Journey to Surrender

Part 6 of “What I Believe About Marriage”

Last time I directed my comments to husbands concerning their role in what I describe as the “ordered partnership” of marriage. Today I’ll be I’ll be talking to wives about their role.

I’ll save drive-by flamers some trouble by quoting an anonymous comment left a while ago on my post “Respect, Submission and Trust.”

So, you believe in slavery of women? Giving up free will to her husband? So, freedom is only for men? How sad.

This kind of comment is typical of those who don’t bother to really read what I write or understand the heart behind it. How sad. Let me just say up front I don’t believe in any of those things.

Now, let me move on to what I do believe.

First, let me remind you that that biblical marriage is a set of truths in tension. By that I mean you can’t just look at either your husband’s or your role in isolation. A fully functioning, genuinely biblical marriage requires both of you to operate in accordance with what the Word of God says. Examining only a husband’s authority in marriage without coupling it to the fact that he is to emulate Christ in the exercise of that authority is dangerous. Considering the topic of a wife’s submission, without coupling it closely to a husband’s Christ-like love is equally dangerous. Keep the truths in tension.

Love, Honor and Submission

I believe, as I said last time, that your husband is to love, lead and serve you. With that understanding in mind, I believe your counterpart to that is to love, honor and submit to him.

I’m going to take these in reverse order, because truthfully, most people are going to skip to the s-word section anyway.

Submitting to Your Husband

I’ll start with one of several Scriptures that point to this role of a wife in a Christian marriage.

Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

Ephesians 5:22-24

(I’ll remind any husbands that might be lurking here that this passage is directed to your wife. Nothing about this passage implies that you are to get her to submit to you! Your only instruction is to love her!)

It's All Greek...

Pardon me while I parse some Greek here. I’ve read dozens of commentaries, blog posts and articles on this passage. Because this is such a critically important marriage passage, the words are important. What I say here is a very brief synopsis of where I come down on the meaning of these words.

Strong’s Concordance defines the Greek word often translated into “submission,” hupotasso, as “to arrange ones self under,” and “a voluntary attitude of giving in, cooperating, assuming responsibility, and carrying a burden.” I hope you sense the extent to which this is a choice made out of love, not an obligation performed out of duty.

The term translated as “head,” kephale, in the passage above, does not carry the connotation of boss (there is a different Greek word that Paul would have used if that was what he meant). In this context it means something more like “leading by being out front.” I think of something like the lead goose in a flying formation. This understanding of headship is important for understanding what is meant by submission.

Submission is not enslavement. Submission does not imply not having a voice. Submission is not being a doormat. Submission is not subservience. Submission is not even obedience.

Submission is the attitude of your heart that says, “I respect you as my husband and acknowledge the leadership that God has called you to in our marriage. I want to keep myself arranged behind that leadership, to follow your lead and to partner with you as we move along our marriage journey together.  I submit to God first, and he has asked me to submit myself to you. I do so willingly and in much the same manner I do this unto Jesus in my spiritual journey. .”

Honoring Your Husband

Your husband probably desires your respect and to be honored by you more than he wants to have sex with you. Yeah, really. That much!

Given a choice between feeling unloved or feeling disrespected, three fourths of men will choose to feel unloved, according to one survey. My own recent informal poll clearly showed respect as the number one need for the most husbands.

The truth is that your husband needs your love for him expressed as respect and admiration in the same way that you need his love expressed through emotional intimacy and feeling cared for.

Dishonoring your husband is a blow to his heart. It says to him, “I don’t love you.”

This is why the Bible says:

However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Ephesians 5:33

Strong’s defines the Greek word here for respect, phobeo, “to reverence or treat with deference.” Some dictionary definitions I include are: holding in honor or esteem, to pay proper attention, and to show consideration for.

“But you don’t know my husband!” you say. “He can be such a pig-headed idiot sometimes.”

No, I don’t know your husband or the details of his pig-headedness (or whatever you see as his weaknesses), but I still insist that he deserves and needs your respect.

Loving Your Husband

Submission (staying behind him, remaining under his protective covering and supporting him) is the action that flows from an attitude of honor and respect. This is a powerful principle. This is what it means to love your husband.

I agree with Dr. Emmerson Eggerichs, who says that just as your husband is to give you unconditional love, you are to give him unconditional respect. To him it’s the same thing.

Unconditional respect does not imply unconditional agreement or endorsement, but it does imply that in all things and at all times you are to maintain an atmosphere of honor in your marriage. It means not putting him down when you disagree. It means not talking badly about him to your friends or family. It means not browbeating him when asking him to do something. It means not assuming he will do the wrong thing.

But more than what you should not do, I want to encourage toward what you should do to show him love through respect and submission.

• Tell him how proud you are of him (about something specific)
• Tell him he is you’re hero
• Ask him about his day, and tell him how much you appreciate how hard he works
• Strive to support and agree with the decisions he makes
• Flirt with him and tell him how attracted you are to him
• Tell him how blessed you feel to have a husband like him, and tell him why

Even better, ask him specifically what you can do to show him more respect or to be more honoring toward him. Keep your eyes open for the things that matter to him, and do them.

If you want your husband to fulfill his biblical role and lead you with love, do your best to let him know you believe in him, that you respect him, and that you honor him as the loving leader God has called him to be.

Whether he is walking in the full maturity in his role right now or not, your attitude of respect and acts of submission will help to draw out of him the loving leader you want him to be – the loving leader God wants him to be.

Women who embrace the biblical notions of love, respect and submission toward their husbands are not repressed, but actually free and full of power. It’s one of the many ways in which the Kingdom of God is upside down from what the worlds says.


Please see also my Wive's Only Wednesday post "What Submission is Not."


Continue to Part 7:  Just What is a Surrendered Marriage?

Part 5 of “What I Believe About Marriage”

I mentioned last time that I believe that the biblical order God intends for marriage is best described as an ordered partnership. But what exactly does that mean?

Today I’m gong to direct some straight talk to husbands about their biblical role in this ordered partnership. (The wives side will come with this week’s Wives Only Wednesday).

In simplest terms, I believe your role as a husband is to love, lead and serve your wife.

Loving Your Wife

Scripture sets the bar pretty high for us husbands on this one.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

Ephesians 5:24 (NIV)

I think the biggest reason husbands don’t do better at loving their wives as Christ loves the church is because they don’t really know how Christ loves the church. Specifically, I’m calling you to invest yourself deeply into knowing the love of Christ through whom the tremendous emotions of God toward you are revealed. Men, you do your wife a great disservice if you shy away from your bridal identity, because it is only in the intimate knowledge of the love of your heavenly Bridegroom, Jesus, that you can truly know how to love their wives. This is so hugely important! Get over it and learn to be a bride of Christ.

A few chapters before Paul tells husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the church, he explains that the love of Christ is so vast as to be unknowable, yet he goes on to say that getting to know it is the very key to a full life in God (Ephesians 3:17-20). It is also the key to knowing what it means to love your wife with unconditional, passionate, pure, selfless love.

Loving your wife means loving her on her terms, not yours. Go back and read my recent post on how the top marital needs of men and women differ so greatly. Loving your wife how she needs to be loved will require you to become a student of your wife, learning how to delight her beyond her wildest dreams. It also requires a daily, consistent demonstration of that love through things like showing tender care, maintaining emotional intimacy and making sure she feels protected and safe.  This is not a quick fix or a sliver bullet. It’s a lifestyle of love.

Check out this amazing description of Christ’s love from earlier in Ephesians 5, just before Paul tells you that this is what you are to emulate.

Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn't love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.

Ephesians 5:2 (MSG)

Leading Your Wife

I believe, as I said in my last post, that God grants a certain authority to husbands in the ordered partnership of marriage.

I know that not everyone agrees with me on this. However, I think the reason so many people have a problem with the notion of husbands having authority in marriage is that they have the wrong paradigm. The authority they think of is the tyrannical corporate boss, the corrupt politician, or the heavy-handed drill sergeant. There are so many examples of authority and power being used incorrectly.

How are you to lead as a husband? Lead with love, like Jesus does. I believe that if the “love” part of your role is fully understood and acted upon (see above), the “lead” part of your role becomes a huge blessing to your wife. Without a good grip on the love part, the lead part can easily turn oppressive and self-serving.

Not all husbands will take up their authority, and not all husbands will wield their authority wisely or well. Regardless, I believe that the authority is theirs nonetheless, because I believe it is authority delegated from God the Father in accordance with his design for marriage. It is not a question of earning your authority, it is really a question of what you do with the authority you have already been granted.

I’ve mentioned before that by far the most common search that lands people on my site is “husband refuses to lead” or variants on the same. This search is followed closely by some combination of the words “husband” and “dictator.” Your goal is to never give your own wife a reason to Google either one!

Believe me when I say your wife probably longs for you to walk in your God-given authority. Yes, she wants you to lead her, but lead her with Christ-like love.

Serving Your Wife

Jesus came to serve and save the church through the ultimate sacrifice of giving his own life for her. Most of us husbands will never be called upon to serve our wives in this way, but we are called to serve them in the way we love and lead them on a daily basis.

How did Jesus serve those he loved? He washed their feet. He calmed their storms. He set them free from bondage. He led the way to the Father. He was full of grace and truth, light and life, peace and joy.

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

Philippians 2:5-7

Your authority in your marriage does not give you the right to simply make all the decisions or to tell your wife what to do. It comes with the right to lay down your life for her and to serve her. I hate the way some people portray the biblical order and husbandly authority as a thoughtless, disheveled man issuing edicts and orders from his Lazy boy. But you know what? There’s probably a reason, a really bad reason, for that stereotype.

My heart’s desire is to see millions of good, loving, strong husbands walking out their authority like Jesus, in such an exemplary and powerful fashion as to wreck these negative stereotypes forever.