One Another Series - Submit to One Another

This is Chuck Rapp with Multiply, a podcast to provide a word of encouragement for village church planters and leaders.

This year, in these podcasts, I am focusing upon the “One Another” scriptures found in the New Testament. 

Today’s podcast comes from Ephesians 5:21. “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”  In my New International Version, the heading for this verse and the verses that follow is “Instructions for Christian Households.”  As the scheduled day for the release of this podcast will be my wife’s and my 44^th wedding anniversary, in this episode I will join others who are sharing in these podcasts about principles of Christian marriage. 

In its simplest sense, what the Apostle Paul is saying here is that husbands and wives are to mutually submit to one another.  Husbands demonstrate this by their sacrificial love for their wives (as Christ did for the Church, see verses 25 and 33).  Wives demonstrate their mutual submission by their respect (we see this in verse 33) for their husbands.

Paul gives similar instructions in Philippians 2:3-4.  “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.  Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.” 

When a husband and wife are in mutual submission to one another, each of them gives consideration to their mate’s interests and needs.  In humility, they place their spouse’s needs ahead of their own. 

In our 44-year marriage, there have been times and seasons when I have had to (or perhaps I should say that I have “chosen to”) place my wife’s needs ahead of my own.  This past year leading up to her recent back surgery, I found myself helping with tasks that previously she would have been able to do herself.  In love, I took on these physical responsibilities.

Similarly, one result of my wife’s respect and love for me is that she is very supportive of my ministry call – and travel – in Africa.  This year she will endure the loneliness of my five trips to Africa. 

Secondly in this passage, our motivation for this mutual submission is critical.  We choose to submit to one another “out of reverence for Christ.”  Jesus is our ultimate example. In the Garden prayer in Gethsemane, He submitted to the Father, praying “not my will, but yours be done.”  It is out of our reverence for Christ, His preeminence in our lives, that we choose to yield our rights and we mutually submit to one another in our marriages.  My prayer for you today is that you, too, will enjoy many years of Christian marriage under the Lordship of Christ.  

This has been a word of encouragement for Village Church Planters.