Fear God, and give glory to Him

Wifely submission

Dear Jewel,

    Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior!  I got your letter in the mail yesterday, and now while the house is quiet (2:30 AMJ) I’ll take the opportunity to begin my reply.  I’m glad if our talk on the phone has made you think more about submitting to your husband.  It’s very important – so important that it’s commanded in at least 6 books of the N. T.  My husband isn’t a domineering dictator either, and most of the time it’s not hard to submit.  But the Lord has been faithful in showing me subtle areas where I was not being submissive, and I encourage you to keep asking the Lord to show you how to submit to and reverence your husband.  As wives, that is our responsibility in serving the Lord.  And yes, as you said, we wives will need to give account to God – have we obeyed God by obeying our husbands?

          You mentioned Acts 5:29.  Notice that it was Peter and the other apostles who said, “We ought to obey God rather than men.”  They were men who were directly accountable to God (Jesus Christ is their Head).  It was not women who said this.

          Another Scripture account you used was of Ananias and Sapphira.  Well, notice that in Acts 5:9, Peter asked Sapphira, “How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord?”  Obviously she was not a lover of the truth, but was in agreement with her husband.  It may easily have been her idea in the first place.  The Amplified Bible says (Acts 5:2) “And with his wife’s knowledge and connivance he kept back and wrongfully appropriated some of the proceeds, bringing only a part and putting it at the feet of the apostles.”  If she had been a godly woman, she probably would have made an appeal to him, explaining from the Word of God why it is wrong for him to do such a thing.  And then if he insisted that she keep it a secret, she could commit it all to the Lord and obey her husband, knowing that thereby she was obeying God.  Eph. 5:24  The same Peter who rebuked Ananias & Sapphira, wrote 1 Peter 3.

          You mentioned about Sarah being from the OT, and God winking at things done in the OT.  But Jewel, using that logic, you can’t turn around and use two other women from the OT as examples of “standing for what’s right”.  (Abigail and the Shunammite)  Abigail called her husband “this man of Belial.”  Sarah called her husband “my lord”.  Regardless of whether how Abigail acted was right or wrong, God chose Sarah for the example for you and me.

          You want to show me “that God expects us as women to take a stand and do what is right, even if our husbands wouldn’t approve.”  Well, according to Titus 2:5, if we are not obedient to our own husbands, we are causing the Word of God to be blasphemed.  In 1 Peter 3, wives are commanded to be in subjection even to an unbelieving husband, making him their “lord” – the one who commands.  Eph. 5:24 – “As the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be unto their own husbands in every thing.”  We believe that God said exactly what He meant in His Word, and when He said “be subject in every thing” – that’s what He meant!

          “Subject” – owing obedience or allegiance to the power or dominion of another.

          “Submit” – to yield oneself to the authority or will of another; to commit to the discretion or judgment of another.

          If we “submit”  to our husband only when it seems right to us, we actually are not submitting at all.  Note again the second definition of submit, above.

          Just lately I was also impressed that the Word stresses that we must submit unto our own husband – not to someone else’s!  Eph. 5:22, 24; Col. 3:18; Titus 2:5; I Peter 3: 1,5

          You wrote that the wife is not “responsible to her husband only, but also to God and the church.”  In 1 Cor. 11, God tells us His order of headship – God, Christ, man, woman.  The “church” is not sandwiched in there between Christ and man.  The true church is made up of men and women who are subject to their heads – the men all subject to Christ, and the women subject to their husbands.

          A woman who refuses to obey her husband because what he wants her to do is not right in her opinion, is usurping authority over the man.  1Tim. 2:12 – “But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.”

          You wonder how we can turn away from the church group that we grew up with.  Well, someday soon we will be judged by the Word of God (John 12: 48), whether we have obeyed it or not – and not whether we obeyed the church group that we grew up with.  We want to build our lives on the Lord Jesus Christ, the living Word.  Matt. 7: 24 -27   

                                                          - Monica, with Marcus’ help

Untitled Comment

03:31 PM, Sunday, February 24, 2008 .. Posted by rashel

I think this is a wonderful letter, thank you for sharing it. I agree with it completely.
Blessings,
Rashel

Untitled Comment

07:06 PM, Sunday, February 24, 2008 .. Posted by Anonymous

and if your husband commands you to sin? do you follow him still? wake up this is a HOMESTEADING blog, not a holier-than-thou christian site

Untitled Comment

09:51 PM, Wednesday, February 27, 2008 .. Posted by wiljo98@windstream.net

Thank you for helping to teach submission to our own husband. I know I have a lot of learning to do. I desire to keep being obedient to my husband as unto Christ.

Interpreting Scripture

02:42 AM, Monday, June 9, 2008 .. Posted by Anonymous

The Bible is a complete guide to God's will for man. It is a serious thing to misinterpret the Scripture. The forgoing article is an incorrect view of the wife's submission to her husband.
1. Peter in Acts 5:29 said to the civil/political leaders: "We ought to obey God rather than man." Yet he writes in 1 Peter 2:13; "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake." Again he writes in 1 Peter 2:18; "Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward." These 2 words, "submit" and "subject", are the same Greek word as the word "Subject" used to the wives in Ephesians 5:24. This word means to be subordinate, to obey. Peter did not contradict himself but rather was making a point that if any man commands us, as children of God, to do wrong; we OBEY GOD FIRST.
2. Ephesians 5:24 is not the only verse about wives' submitting to their husbands.
Ephesians 5:22 "Wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands, AS UNTO THE LORD."
Colossians 3:18 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as it is FIT (Greek - 'proper') in the Lord."
1Peter 3;1,2 Likewise, 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; While they behold your chaste (Greek - 'Pure, Holy, Blameless) conversation coupled with fear."
The thread throughout these Scriptures is:Submission unto the husband AS UNTO THE LORD. How could Sapphira followed her husband in disobedience and have still been proper, pure, holy and blameless unto the Lord. It is impossible!!
3. I Timothy 2:12 is directed to women in public worship, not a wife who as a saint will refuse to follow her husband into sin. Verse 8 of the same chapter says: "I will that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands... In contrast verse 12 is directed to women in public - or "teaching men".
4. I Corinthians 11:3 does give a headship order. However this headship order is not accountability. Romans 14:12 "So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God."
5.Men and women are to be subject to Christ and to each other. Ephesians 5:24b: As the church - men and women - is subject to Christ.
Ephesians 5:21 Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
A wife submitting to her husband is beautiful to behold. Her highest duty is to God as is also her husband's duty. God is whom we all will give account for the deeds done in the body, not to a husband or other earthly authority.

Previous Comment on Interpreting Scripture

03:48 AM, Monday, June 9, 2008 .. Posted by Anonymous

Posted by KJR