Submission and Love

Women should be extremely thankful for Jesus Christ and Christianity, for before the advent of Christianity the woman's lot was barely above that of a slave's.

When we were in Guatemala we ran out of gas on the way to Antigua. The friends that were with us hiked ahead to buy some gas. As we were looking around and praising the Lord for the glorious beauties of this country, I heard the cracking of bushes up in the hills of this thickly forested area. I looked up and saw three women walking down from the mountains. I couldn't even see a trail. They were carrying huge bundles of sticks, probably weighing 50 to 75 pounds each, on their heads. They'd been out in the forest chopping wood all day long. They were now carrying these bundles home so they could cook the food.

In Israel we saw many of the Bedouins. The women were out in the field. They were plowing, they were pulling the weeds, they were planting; meanwhile their husbands were sitting around, trading sheep and drinking coffee. These women in Guatemala and Israel labor. They have very few rights or privileges.

Christianity has done much for women. In his epistle to the Colossians, Paul starts with the women. "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord" (Colossians 3:18). I've heard women say, "I've heard so much about submission that I'm sick of it." Many times by talking enough about something we can relieve ourselves of the obligation to do a certain thing. We can talk very glibly and skillfully about the need for a woman's submission to her husband. The wives can get together and share how "we ought to be submitted." But by talking about it they can free themselves from the actual obligation of doing it.

There is one place in the Scripture where the wife led the husband. That was back in the Garden of Eden, and we've been in trouble ever since.

God's rule is that the husband be the head of the house and the wife submit unto the husband.

Naturally, there is an order involved. In this true order the husband is to be submitted unto Christ, even as Christ willingly submitted Himself unto the Father. As a husband is submitted to Christ and the wife is submitted to the husband, the wife in reality is submitted to Christ through the husband.