Submission

The book we read this month for NGM (For Women Only) was unhelpful to me. But the marriage exercises, which are based on Scripture, are better. Today's Scripture was 1 Peter 3:1-2;7. I Googled "Christian woman submissive but strong." One of the sites that came up was reason4living.com. There's an article on that site that helped me with 1 Peter 3:1-2;7. I've cut and pasted some particularly helpful sections (and cleaned up the writing) here:

In the same way you wives must submit to your husbands, so that if any of them do not believe God's word, your conduct will win them over to believe.  It will not be necessary for you to say a word, because they will see how pure and reverent your conduct is.  For the devout women of the past who placed their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful by submitting to their husbands.  Sarah was like that; she obeyed Abraham and called him her master.  You are now her daughters if you do good and are not afraid of anything. (1 Peter 3:1-7 Good News Bible)

A woman's submissive conduct can communicate in a way that reaches deeper into a man's heart and mind more deeply than words alone can accomplish. Submissive obedience is extremely attractive and therapeutically calming for a man's troubled soul. When a man takes the headship in a relationship (i.e., he takes the role that God intended him to have), a woman will find that it creates some sort of deep resonance within her. And in a similar way, when a woman takes the role God intended for her (that of submitting to her man), there will be a corresponding and undeniable resonance within the man's soul.  It is something like the genuine smile, the genuine hug of affection. Something happens at a subconscious level that cannot be avoided or denied.  When the wife moves more deeply into the role she was created to fulfill by submitting to her husband, her husband is automatically moved closer to his created role, which is to submit to God.  In marriage the two became one, and if one of the two moves then the other one moves too!

When a wife judges the virtue of her husband's commands, she forgets that she chose to marry an imperfect man, and that she herself is imperfect and liable to make mistakes. God, who has always known all of these things, has already prescribed his own solution, namely that women should submit to and obey their imperfect husbands.  


If we follow God's plan (a fallen women submits willingly to her husband while accepting that he is a fallen man who will sometimes desire what he shouldn't), then we can anticipate some very positive results:


1. She is constantly affirming him with her respectful obedience and her submissive attitude; too few women understand the beneficial power of this kind of behavior.


2.  The gently submissive wife is helping to create an peaceable, calm and non threatening environment in which her husband feels at ease to question and criticize his own attitudes and to listen to her challenges.  Of course, if the man were a perfect man then he would be humble enough to accept a challenge from his wife under any circumstances. But, then again, if he were a perfect man this entire discussion would be unnecessary.  


3. The wife is setting a good example, and everybody is naturally attracted to righteousness, even if they resent they way it shows up their own faults. 


4. The wife will be growing into the role that God intended her to fulfill. Therefore, she will be being obedient to God, regardless of her husband's faults. Because she and her husband are intimately, spiritually conjoined,  as she moves more deeply into her God-intended role, her husband is automatically moved towards his God-intended role. The conjoining is elastic, not rigid. But nonetheless, if one moves, the other must eventually be moved too.  


5. The wife is learning to love in the biblical sense of that word. She is learning to be patient, to be kind, to keep no record of faults, to persevere, to constantly hope and so on.  It is interesting to remember that the definition of love as given in 1 Corinthians 13 is expressed entirely in terms of having a positive response to bad or negative events. This implies that we cannot use bad events as an excuse for not loving one's spouse as God desires us to.


6. The wife's obedient submission means that there is more likely to be harmony in the home instead of quarrelling.  It is true that there are rare occasions when a quarrel has a beneficial cathartic effect and is better than false harmony, but in general harmony is to be preferred.  


7. The woman's submissive attitude will be evident to other people outside the home, and God will be glorified because of it. Furthermore, in time, it is quite likely that some other men will remark positively to the husband about his wife's pleasant nature (particularly if it contrasts with the prickly behavior of their own women). That will enhance his appreciation of her and help create within him a greater willingness to communicate and perhaps to compromise.  Also some people will be led to ask about the source of the love that they see in the wife, and she will be able to mention the name of Jesus to them.  


8. The husband's faults are the stone against which the wife's virtues are to be honed. She will have ample opportunity to develop humility, patience and perseverance, to learn the power of prayer and to learn to trust.  She will also have ample opportunity to reflect upon, and work to diminish, her own faults and failings, which are likely much greater than she realizes.  


9. Faithful and trusting obedience releases God's power into the world.  A wife who obeys her husband out of respect for God's command is thereby automatically obeying God, regardless of what her husband commands.  Moses was neither the first nor the last person who was called to trust and obey an instruction he didn't fully agree with in circumstances that he didn't fully understand.  Throughout the bible, the trusting obedience of just one person is repeatedly seen to be sufficient to allow the awesome power of God to flow from heaven to Earth.