In our modern, flex-my-rights, you-can’t-tell-me-what-to-do, just-stay-out-of-my-way, I-know-better-than-you society, we don’t like the word “submit,” but we need to know what God has to say about that word, since He can tell me what to do and does know better than me!
We like the idea that God’s enemies should “submit” to Him (Psa. 66:3; cf. Deut. 33:29), and we likely believe that children should be “in submission” (1 Tim. 3:4) and that “younger people” should “submit” to their “elders” (1 Pet. 5:5). But how else does God use this word?
“Wives” are to “submit to [their] own husbands” (Col. 3:18; cf. Eph. 5:22; 1 Pet. 3:1), and women are to in “submission” in the church (1 Tim. 2:11). God tells Christians to “Obey those who rule over you (i.e., the elders), and be submissive” (Heb. 13:17). In fact, Christians are to “be submissive to one another” (1 Pet. 5:5), “in the fear of God” (Eph. 5:21). Likewise, we are to “submit…to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake” (1 Pet. 2:13). Which of these apply today? All of them, as we all seek to “submit to God” (Jas. 4:7). Like the word or not, God commands it!
