Submission

The word for "submit" has no alternate meaning in the Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic. It means exactly what we think it means. We resist it as women because in keeping with our human nature, we want to feel powerful, independent, and important. Submission, however, does not rob us of any of those things. It is simply God's plan for order and unity in marriage. We submit to authority in countless other ways without question...employers, parents, our government, but have our heels dug in regarding submission to our husbands. Without leadership, there is no productivity...only chaos. How would a business or nation function without leaders? It would be an impossible mess. The same is true in the home. Parents have authority over their children and husbands have authority over their wives. God set it up that way, so I don't need to waste effort reinventing the wheel nor do I need to be frustrated with the arrangement. God is God, it is what it is, and the faster I reconcile it in my mind, the happier my home life will be. As a casual observation, have marriages and family life improved since" Women's Liberation" took hold in the 1960s? Of course not. The family was designed to work under the leadership of a Godly man. Key word...Godly.

Submission should never equate to an abuse of power. Paul's instructions to husbands is far more selfless and loving than what he asks of women. We are to show our husbands respect and defer to their leadership. They are to love us sacrificially, using Christ and His sacrificial death as a template!

Paul also addresses the submission of slaves. Reading his instructions that slaves should submit to their masters is disconcerting because we would rather Paul speak against slavery! However, we have a different image regarding slavery than what was occurring at this time. Our opinions about slavery are based on what we know of slavery in our country, but slavery in the Roman era was commonly a means of voluntary employment. I found the following description of the conditions of slavery in an online article...

Roman slavery corresponded most closely to contract employment in our day. Slaves were hard laborers, educators, personal advisors; they filled all occupational niches. Sometimes people sold themselves into slavery in order to pay off debts (this situation is depicted in the New Testament), and sometimes people saved up money to buy their own freedom (Paul commended slaves who did this).

Slaves were legally part of the family, although on a secondary level. The law required masters to provide their slaves with food, clothing, and shelter. There were legal penalties for mistreating slaves (although we might think them inadequate, they did exist). We think of slaves living in leaky shacks in the fields, but in Roman days, slaves lived in the house with the family, but not permanently, because if the master died, the family remained, but the slaves had to go. If a master fell on financial hard times, he had to sell or free the slaves; and if he freed the slaves, he was legally responsible to make sure that they could make a go of it in the world. A slave who had spent his whole life tutoring people in philosophy might need to be taught the realities of the marketplace and be trained in a trade, for example.

There were incidents of slave rebellions for better working conditions, there were incidents where slaves begged not to be freed, there were incidents when slaves defended their masters the same way you or I might defend our employers so that we can keep our jobs. The New Testament epistle to Philemon is interesting in this context. In many cases, if a slave were a trusted friend and companion and had a good sense for business, he would be adopted as a son, because under the legal system, sons inherently possessed the power of attorney of their fathers and could conduct business on their behalf. Adopting a capable slave as your son was a quick but expensive way of acquiring a good and loyal business manager, and it was by no means an uncommon event.

I am sure that there were other instances of slavery that were not voluntary, but the form of slavery mentioned above was common and I believe it was to this group of slaves that Paul was appealing. In that regard, he was simply instructing slaves and masters as employees and employers.

Tomorrow's reading: Philemon 1:1-25; Phillipians 1;1-2:11