(remember, these are unedited/draft show notes, not a transcript — listening is always better…and if you listen AND follow along below, you’ll see why)
Focus Question:
What is mutual submission?
Intro:
Sometimes I get a little carried away…like ending up spending hours studying a topic so I can talk about it for 3 minutes at the end of the podcast. Our question today, as usually, is prompted from the text… What is mutual submission? If you want the long explanation and scriptural support from Colossians, Peter, Titus, Genesis, and a host of extra-biblical resources, I’d love to have coffee with you. But suffice it to say that I’ve prayed and studied and tried to boil it down to fit a podcast for busy people.
NEW TESTAMENT SEGMENT:
Passage: Ephesians 5-6:9
Translation: CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 42
Words: ~815
OLD TESTAMENT SEGMENT:
Passage: Esther 4-5
Translation: CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 45
Words: ~1476
Wisdom SEGMENT:
Passage: Proverbs 11:23-27
Translation: CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 5
Words: ~79
The bottom line:
What is mutual submission?
Submission is a willing response to headship.
It’s an act of worship that every believer participates in. It’s personal, it acts in one direction. Literally the word in Ephesians and elsewhere is a military term, like a soldier submitting to a general.
Make my joy complete by thinking the same way, having the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others. Php 2:2–4, CSB
So if submission is a personal act, what’s mutual submission?
It is not equality of role or authority. Parents putting the needs above their own – as an act of worship submitted to Christ – doesn’t diminish their role as head, it elevates it.
So mutual submission is we, who are all equally saved by God’s grace, taking personal responsibility before Christ to live according to where God has placed us.
It’s not generals who co-equally submit in their earthly role to soldiers, or parents to children, or vice president to the mail room clerk, or husbands to wives. And the risk of leadership, or failure to live up to the calling of headship in whatever way you’re called to be a leader (and we all are), is passivity or domination.
And we’re all called to submit to those who have earthly headship by doing so as we do to Jesus. But there is also context — employees aren’t submitting to any boss, children don’t submit to any parents, wives not to any man…you get the idea. But failure of submission is a worship disorder and failure to submit to the lordship of Christ.
A key theme of Ephesians, as we’ve been talking about, is unity. And as we heard in the opening line today… don’t be deceived by empty arguments. Jesus is the head, we’re the body. He’s the cornerstone that orders everything else – unity, but not uniformity. Remember how Paul uses the image of the body for spiritual gifts – someone’s the arm, someone’s the leg, but all gifts are for the building up of the body. Mutual submission is us, building each other up and spurring one another on, to do individually whatever we’re called to do, from whatever place, role, economic status, or physical body God has placed us, in full reverence and submission to Jesus.
ForTheHope is a daily audio Bible + apologetics podcast and blog. We’ve got a passion for just keepin’ it real, having conversations like normal people, and living out the love of Jesus better every single day.
Roger Courville, CSP is a globally-recognized expert in digitally-extended communication and connection, an award-winning speaker, award-winning author, and a passionately bad guitarist. Follow him on Twitter -- @RogerCourville and @JoinForTheHope – or his blog: www.forthehope.org.
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