Matthew 7 here from Verity Baptist Manila and I wanted to quickly explain to you in
the Bible.
Ephesians chapter 5 verse 21.
The Bible says in Ephesians 5 21, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
Now this verse has been used by a lot of people to try to overhaul God's standard of the husband
being the head of the home and the wife being in subjection to her husband.
And they'll point to Ephesians 5 21 where it says you submit yourselves one to another
and husbands need to submit to their wives and wives to their husbands.
And the next 12 verses, verses 22 through 33, it's very clear it says wives submit yourselves
onto your own husbands.
And so it goes through this big thing about how wives submit to their husbands whereas
husbands are the head but they lay down their lives for their wives, they love their wives.
But people try to use one verse to overhaul everything.
So here's my opinion of what it means in Ephesians 5 21 because this verse by itself
could be a bit confusing.
It says submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
What I believe it's referring to is that if you're in a position where you have an authority,
you need to submit to that authority.
And the Bible is actually going to give three examples of this back to back, not one example.
One example is wives to husbands.
But at the end of Ephesians 5, the context has not changed.
And so in Ephesians chapter six, verses one through four, it talks about children obey
your parents in the Lord.
And so children submitting to parents, that is a position where children have an authority.
So wives have husbands, children have parents, then in verses five through nine, servants
be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh.
So servants are supposed to submit to their masters, children to parents, wives to husbands.
So when it says submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God, I don't believe
it's saying, well, husbands and wives both submit to each other.
What I believe it's saying is this, that if you're in a position where you have an authority,
you need to submit to that authority.
Now most of us in our lives, we do have an authority.
You know, if you're a woman, obviously, and you're married, you submit to the authority
of your husband.
If you're a child, you submit to your parents.
And if you're a servant and you have a master, which is, you know, most people have a boss
at work or something like that.
Look, you have an authority that you need to submit to that authority.
And why this is so interesting and so helpful is because when I look at my life being, you
know, a husband, obviously, looking at Ephesians five is great of how I can learn how I can
lay down my life and be a great husband and realize what's important, what I need to do.
But at the same time, I can also look at Ephesians six and see the examples of children and parents
and servants and masters, and also get a little bit more complete of an idea of what I need
to do as I'm in the position of authority in our marriage, and also as I'm raising my
son of what I need to do as well, because you see three examples of submitting yourselves
one to another in the fear of God.
Obviously, if we have an authority in our lives, we need to submit to that authority.
That's what the Bible teaches.
And in Ephesians five verse 21, it actually gives you three examples of this.
It talks about wives submitting to husbands.
The end of Ephesians five, the context has not changed.
Children submit to parents and then servants submit to masters.
Thank you and God bless.