As I pointed out in the recent articles What is Biblical Womanhood? , Yes, Women Can be Leaders, Too, and Women Teaching Men: What Does the Bible Actually Say?, there is a balance to be had when discussing what actually constitutes as “Biblical manhood and womanhood”. The egalitarian camp of the church tends to lean towards the unBiblical idea that wives should not bother with submitting to their husbands. The complementarian camp also leans towards an unBiblical idea sometimes, and that is the idea that a husband should, if all else fails and spouses cannot come to an agreement, make his wife submit. Neither idea is true and neither is found in Scripture. To strike a Biblical balance, refute both of these wrong ideas, and to see what the Word actually does say, let’s turn straight to the Bible itself.
Ephesians 5, Colossians 3, and Titus 2
We read in Ephesians 5:22-24, Colossians 3:18, and Titus 2:5 that wives are commanded by God to submit to their own husbands. The same Greek word is used in each passage - hypotassō. What is interesting about this word is that it is referring to a voluntary action on the part of the one who is submitting. It signifies a choosing to submit, an intentional, conscious choice to bring oneself under the protection and direction of another. Hypotassō was a Greek military term well-known for referring to the voluntary action of “arranging under”, “subjecting oneself”, and “yielding to one’s admonition or advice”.
Clearly, then, it is only ever the wife’s responsibility to choose - on her own accord! - to subject herself to the direction of her husband over their family affairs. Nowhere in Scripture do we ever see the husband given the duty to force his wife to submit or to “bring her in line”. In fact, let’s turn for a moment to study what we actually do see husbands being commanded to do.
“Husbands, Love Your Wives”
In Ephesians 5, directly after Paul tells the wives that they are to submit to their husbands, we read this:
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, (vs. 25)
The same teaching is found in Colossians 3, as well:
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be bitter toward them. (vs. 18-19)
That’s it. The husband’s responsibility is to love his wife in a Christlike, sacrificial, tender, cherishing way. What his responsibility clearly is not is to make his wife submit to his leadership. Just as wives are not commanded to make sure their husbands love them the way they are supposed to, so likewise husbands are not commanded to make sure their wives submit as they should. Each party is individually responsible before God to be faithful to their own calling, and that is it. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.
Loving and Leading Like Christ
Furthermore, in order for a husband to truly love his wife in a Biblical, Christ-like way, he actually cannot force his wife to submit. To do so would be to go against the very example of Christ and His love which he is supposed to be emulating. Nowhere in Scripture do we ever see Christ making anyone submit to anything. Neither does He do so to us in our daily walk with Him. This is because there is a such thing as human responsibility, and if Christ made us submit to Him, it would not be true submission at the heart-level. It would mean nothing and be good for nothing. The Lord is only ever interested in the condition of the heart, not in making someone do something. So for a husband to put his foot down and try to “make” his wife submit is for him to be in direct contradiction to the Lord he has been called on to emulate in his marriage.
In the Case of a Disagreement
You may be wondering now, “If a husband is not supposed to make his wife submit, but a couple comes to a crossroads where a decision has to be made and the wife does not agree with her husband’s position on the matter and therefore is not wanting to submit to him, what are they supposed to do?” That’s a good question!
First of all, as long as what the husband is wanting his family to do is not in direct contradiction to Scripture, it would, again, be the wife’s responsibility to choose to submit to his leading. Ephesians 5:22-24 makes it clear that her submission should be “as to the Lord” and “in everything”, while Colossians 3:18 says she is to submit “as is fitting in the Lord.” It is fitting for a wife to submit to her husband in everything, so long as the direction of the husband is not in contradiction to the Word (this is yet another reason why it is so crucial for women to know their Bibles!). If it is in contradiction, then she should obey God rather than man (Acts 5:29).
Secondly, if it is not a sinful decision which the couple cannot come to an agreement on, but the wife is still choosing to not submit, then I believe both spouses need to spend some serious time in prayer, asking the Lord to guide and direct them and to change hearts where necessary. Both spouses need to pray for humble, tender hearts which desire to please Him above all else. The Lord can move in mighty ways through prayer and can certainly change one spouse’s heart or the other (or both, if need be!).
Thirdly, if time passes and an agreement and conclusion to the matter at hand can still not be found, then I believe it would be time to bring in an unbiased third party (i.e. your pastor or another trusted Christian adviser) to help you through that situation.
It’s Up to Us, Ladies!
Here is my charge for all of us wives today: let’s know the Word of God! Let’s study it diligently, and seek to be faithful students of it who can rightly divide it, handle it well, and interpret it faithfully (see 2 Timothy 2:15). That is the first step towards our being the kind of wives we have been called by God to be. The second step is understanding that the whole “submission thing” is on us, not our husbands. It is not Biblically appropriate for a husband to “lord it over” his wife or to make her submit. But it is appropriate for us as wives to choose voluntarily to submit ourselves to our husband’s headship of our family. May the Lord help and equip us to do just that!
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Good stuff, Rebekah. There is certainly nothing in the Bible that points to a husband forcefully extracting submission from a wife. It’s supposed to be a willing and free-choice action on her part.
It’s interesting that the Bible doesn’t say anything about how a wife should NOT obey if her husband wants her to do something against God’s word. Ephesians 5: 22-24 sounds to me like it is saying that a wife should obey her husband as the church obeys Christ. As in willingly, completely, reverently. If Christ told us to do something we had previously thought was wrong, we’d do it, right? (Peter in Acts 10 for example). Couple that with the fact that a wife is to ask her husband “And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.” 1 Cor. 14:35 to me it makes a case that, as learned as a woman might be in the scripture, she still ought to defer to her husbands interpretation if there is a disagreement.
Hey, Leila! Thank you so much for the comments yesterday! And I’m so sorry I didn’t respond to the ones you left last week; I completely forgot to! I will go back and do that!
You raise some really interesting points. I do think there is a difference, though, between a husband calling a wife to do something wrong and the church submitting to Christ and doing something they previously thought was wrong. Christ is infallible; men (and women) are not. It is possible for a man to ask his wife to sin, and in situations such as that, it is not fitting for a wife to submit. Women are first and foremost Christians whose relationships with the Lord are to come above their marriages in level of importance, so if a wife is called by her husband to sin, she ought to obey God rather than man, as it says also in Acts. This is where it becomes clear just how crucially important it is for a woman to know the Word of God. Because a wife shouldn’t willy-nilly say her husband is calling her to sin, if in reality she just doesn’t want to follow what he is suggesting. We have to be diligent students of the Word to know what sin is and what it is not.
As for doctrinal disagreements, I think it would largely depend on the doctrine. If a husband suddenly went off the rails and no longer avowed the core doctrines of the Christian faith, a wife would have no business submitting to that. But if it’s a secondary doctrine and they just can’t see eye to eye and she doesn’t truly know what she precisely believes in that area, perhaps to defer to the husband’s wisdom on it is a fantastic and very Biblical idea. I think it would just depend on what doctrine and what the circumstances are surrounding the disagreement.
As always, thank you for sharing, Leila! I appreciate you!
I appreciate you taking the time to respond. I know you must be very busy!
I’m going to try to be brief and still explain how I understand the scriptures regarding submission. If you have time and want to discuss it in more detail I would be happy to have more conversation about it.
Christ is infallible because all authority was given to him meaning he can make rules for those under his authority. If someone were to be given Christ-like authority over someone it seems to me that would mean they could issue a new command to that person and in essence be infallible to that one person. If a wife is to obey her husband in all things, as she would Christ, when her husband gives her a command she should treat the command as though it was coming from Christ. Will the husband be in trouble for giving a command that Christ forbids? Yes. Will the wife be in trouble for obeying it? No. Christ told her to obey this authority so she is guiltless and her authority bears the guilt.
If you think about it this is a beautiful system because God has a made a way for marriages to stay unified, never forcing a wife to have to choose between God and her husband because God told her it’s ok to submit to her husband and not be afraid. (1 Peter 3:5-6)
As Americans we are so used to authority being extremely limited and we’re so used to having a lot of freedom that I think we forget that Biblical authority is not always very American. For instance, assuming that “we ought to obey God rather than men” can be used as a defense to disobey any and all authority is dangerous considering there are so many other verses encouraging obeying governments. It would be better to take the story of the apostles as the historical occasion that it is and understand that it’s more likely proving that Christ had taken the authority to be the judges away from the Sanhedrin and given it to the apostles. (see the parable in Matt. 21).
It would be dangerous to start using this historical account as a reason to disobey any and all authority without proof that it really has a universal application. Would it apply to small children for instance?
I hope my reasoning is making sense. I commend you for bravely taking a Biblical stance for submission that is going to be looked down upon and misunderstood, especially by the un-saved, (and unfortunately even by some in the Church).
Thank you for your encouragement! One thing I love about you, Leila, is that you are always so kind and so encouraging even if you don’t completely agree with something I have said. And I can’t even tell you how refreshing that is (or what an example that is to me!). So, thank you for that, friend!
I have heard folks say that before - that if a wife submits to a sinful request of her husband’s that he will be the one held responsible, not her. A friend of mine even sent me an interesting Amazon review based on a book that teaches that very thing (https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RFKF7UW91JKXJ/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0873985516).
I do not find that concept to be consistent with what we see throughout the Word, though. If a husband told his wife to rob the bank down the street, for example, I think it’s rather clear that the Lord would expect her to know better than to do such a thing and would expect her to submit to Him, not to her husband. God is higher in authority over her than her husband is. If she nevertheless chose to rob the bank, that would be on her because she chose to do so, even though it was her husband who first influenced the decision. There are many passages that I would point to for this.
First, we see Eve try to shift the blame for her sin onto the serpent and then Adam try to shift the blame for his sin onto Eve. Neither of which were acceptable to God - He believes in human responsibility before Him.
In Deuteronomy 24:16 we read, “The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.”
In 1 Samuel 25, Abigail goes against her husband Nabal’s wishes and brings about much good from having done so.
Ezekiel 18 is an entire chapter dedicated to this topic, and in verses 19-20 we read, ““But you ask, ‘Why isn’t the son punished for his father’s sin?’ It is because the son has done what is fair and right. He obeyed my rules and followed them. He will certainly live. 20 The person who sins will die. A son will not be punished for his father’s sins, and a father will not be punished for his son’s sins. The righteousness of the righteous person will be his own, and the wickedness of the wicked person will be his own.”
Galatians 6:4-5 says, “But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. For each will have to bear his own load.”
Romans 14:10, 12 says, “For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.” We will each give an account. And our account will not be based on what our husband said or did, but on what we said and did.
As for other forms of authority, Christians down throughout the ages, beginning with the disciples and Paul, have known what the Christian life requires in regards to authorities such as the government. Christians have been fined, imprisoned, beaten, enslaved, and killed for not submitting to the authority of the government. And, yes, God did set up government to govern and gave authorities authority. But He did not give earthly authorities the authority to rule against what He has deemed right. We have been given the Great Commission, for example, and are to fulfill it even if that means disobeying a government that says we should not proclaim the gospel.
It’s been good discussing this and learning both how to explain my thoughts and also being challenged to see if I’m really consistent.
I’ve met very few women who take wifely submission as being without exception so I know I must be in the fringe of modern Christianity.
I’m going to put my thoughts on the actions of Abigail in a separate comment.
I read the passages you listed. You are right that scripture is consistent that the responsible party who is guilty of the sin will be held accountable. It’s quite obvious. My question is does the wife bear the responsibility for the sin or does her “head” who required it? At the very least they would share the accountability but given that there are several stories in the Bible where a person was held guiltless of a sin if their authority commanded it I’m thinking that the husband-wife relationship, too, operates where the husband is the only one guilty of a ordered wrong-doing.
Taking all the verses about wives and husbands and weaving them together makes a rather consistent argument in favor of a wife being able to obey without fear of moral accountability. I think a truly Biblical marriage would work like this…
The husband and wife each study the scripture and meditate on God’s word, endevouring to love each other and live as Christians should. When on the rare occasion that a husband makes a request that the wife thinks God forbids she tells him her concerns and asks for reconsideration or at least clarification. The husband carefully, prayerfully weighs the matter and A. agrees that he was in error and cancels his request, or B. concludes that his wife has actually misundstood God’s desires regarding this matter. (1 Cor. 14:35)
If B. happens and the husband is unable to convice his wife she should make an appeal to not be involved in something that goes against her concience. Her husband then either C. releases her from any involvement or, D. if it’s necessary, lovingly asks for her obedience in the matter. (Colossians 3:18)
In the case of D. the wife has a choice to make.
E. Choose to submit knowing that her husband will bear the guilt if it is a sin.(Num. 30:6-8)
F. Disobey, which is already a sin in not submitting, but runs the risk of a second sin as well if she was mistaken and her husband was right. (Titus 2:5)
If she disobeys the husband should pray for her repentance.
Biblical authority is a fascinating and seemingly little understood subject it seems, to hear people talk. For instance a lot of hyper “control your wife” guys seem to ignore 1 Cor. 7:4. God gives lots of different types of authority to different people and with different responsibilities for each.
It’s interesting that within Christianity there’s actually always been debate about whether to obey governments when they conflict with God. Americans are more consistently for “always resist an evil government” than past Christians, probably because we are use to a “for the people and by the people” government.
Abigail- Nothing in the passage says that Abigail “disobeyed” Nabal. He apparently was so drunk he wasn’t available to issue any orders so Abigail took charge of the situation. Even if she had disobeyed and good came of it that doesn’t mean disobeying was the right thing to do. Joseph being sold into slavery turned out good but we aren’t supposed to take that as an excuse to practice enslaving. I do think Abigail’s actions were likely the right thing to do, since David commends her but that’s not absolutely proven either. Anyway, it seems unfair to read into the story that Abigail was disobedient and not simply making an independent decision in the face of new developments.
I agree, Leila! I’ve really enjoyed the opportunity to chat about this topic! 🙂 Thank you for that!
You mentioned that there were several passages in the Word where “a person was held guiltless of a sin if their authority commanded it I’m thinking that the husband-wife relationship, too, operates where the husband is the only one guilty of a ordered wrong-doing.” Could you point out to me a few of the ones you were thinking about? I’m drawing a bit of a blank.
This was an excellent point that you made: “Biblical authority is a fascinating and seemingly little understood subject it seems, to hear people talk. For instance a lot of hyper “control your wife” guys seem to ignore 1 Cor. 7:4.” That’s so true! And it’s really unfortunate and sad.
Another thing you pointed out was that “It’s interesting that within Christianity there’s actually always been debate about whether to obey governments when they conflict with God. Americans are more consistently for “always resist an evil government” than past Christians, probably because we are use to a “for the people and by the people” government.” To be honest, I would say that actually we see down throughout history men and women being willing to lose all for the sake of obeying God and not man. The stories found in “Foxe’s Book of Martyrs” illustrate this very poignantly. It’s been a common thing in every generation that in some country somewhere evil rulers command their people to forsake Christianity and the Christians there have had to make the choice to disobey that civil authority. Even Americans have fought back a little here and there, like when school sports teams are told they can’t have Bible verses on their posters or prayer before games.
The reason I say Abigail did not submit to her husband and his wishes is because we read in verse 11 that Nabal absolutely did not want David to be fed from his provisions,
” Shall I then take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shearers, and give it to men when I do not know where they are from?”
And yet in verses 18-19 we read, “Then Abigail made haste and took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five sheep already dressed, five seahs of roasted grain, one hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and loaded them on donkeys. 19 And she said to her servants, “Go on before me; see, I am coming after you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal.”
She knew he didn’t want David and his men to be fed from his provisions, but she did it anyway. And verses 32-34 show us that it was actually the Lord that led her to do this: “32 Then David said to Abigail: “Blessed is the Lord God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me! 33 And blessed is your advice and blessed are you, because you have kept me this day from coming to bloodshed and from avenging myself with my own hand. 34 For indeed, as the Lord God of Israel lives, who has kept me back from hurting you, unless you had hurried and come to meet me, surely by morning light no males would have been left to Nabal!” 35 So David received from her hand what she had brought him, and said to her, “Go up in peace to your house. See, I have heeded your voice and respected your person.””
I’m sorry. I didn’t expect explaining my thoughts to become so lengthy!
I looked up the references to the stories I was thinking of. The first is not so much a story as instruction. Numbers 30 is all about how the head of the household can annul vows for his non-betrothed daughters or wife, (and I’m guessing small sons as well). In verse 14 and 15 the husband, if he has allowed the wife’s vow to stand and THEN won’t let her fulfill it, will bear the sin of the broken vow. It makes sense to me that the same principal would apply if a husband made his wife break other commandments.
When the Gibeonites trick Joshua into making a covenant with them (Joshua 9), upholding that covenant was apparently more important than obeying God’s other command to annihilate them. (2nd Samuel 21 shows God’s disapproval of Israel breaking the covenant with them.) From that story I can see drawing different conclusions.
A. God must rate the keeping of some commandments higher than others. That thinking becomes a problem when you compare it to the rest of scripture. Conclusion B. which is easier to defend would be that if you have given the authority over some part of your life to someone else through a vow that they have gained mastery of that area and it is now righteous for you to obey.
We see Naaman being permitted to bow to an idol in 2 Kings 5:17-19 I assume because Elisha understood that Naaman was in sort of bind because of his servitude to his king and that, in his heart, he was not worshiping an idol.
2nd Samuel 12:9 has David blamed for Uriah’s death. As far as we know David’s general is not held responsible for his part. This is probably why our modern military holds the officers responsible for war crimes, not their men.
Another story of David has him numbering the people against God’s law. 2 Samuel 24 tells how Joab and the Captains tried to get David to change his mind but ended up following his orders. In the end David is held guilty. No one accuses Joab or the Captains of wrong-doing. I think because God allows people under authority to be able to obey without fear of moral responsibility or without God requiring them to rebel, (which could cause large and devastating repercussions.)
Please let me know if you see any holes in my logic or error in interpretation. Obviously most of these, being stories, aren’t necessarily showing what WE ought to do. But when I read instructions to wives the New Testament and it neither gives an exception for obedience nor any kind of “line” that when a man crosses he loses his headship I wonder, “why? Shouldn’t those be in there?”. So then I look elsewhere in the scripture and find stories of men disobeying the government and Abigail maybe disobeying her husband and wonder if those are there to show us there is some kind of line. If I understand you correctly that’s what made you arrive at your conclusion. But then when I read other stories like Naaman and the Gibeonites I wonder if it matters what kind of vow you’ve made or what kind of authority it is? Isn’t it possible that the “exception” verses are missing from the New Testament because, in a wife’s case, there aren’t any?
I’m afraid that what I wrote about Americans and obeying governments must have been unclear. You wrote…”I would say that actually we see down throughout history men and women being willing to lose all for the sake of obeying God and not man.” and I have definitely seen that! What I was trying to do was take slight exception to an earlier statement of yours… “Christians down throughout the ages, beginning with the disciples and Paul, have known what the Christian life requires in regards to authorities such as the government.” Because it’s not been so universally understood among Christians what do to when government and God conflict. A perfect example is Nazi Germany when people like Bonhoeffer had an ongoing argument with church leaders who, because of verses like Romans 13:1-3 were urging their congregations to submit to the regime. I know that there have always been Christians who resisted but there have also always been those who questioned if that is permitted.
Personally, I think it very much matters what sort of a government you happen to be under, (are there loopholes?) because God has given different rulers certain powers and differing authority.
When I read the story of Abigail I can definitely read it several different ways. In the first scenario I can see it being her disobeying him (so the part I’m inferring is that Nabal must have given Abigail orders to NOT supply David or something). In the second I can see it as Abigail’s taking advantage of loopholes to smooth over the situation, (maybe Nabal didn’t tell ABIGAIL not to supply David, just the servants, or perhaps Abigail used her own supplies instead of Nabal’s.). In another scenario Abigail could have been a submissive wife taking up her rightful place as second in command for an incapacitated husband. The inference there being that she was doing what Nabal would have had her do if he had heard about impending bloodshed.
That’s the problem with building a theological argument on a history with a subjective moral, (Abigail’s story could be just as likely be there to prove that a wife should have power of attorney for an incompetent husband!). Do you see what I’m saying?
For people to say, “here is a story showing that we should disobey a sinful husband” would seem dangerous to me, both because we don’t see that idea espoused in the New Testament, (on the contrary we have 1 Peter 3:1 being applicable to wives married to “Nabal”.) And we can’t even be sure that Abigail wasn’t being a submissive wife, wisely navigating the situation.
Speaking of stories where a wife disobeys a husband, we have the book of Esther where Vashti disobeys and is condemned for it and then Esther disobeys a law on the thin hope that she will be shown mercy and the result of the whole thing is God brings about salvation for his people! Can I use this story as “proof” that a woman should never disobey her husband, based on Memucan’s reproof? Should I use it to recommend breaking a Country’s laws, trusting God to make it work out well for you? No. It’s a history not a theological mandate. Many things can be learned from it but moral conclusions have to be backed up by instructional scriptures for the conclusions to be well-founded.
I know you are probably long wearied by this discussion but I had a friend discuss the Abigail Bible story with me and she pointed out several assumptions I was making that are not well supported. It does seem to me, now, that we can only conclude that Abigail was purposefully going behind her husband’s back.
I still think it’s not a good idea to use that as an excuse to disobey our own husbands when we have a theological disagreement but I have to be honest that I can no longer cast Abigail’s actions in a purely submissive light.