My Answer to an Excellent Question

I decided to make a stand-alone post out of an answer that I gave to this excellent question one commenter submitted: “Is there a difference between ‘submit’ and ‘obey’? If I must obey my husband at all times, then I make him my God, which he is not.”

Excellent question. I don’t think there is a difference between the two words as such, but to understand what Paul means by “submit” requires us seeing the big picture context of, for example, Ephesians 6. Husband and wife are one flesh – WHEN A MARRIAGE IS TRULY A MARRIAGE. In a true marriage, as God intends, the husband LOVES his wife as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her. It is in THAT KIND OF MARRIAGE that the wife is instructed to submit to her husband. Submission means to follow the head who is acting for the best interests of the wife, out of real love for her and for the Lord. I believe a real Christian woman WANTs to do so. She wants the husband to lead, and shepherd her and her children. But when people apply submission in a marriage that is diseased and corrupt because either the husband or the wife is an evil person, self-serving, etc., this biblical model of marriage is simply not going to work. This is the error of so many “christian” counselors or pastors, etc – they insist that God’s model for marriage is to be applied to marriages that are not real marriages and where the love of Christ is not present. I don’t pretend to have all the answers on this subject but I do believe that telling a wife, for instance, to submit to an evil domestic abuser is very bad, unbiblical counsel that will result in great harm.