Submission is not a four-letter word

My husband and I are in a small Bible study, and together, our group has been working our way through Ephesians. This week we studied Ephesians 5, which contains the often misinterpreted submission verses. You know..."Wives submit yourselves to your own husbands..." (Eph. 5:22*).

I've heard more than one sermon in which pastors have encouraged men to quite literally rule over their wives. I've heard many evangelical men joke about "wives knowing their places" using Eph. 5:22 as the punchline thus turning the word 'submit' into a four-letter word for many women. But...I think those pastors and men got it all wrong.

This woman appears to be unhappy. Maybe she just heard a sermon about Eph. 5:22 where the pastor gave her husband permission to be a jackwagon and silence her. ..

Often, these 'submission' verses are looked at solely through the lens of marriage rather than through a much broader lens, but Ephesians 5:21 states, "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ."

Now, I'm a language person, so I know that the phrase 'one another' refers to many people. This is not a phrase to be used when talking about two people like in a marriage relationship (the proper reference to two people would be 'each other'). 'One another' has a broader implication, and to ignore this verse and skip only to the marriage references later on in chapter 5 is reading scripture irresponsibly.

There's a reason why Paul (author of Ephesians) includes verse 21: this concept of submission is not meant to maintain oppressive patriarchal relationships. Instead, Paul is referring to a kind of yielding where all believers set aside our own agendas in order to understand and be in relationship with others. We cannot be in fruitful, healthy relationships if we are unwilling to yield.

If you know me at all, you know I love me some podcasts. Recently I've become enthralled with The Liturgists Podcast. Not only is it well-produced, it's reflective and seeks to discuss the nuances of the Christian faith that many evangelical churches either gloss over or manipulate for their own profit. In a world where evangelical Christianity feels tainted and dirty, The Liturgists Podcast restores my faith. I listened to an episode today about advocacy. One of the guests on this episode is Micky ScottBey Jones, an evangelical activist. Micky mentions mutual submission and explains how it allows us to understand the plight of those outside our daily frame of reference.

When I refuse to yield, my relationships with others will take a hit. I should be able to set aside some of my own needs and wants for the advancement of the other person if I am in a healthy relationship. More broadly, submission in the global context can look like yielding to a narrative outside my own experiences in order to try and understand someone else's life. Without submission, I can remain blind to the suffering of others. and therefore cannot work to overturn the tables of systemic injustice that plague many of my brothers and sisters.

Submission in this context, then, no longer feels like a four-letter word that my feminist self must burn down. Instead, submission feels essential. It feels radical. It feels revolutionary. It feels like bridge-building. And quite honestly, it feels more like Jesus.

*Sidebar: So, why does Paul even talk about wives submitting to their husbands??? I'm no theologian, but here's what my common brain has come to understand so far: Ephesians 5:22 resides among a much larger context in the book of Ephesians, a book written to explain the new humanity, the unity we have been given through Christ (Eph. 2:11-18 and even most of chapter 3). Ephesians 4 and the first half of chapter 5 have instructions for how we are to adopt a new way of living as followers of Jesus and citizens of the Kingdom. The second half of Ephesians 5 and the first half of chapter 6 uses the family unit (something that would have been well understood and valued to the original audience) as an example for how this kind of living, this putting on of a new-self would work in a practical sense. All of the instructions Paul gives in chapters 4 and 5 require submission. The instructions for wives and husbands in Ephesians 5 are not to be read as individual mandates. It's an if-then relationship, which relies primarily on the husband to love his wife in a radical, sacrificial way similar to Christ's love for the church.