Submitting

 DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE EPHESIANS

SUBMITTING

Eph 5:21-33

21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 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. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."   32 This is a profound mystery — but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

NIV

Alright, we are back in the fifth chapter where we left off before we took a detour, back to the second chapter for a few days. We also need to camp out in the section about family relationships and it seems right to include this whole area of instructions, so as to not forget how it all fits together. We should start with this idea of submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. This is about honoring each other and having mutual respect for one another of our reverence of Christ. That is we do not see each other for our professions, social standing, educational level, or position in the body of Christ based on titles, but we see each other in the light of Christ and thus we see the dignity in each person. If we are able to follow this instruction of submitting to one another, it would do away with pridefulness on one hand, and jealousy and envy on the other hand. Because we would be seeing each other as members of the same body of Christ, there would be total equality within the church. However, the fact is, this may well be a pipe dream, for we have not yet seen this mutual honoring of each other, nor this mutual respect, instead, we have witnessed the existence of pridefulness because of a person’s position or title within the body of Christ or their profession and social standing in the world. We also wonder if this particular instruction, is a precursor to the relationship between a husband and a wife, leaving the church out of the equation altogether. With the individual instructions regarding the responsibilities of the wife and the husband, it would also be right for them to honor each other and have mutual respect for each other, thus submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Yet, this still speaks to the church as a whole, and in thinking about how the average church operates we need to be cognizant of the reality of status based on titles and how some might desire to have the most influence in the ways of a local church, forcing their way because of either their position in the church or the amount of their position and wealth in the world. We must see a true sense of equality within the church and in the family, honoring one another with mutual respect. The most interesting about this whole idea of submitting, which the Greek word means is to put ourselves, that is all of us, or see ourselves as subordinate to each other.