others and deferring to them out of love for Christ, we end up being like Jesus. Whenever we live and love like Jesus there is an empowering as well as a blessing that comes our way.
But let me give you an even deeper reason to submit to others. It is not simply in order to be a part of God\’s plan to feel better about yourself and have your esteem built up. The real reason to submit to others is given in the text. we do it out of reverence for Christ. So what does that mean? Jesus made a big deal out of saying that whenever we serve the poor, visit the prisoner, comfort the sick, and so on, we do these things for Jesus and in fact do them to Jesus. When you feed a hungry person, you are feeding Jesus. When you clothe a naked person, you are clothing Jesus, when you house a homeless person, you are housing Jesus. Likewise, when you submit to a brother or sister in Christ, you are submitting to Jesus. You submit to Jesus as he lives in them. So out of reverence for Jesus in them, you need to consider them before yourself. You need to honor them instead of yourself.
When we submit in that way, it is not about us putting ourselves down. It is really about lifting them up. When a husband submits to his wife it is in order to help her become the most wonderful person in Christ that she can be. He lifts her up. And in the amazing way that God works, that husband ends up being lifted in the process. How? Well he is one with his wife so if she is lifted up, so is he. As Paul says, \” if one of us is honored, we are all honored\”. When a parent submits their own desires for the sake of a child and the child is lifted up in love and esteem, then the parent is too, because they are a part of one another. In the Body of Christ, we are all part of one another and when we lift one another up by submitting to one another, in a miraculous way, we are all lifted up.
But the flip side is also true. When one of us is put down, we are all put down. If my wife suffers humiliation, so do I. If my kids suffer, so do I. If my brother in Christ suffers, so do I. So if I try to raise myself up, by putting others beneath me, what I really end up doing is pushing all of us down. By trying to raise myself up, I actually lower myself, because I am spiritually tethered to those I am pushing beneath me. I don\’t even realize that as a result, we are all sinking. How much better is it to willingly submit myself to the task of raising others higher and being pulled aloft by the upward momentum of my connection to them.
It appears to me that oftentimes the word “submit” can be substituted for the word “serve”…and vice versa. This has given me something to think about today, Dan—as I suffer from cabin fever (it is snowing again!). I appreciate your thoughtful explanations…………..:)+
This is outstanding! I think that it is vitally important for all of us Christians to hear. I also hate when people change wedding vows from submit to respect. I absolutely hate that! I am s psychology student, and you are right about the trends. Especially with women’s roles.
Thanks again.
Christina Cooper
If I Only Had One Wish
http://www.aframeofmindart.com
Excellent thoughts and so true. Thank you!
What you say is true and powerful, but it doesn’t go into enough detail to touch on a related problem that I’ve experienced, powerfully and negatively, in the Christian community. I grew up in an ardent family of faith and a fundamentalist church where my earliest memories are of being encouraged to put others first, to look out for newcomers (in the 4-year-olds’ class!) to make them feel welcome. My service began as a pianist at age 10. I spent 35 years of my life as a doormat for other Christians — yes, there is such a thing as having no voice. What I’ve realized through several years of Christian counseling is that you can’t lay down your self in service to Jesus until you have a self to sacrifice. And the formula doesn’t work very well when, in any given relationship, it’s one person doing all the laying down of self and the other side having a field day.
Plenty of psychologically and spiritually immature Christians intuitively prey upon people like me; they lead programs and make decisions and are not open to suggestions, no matter how thoughtfully and graciously put, that some part of their domain or m.o. isn’t working too well or is actually hurtful or unreasonable. If you are the person who raises an objection, you have a spiritual attitude problem, you lack humility, you have a problem accepting authority. (Such leaders apparently think they speak and act with apostolic authority.) I see this all the time in churches and Christian schools. I call it Christian bullying. In some places it is so pronounced that it’s virtually systemic.
The irony, of course, is that it’s the leaders in these situations who are failing to serve and submit. My submission to Christ will come in finding a gracious way to challenge wrong and hurtful policies, to protect my children from such decision-makers and to serve respectfully in the program or ministry even when my input is not respected and honored. Sometimes I will serve, knowing that God will make it right someday, or I will remove myself from the situation where the hurt is too great to withstand.
But those who rightfully teach us about submission and service need to remember that submitting often requires speaking up first — an act of faithfulness that some Christians, by virtue of their temperament and upbringing, are loath to do. Saying yes as a pleaser of men is not the same as godly submission. Being a peacemaker is very, very different from being a peacekeeper! The peacekeepers — the ones who don’t want you to roil the waters with your “unspiritual” questions — are the bullies. They are not the ones Jesus deemed “blessed.”
I really like where you went with this. The only thing I think you left out was the ONE and only exception to submitting to authority…when it is out of line with God’s command. But even Biblically obeying with the wrong attitude is not submitting (Look at what happened to Saul when he did ALMOST everything God told him when He said to destroy an evil people. “In God’s name” he kept the livestock to make sacrifices.) But a great book to read about what it means to submit without becoming a “doormat” is Undercover by John Bevere
Bridget,
Thanks for the suggestion. Check out the latest post that deals with the issue you raise
Dan
Dan – THANK YOU. I’ve been searching online for someone to explain subsmission to me in a way I understood.
I am currently working as a secretary for my church (4 years) and we have a new pastor who is completely different than the one before. He’s constantly telling me things aren’t ‘biblical’ that I suggest for classes or when I tell him something about my family. He’s constantly making me feel as though I am less than worthy of his attention and I can do nothing right. He is a micromanager and thinks HIS way of doing things would work much better. I’ve done everything I can to keep the peace – smiling and all while doing it. His response to me was ‘it’s about time you humbled yourself and submitted to my authority”
I’ve struggled with that comment so much in the last 2 months. The submission I was practicing was that ‘one way street’. I was told yesterday by the personnel committee that I am replaceable and he is not – what he says GOES.
I’m finding myself in Ruth Ann’s shoes. She said, “If you are the person who raises an objection, you have a spiritual attitude problem, you lack humility, you have a problem accepting authority” That is where I find myself today. So, I do as I can and continue to work with a smile, while removing myself from the church I grew up in, my children were baptized in, and I had always felt safe.
And I see myself as Ruth Ann said, “saying yes as a pleaser of men” and I realize now that is NOT the same as Godly submission. My prayer now is how to actually be subsmissive according to God’s will, while keeping my dignity. Lots to think about. Thanks!