Love and Submission

Ephesians 4-6

About a year or so after we got married, my previous roommate asked us to be a part of his wedding. So we packed up the car and drove to Frogmore, Louisiana. At a church service a day or two before the wedding, the minister preached a sermon on Ephesians 5... or maybe I should say he told us all how we were going to hell because of Ephesians 5. The way I remember it, I had to restrain Lisha at one point. To that minister, Paul's two verses about wifely submission were all that was required to condemn just about anything that a woman might aspire to do.

I'm no biblical scholar, and I don't know Greek, but I think Paul had a different goal. Paul gives very explicit directions to both husbands and wives. Husbands are to "love" their wives, wives are to "submit" to or "respect" their husbands. Why not just use love for both or submit for both? Perhaps Paul knew that women need love more than respect, and men need respect more than love for a relationship to succeed. Or, maybe as we see in 1 John... love is just another side of submission (obedience)... the male view versus the female view.