Through The Bible in a Year - September 17, 2026 (Copy)

"Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands." - Ephesians 5:22–24

The Greek word behind "submit" is hupotasso — two words joined together meaning simply "to arrange under." It is not the language of suppression, domination, or silence. It is the language of a skilled musician arranging her gifts under a conductor's vision, or an athlete channeling her strength toward a team's goal. Nothing is withheld, suppressed, or diminished. Everything is offered with all the skill and giftedness that God has provided for the sake of a greater good.

Paul's example makes this unmistakable. He says that wives are to submit to their husbands as the church submits to Christ. We never tell the church to suppress its singing, stifle its prayers, or hold back its care for one another. We say, “Fully express the gifts and graces God has given you in service of Christ and his purposes.” That same fullness of expression — not a diminished or suppressed version of it — is what Paul has in view for a wife. She submits her mind, heart, and talents not to the enabling of a tyrant, but to the support of a husband whom God has called to give his very life for her spiritual blessing.

RESPOND: Have cultural stereotypes or painful experiences shaped how you hear this passage? Ask God to help you read it through the lens Paul actually provides: a wife is called to express her gifts in support of a husband who is called to love her as sacrificially as Christ has loved us all. How might that perspective change your posture and your priorities in your marriage today?

PRAYER: Father, strip away the distortions — the abuses and the stereotypes — that make your Word hard to hear. Let me see this passage as you intended it: a call to full and flourishing love. Where submission feels like loss, remind me it is the path Christ himself walked. Give me courage and grace to walk it too for the sake of another. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.