Ideally, there shouldn’t be any argument at all about mutual submission. Two adults in a relationship should hold each other accountable, serve one another, love one another and cherish one another.
These are two adults in a relationship and not a father and daughter relationship. Imagine an educated woman in a marriage where her opinion isn’t counted, where she’s constantly emotionally abused and subjugated in the name of submission.
It’s funny how our “Christian men” keep agitating when the issue of submission is raised. The way they go about fighting it shows that many of them aren’t truly Christ like in character but only in name.
When they read “wives submit to your husband… As the Church submits to Christ…” Their ego is massaged. They throw it over the faces of women. I heard one preacher say that the husband is the Lord of his wife and that he also has the authority to stop his wife from serving God. According to him, if the man say it, it’s final!
They argue that they have no reason to be accountable to their wives, they shouldn’t submit to their wives after all, it should be the other way.
But the moment these men go over to “men love your wives as Christ loved the Church…” Their ego is bruised, they hurriedly flip to the next verse. Many of them know the implication of “loving your wife as Christ loves the Church” but they wish that part of the Bible can be deleted.
If they argue that a man shouldn’t also submit to his wife in service, accountability and other virtue required for relationship to thrive, then maybe, it’s also safe to say that it’s a sin for a woman to love her husband. She has no business loving him because she wasn’t asked to love her husband.
But let’s pretend like y’all don’t know the meaning of loving one’s wife as Christ loved the Church.
These men love to take “as the Church submits to Christ” very literal. They make it seem like the husband is to the wife what Christ is to the Church. But they don’t want to make the sacrifice that Christ made for the Church. In submission of women, they take it literal. But in love for their wives they begin to point out metaphors.
Let’s see how Christ loved the Church
“…even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;” – Ephesians 5:25 KJV
“But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” – Romans 5:8 KJV
Christ have himself while we were yet sinners! He gave himself when we couldn’t even appreciate it. He loved us regardless of our unfaithfulness. He didn’t require our co-operation to love us, he didn’t require our own love to love us. He didn’t just gave his all, he gave himself! He laid down his own life for the Church.
Paul was simply instructing men to be willing to give up their personal preferences and priorities for their wives! Ego is also one of those things to give up for your wife.
But again, we know that submission is mutual. We do not need any Bible verse to understand that two grown man and woman should know that they are accountable to themselves in a relationship and that if they truly want their relationship to thrive, they should love themselves.
That last paragraph though. What a wow. Especially the “They should love themselves.”
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