Submission Has a Ceiling

Many moons ago, Christie and I picked up some books that we had heard about from some folks. They were counterculture, focused on raising kids, and on the importance of a wife learning her role as a helpmeet. We had heard a lot of sermons and teachings directed at man, but not much on women.

I remember thumbing through it myself (I was anxious to learn the secrets… still trying to be honest). What I found then made a lot of sense to my young, gullible mind, unanchored in the Word of God. Things like a woman being pretty much responsible for her husband's actions. If he was starting to wonder…she needed to start dressing and acting to catch his attention again. How was she running the home? Was she cooking, cleaning, and acting as the queen of his kingdom?

The jaded thing about this stuff is that some of the friends we had who practiced what these books said are no longer married, and some are totally out of the faith.

It wasn’t until I picked up that old black book on my own nightstand and started to read and feed that I really started to see what He had required of me and what He requires of my wife. All I can say is thank God for crop failure, and a lot of grace.

Now, there was some good stuff in those books as well; don’t get me wrong. But looking back, I can see the hands of man in a lot of things.

As the old preacher rightly said, Religions come from the east and Cults from the west.

So that brings me to the subject of the email, “Submission.” Well, it has a ceiling.

The Bible puts a limit in the command itself.

“Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.” (Colossians 3:18)

That clause belongs to the command. A husband who tells his wife to lie has asked her to sin. Calling it submission doesn’t change what he asked, and being married to him doesn’t make disobeying God one of her duties. I need you to hear that.

Paul turns to the husband in the very next verse.

“Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.” (Colossians 3:19)

And just to be clear, a difficult wife doesn't cancel that command. (Neither does a difficult husband cancel hers.) Both have duties before Christ. Neither gets to make the other’s failures an excuse for his own.

Here is a test for any marriage book, ours included. Read the surrounding Bible passage. Who is being addressed? What is that person told to do? Then look at what the author added. A suggestion can be useful without being a command from God. Printing it beneath a verse doesn’t give it the same authority.

As stated earlier, my wife and I threw out the marriage books that blurred that distinction, but we kept the Bible. We wrote When Marriage Advice Hurts for husbands and wives trying to separate what Scripture says from the blame and extra rules attached to it.

The guide includes separate sections for wives and husbands, plus a week of practical steps for each. You get the same complete digital guide on phone, tablet, and print PDF. No physical book is shipped.

The guide includes safety guidance for when a book isn’t enough. It isn’t counseling, and it can’t promise to save a marriage.

Get the guide

Read your own section first. The husband’s chapters aren’t a list of charges for his wife to collect. The wife’s chapters don’t give him permission to ignore his own. You can hold each other accountable without using the other person’s duties to avoid yours.

If someone has made you answer for another adult’s sin, go back and read the passage.

Friends, a marriage author’s added rule does not become God’s command.