Hi all,
The title of this series is ‘Submission & Authority’, so today I’ll define those and share how they are confused and twisted to manipulate people.
Submission is…
A grace in the heart. Submission is not obedience. Submission is a grace in the heart towards someone or something. Obedience is an action.
Obedience is an act of complying with rules, commands, or directions given. Submission is a condition of the heart when someone gives their will over to another’s control or will.
Colossians 3: 18 says: “Wives submit yourselves to your own husbands as it is fit in the Lord.”
Ephesians 5: 22 says: “Wives submit to your own husbands as unto the Lord.”
Notice these does not say obey. They say submit. Again, submission is an attitude of the heart. He also says: “…submit…as it is fit in the Lord” and “submit as unto the Lord.” The Lord would not require submission or obedience to anything not in Him.
The Lord would not ask a wife to do something immoral, unethical, or something that violates her body and control over it. Can a husband picture Jesus asking a wife to do that? If not, she doesn’t have to submit nor obey. “As unto the Lord” means according to what Jesus would ask. That’s the extent of wives being submitted (a grace in the heart) to their husbands.
That means if a husband asks a wife to do something (obedience) that the Lord would not do or would not agree with, the wife does not have to submit does she have to do. Submit meaning to give their will over to their (husband) – she may withdraw that if he asks something not in the Lord.
The context of Ephesians 5:20-21 provides greater insight: “Submit yourselves to one another in the fear of God. Wives submit to your husbands as unto the Lord.” Marriage is a grace of mutual submission.
“Submit to one another” means husbands submit to their wives as their wives submit to their husbands. But it comes with 2 conditions: In the fear of God and as unto the Lord.
This shows husbands who fear God aren’t going to ask the wife to do something Jesus wouldn’t ask her to do – because they mutually walk in the reverential fear of the Lord – both are accountable to Him.
Obedient, but not submitted; submitted but not obedient
Obedience is the act, submission is a condition of the heart.
A teenager asked to clean their room may do so in obedience, but in their heart they are not submitted – they gripe and complain and have a horrible attitude while they clean. They are obedient but not submitted.
A wife forbidden by her husband of going to church may disobey, but in her heart continue to be submitted to her husband. She is disobedient but she is submitted.
Young children are commanded to obey. Paul doesn’t say they must submit, he simply says obey. He also makes the distinction with slaves, saying to obey from the heart as unto the Lord. This brings out obedience with a submitted heart – but a heart submitted to the Lord. Colossians 3: 20-22
Consider Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, so stressed his capillaries broke and He sweat blood, as He was making the final decision to obey His Father. He was submitted in His heart, the cross was the plan after all. But that final act of obedience, to allow Himself to be arrested, was a great wrestling match within Himself.
Haven’t we all had those internal wrestlings as we struggle with obedience with submission?
Isaiah 1: 19 also brings both these elements together: “If you are willing (submitted) and obedient you will eat the good of the land.” Many are one or the other but not both, and then wonder why they aren’t ‘eating the good of the land.’
Parents with adult children
When Barb and I were told our first born (Chris) was handicapped, when he was about 6 months old, my mom suggested putting him a home for retarded children. That was her generation’s thinking, but it wasn’t our thinking.
I honored, Barb and I honored, my mom, but we rejected her advice. We were not obedient. There is nothing in scripture commanding adult children to obey their parents, but we are required to honor our parents throughout our lives. That doesn’t mean you as an adult have to obey; you’re an adult, you may be submitted in your heart to them but you no longer have to obey them.
Signs you are being manipulated: Manipulators search for easy prey
Manipulation is to control, influence, or even negotiate with someone for one’s own advantage.
That advantage may be spiritual, it may be financial, it may be physical. The manipulator may get an emotional ‘high’ from telling someone what to do or not to do. It may be an ego boost, a control issue, that they now control someone. They may manipulate out of their own fears and insecurities. Many people do things because it gives them control over someone.
Manipulation benefits the manipulator in some way, seen or unseen. In their emotions or motives they benefit from gradually removing control and decision making ability from their victim.
The evil behind manipulation in church is that the person in authority uses God to support their practice of exercising control over a person’s decision making.
They know where to find victims
Very often it is impressionable young women or men, often single and not in a relationship. Very often these people are at a life changing moment – school, job, moving away from home. In older people it may be the break up of a marriage, the loss of a loved one, loneliness, illness, or needing purpose and/or direction in life.
With older people manipulators seek that moment in a person’s life of raw emotions in their victim. With a young person they often have no one else speaking into their life, don’t have life experience so seek someone older for advice, so are vulnerable.
Paul warned the elders of Ephesus that wolves would enter the flock and make disciples of themselves, not disciples of the Lord. (Acts 20: 29-30) Church manipulators direct their victim to look to them for advice rather than to Christ in them first and foremost.
Who is your covering?
That’s where we’ll start next week. Until then, blessings,
John Fenn
