Biblical Submission in Marriage: Embrace Your Roles
When it comes to biblical submission in marriage, we have to make sure we are aligning our attitudes and behaviors with how God has told us in His Word that we should be as husbands and wives.
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
Ephesians 5:22
Sometimes submitting is the absolute last thing we want to do, but it is in the Bible for a reason. God knows what is best for us.
When I was younger, before I was married, I was the complete opposite of submissive. As a young woman, I was loud, proud, and independent. I took pride in my intelligence, my perseverance, my hard work, and NOBODY could tell me what to do. I made my own money and I did what I wanted.
What’s wrong with that?
Some of you may be reading this seeing nothing wrong with that. However, as we grew in our relationship and we got married, had children, and I started staying home, things began to change.
Different roles
We realized that our roles changed in our marriage and we took time to get used to that. My husband had to adjust to his new role, his rightful spot as the provider for our growing family.
Previously, he and I both had the idea that we would both earn income for our family. When that changed, I started to understand that my attitude of “I do what I want, because I earned it,” no longer made sense. We were a team and we both had to behave that way.
Adjusting takes time
Everything was ours. He had to learn to earn on his own and I had to learn that depending on a man was not a sign of weakness. It is how God designed us.
He is a man, a provider, the head of our home. I am a woman, a nurturer, here to love my husband and children, and to keep our home. It is a beautiful thing.
God at the center of Christian marriage
I could not do that alone, and neither can he. God has to be at the center of it all, to guide us. As we both submit ALL to him, submitting to my husband becomes easier. After all, that is what God tells me to do.
Following God’s design for the marriage relationship
When I submit to my husband, I show him the respect that I am instructed to give him in the word of God (Ephesians 5:33). The more that I treat him like a leader, the more he is encouraged to be a leader.
A way to encourage leadership by my husband is to let him know that I value his input, his thoughts, and his ideas. I need to respect what he desires and make sure that he feels it. I can be a positive voice for him, drawing attention to the things he is doing well and showing grace in the areas he is working on.
Some verses to guide our attitudes toward our husbands:
She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life.
Proverbs 31:12
The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down.
Proverbs 14:1
It is better to live in a desert land than with a quarrelsome and fretful woman.
Proverbs 21:19
A continual dripping on a rainy day and a quarrelsome wife are alike; to restrain her is to restrain the wind or to grasp oil in one’s right hand.
Proverbs 27:15-16
Seek God together
When pursuing biblical submission in marriage, making it a priority to seek God together as a couple and as a family is so important. Make sure that you and your husband are reading the word of God together regularly and praying together.
If you do not have this habit established yet, you can start simply, just by reading a verse and saying a prayer together before bed.
The Bible app is a great source for tracking daily reading. I like to use it sometimes, but I think it is SO important to have a physical Bible that you touch and use. I have a journaling Bible and I like to use the lines on the side to copy sections of Scripture that I feel drawn to by the Holy Spirit.
You can do it whenever works best, but make it happen. Make it known to each other and to God that you are putting God first and that you are asking Him to guide you both in all things, including your marriage.
Embrace your Biblical role in marriage
God knows what he is doing and he placed us right where we belong, in our biblical marriage roles. When you fully embrace obeying God’s word in all areas of your life, including in your marriage, the peace that comes will be so worth it. Let go of your own need to be in control of everything and trust God to work it out. He will show up and show out! Trust Him.
Let God’s Word be the source for you
In all things, being guided by God’s word is so important. God’s word needs no human additions, go straight to the source. I encourage you to open your own Bible and get into the word of God daily, seeking God and asking Him to reveal to you through the Holy Spirit what he wants you to see each day and what he wants you to focus on. The Holy Spirit will teach you.
In the words of Jesus:
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”
John 14:26
As you consider biblical submission, here are some verses that I recommend for you to check out further in your Bible and read in context:
From Ephesians, Chapter 5
Wives and Husbands
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Ephesians 5:22-33
From 1 Peter, Chapter 3
Wives and Husbands
Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Do not let your adorning be external – the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear- but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.
Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.
1 Peter 3:1-6
Other verses to check out about biblical marriage:
Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting to the Lord.
Colossians 3:18
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
Genesis 2:24
Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make a helper fit for him.”
Genesis 2:18
