The Word is a powerful source of truth. In fact, I believe it to be the only reliable source of truth.
Biblical submission does not mean that our brides are to be silent door mats obeying our every whim. That denies the call for husbands to love our brides as Christ loved the Church. It also ignores the reality that communication must take place for their to be a healthy relationship. We see this in God's relationship with Adam and Eve prior to the fall. God planned, prior to the foundation of the world, to redeem His people so that the relationship that was damaged in The Fall could be restored.
In chapter 2 Peter began giving some practical advice as to how people should behave in order to prove who they are in Christ, to the glory of God. In 2:18 we read how servants are called to submit to those that God has placed in authority over them. This word used for “submissive” in that verse is the same word we find here in 3:1 in regards to wives responsibility to their husbands. It is hupotasso
G5293
ὑποτάσσω
hupotassō
hoop-ot-as'-so
From G5259 and G5021; to subordinate; reflexively to obey: - be under obedience (obedient), put under, subdue unto, (be, make) subject (to, unto), be (put) in subjection (to, under), submit self unto.
It means to voluntarily place your own self under someone else in an orderly fashion. It is recognizing God’s ordained authority structure. We should notice that the calling is given to the person doing the submitting, not to the person in the position of authority. Now, believers in those positions being submitted to do have their own instructions, but those are addressed elsewhere. When we recognize and honor the authority of a person over us, especially a non-believer, we are honoring God and that is something that we need to keep in mind. In 2:13 we see we submit “for the Lord’s sake”.
In 3:1 the wife is called to submit to her husband. This is in the context of each individual marriage relationship. My wife does not submit to another woman’s husband. He is not the God ordained head of her family. I am. The word hupotasso is also the word we find in Ephesians 5….
Eph 5:22 Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
Eph 5:33 Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.
This call to submit does not mean that women are any less than men. We should remember what we read in our Colossians study a few months ago…
Col 3:9 Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices,
Col 3:10 and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him--
Col 3:11 a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.
And what we read in Galatians…
Gal 3:26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
Gal 3:27 For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
Gal 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Gal 3:29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants, heirs according to promise.
And then we see, here in 1 Peter, Ephesians, and Colossians how we are to “act like who we are in Christ” in the context of whatever role we have been called to play in life…whether slave, master, man, woman, husband or wife. So we see that scripturally we are equal before God but we are called to different roles. We can be, actually we are, equal but different. So, when we submit we are merely recognizing these various roles and have determined to behave according to our position as a way to honor God.
