Wives Submit to Your Husbands

 It's probably this one that gets the most press. Honor thy father or mother is ignored for the most part by adults because they think it no longer pertains to them but this one hits home for women. What exactly does it mean to submit to one's husband? The standard passages are as follows:

Wives, submit to your husbands in the same way that you submit to the Lord, because the husband is the authority of the wife as also Christ is the authority of the church (he himself being the savior of the body). But as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. (Eph 5:21-24)

Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. (Col 3:18)

In the same way, wives, be subject to your own husbands. Then, even if some are disobedient to the word, they will be won over without a word by the way you live, when they see your pure and reverent conduct. Let your beauty not be external—the braiding of hair and wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes— but the inner person of the heart, the lasting beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in God’s sight. For in the same way the holy women who hoped in God long ago adorned themselves by being subject to their husbands, like Sarah who obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. You become her children when you do what is good and have no fear in doing so. (1 Pet 3:1-6)

Submission is first described by Paul here as a recognition of Christ's authority and the husband's authority is an extension of Christ's in such a way so that the wife must subject herself to him in "all things." The authority seems total with obviously the biblical caveats that since Christ is the ultimate authority, the wife submits only so far as the husband does not command her in a contrary manner to Christ's commands to her. Her submission to her husband is in recognition of Christ's authority, so disobeying Christ in order to obey her husband is contrary to the foundational reason the command is given. She is to submit to her husband as she submits to the Lord because she is submitting to the Lord through her husband. Hence, the woman is always to submit to the Lord. As in all of these biblical commands when it comes to family, they assume that the authority is not commanding the one under that authority to sin against God.

The second thing to note is that submission is a synonymous word with obedience. Peter uses the word "submission" but then describes it as "obedience" while describing Sarah's obedience to Abraham, even noting the relationship as one where he is her "lord." This obedience includes a devotion to her husband that does not seek attention from other men by making herself beautiful for them but rather she works on beautifying herself through her faithfulness and obedience to him while placing her fears in the hands of God so that they do not turn into the pursuits of wicked women who shun the authority of Christ through their husbands for "good reasons." Peter ends by saying that although they might be afraid to entrust another human in this way, it is the way they identify themselves as the true seed of Sarah/Abraham, i.e., Christians, so that a woman cannot claim to be in good standing with Christ as a Christian but refuse to obey her husband.

This is true for even husbands who are not Christians in that their authority represents Christ's even if their conduct does not. 

Now, what other Scriptures indicate is that no one should obey any human being when there is a conflict between God and man. A husband cannot command his wife to jump off a cliff, drink poison, sleep with other men, go to an apostate or excommunicated church, go against the directive of the elders of a church, stop going to church, stop praying, pray to other gods, reject Christianity, etc., etc.

Since the entire goal of obeying the husband has to do with obeying Christ through the husband, when he leads the wife away from Christ a way like those mentioned above, he must be disobeyed in order for Christ to continue to be obeyed. Any wife who obeys her husband over Christ is an apostate, a traitor to her true Lord, and an infidel, since she has placed her husband over Christ rather than as the main vehicle through whom Christ is followed.

In this regard, the texts above are not calling for women to become blind and stupid because they just let their husbands direct everything but rather it is calling for them to evaluate whether what they are being called to submit to is of the Lord or of the devil. This means she must open her eyes, turn her mind on, and make bold and courageous decisions to submit to her husband in all things that do not sin against God but in no things that do. A woman who does otherwise, either way, has rejected the faith.