Submit to One Another

As a teenager, I played the game “Uncle” with anybody willing. We would interlock fingers, then bend, twist, and contort each other’s hands until the pain was too much. The first person to have enough pain cried, “Uncle,” and the game was over. If, however, neither player is willing to give up, we would often taunt each other, “Submit and it’s over.”

Sadly, that is often the picture we conjure up when thinking of the repeated New Testament exhortation to submit to one another - pain and one-upmanship. That is not the picture the Bible paints of submission.

The direction to submit to others is found often in the New Testament:

• 1 Peter 2:13 - Submit to authority.
• Ephesians 5:21 - Husbands submit to wives.
• Ephesians 5:22 - Wives submit to husbands.
• Ephesians 6:1 - Submit to your parents.
• 1 Peter 2:18 - Submit to your employer.
• Romans 8:7 - Submit to God’s Word.
• Hebrews 13:17 - Submit to church leaders.
• 1 Peter 5:5 - Submit to your elders.
• Romans 13:1 - Submit to the government.

It is perhaps in Romans 13 that we gain the deepest understanding of why submission is so important. Submitting to others creates God-honoring boundaries and limitations in our lives. The boundaries put limits on our selfishness. As a river without banks becomes a polluted cesspool with no direction, so does the life of the person who does not submit to others.

More than why I must submit, I often struggle with how. How do I submit to a person or entity who is unworthy of my submission? How do I submit to a leader that does not submit to others? How do I submit when it is clear that the other person is wrong?

Paul addresses that in Ephesians 5:18, just a few verses before today’s reading. Before Paul talks about submitting to one another, wives to their husbands, kids to their parents, slaves to their masters, and before he talks about submitting to God-given authorities in our lives, Paul writes: “...be filled with the Holy Spirit.”

The only way we can willingly submit to one another is by walking in the Spirit of God.

Prayer: Father, please help me to walk in Your Spirit so that I will submit to others in a way that pleases you.