LOVE ISLAND - WEEK TWO - DAY TWO
Hello and welcome to your Daily Devos following our Love Island messages at 29:11! Take some time today to read through the scriptures provided, meditate on the lessons learned that are applicable for all of us from this week and journal your prayers. Have an amazing week 29:11 Church!
THEME SCRIPTURE:
The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.
19 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. 23 The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”
24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
Genesis 2:18-24 NIV
TODAY’S PASSAGE:
18 Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.
Colossians 3:18 NIV
REFLECTION:
A lot of people when they think of submission think it is always a negative thing. And a lot of times what people are actually thinking of when they hear this verse is not submission, but oppression - an aggressive cruel forced control. That’s not at all what God is saying. Understanding the ancient Greek word translated to submit is essentially a word borrowed from the military that literally means “to be under in rank.”
It speaks of the way that an army is organized among levels of rank, with generals and colonels and majors and captains and sergeants and privates.
There is a ranking system for the purpose of ORDER, efficiency, and effectiveness. Military order must exist or it would be chaos, and lives would be lost. In the same way, God designed order within our families. He appoints a captain of the team for the sake of efficiency and effectiveness, not to devalue others.
I think it helps to talk through what submission is not:
Submission does not mean silence.
Submission does not mean forced.
Submission is not without limit.
Because this is a human relationship we need to know that there are certain times that there are limits to when a wife should submit to her husband…
Such as:
When the husband asks the wife to sin, she must not submit.
When the husband is mentally insane, or under the influence of mind altering substances, it’s probably not a good idea to follow his lead.
When the husband is violent and physically harms his wife…you do not have to submit to abuse
When the husband breaks the marriage bond by adultery, the wife does not need to submit to her husband being in an adulterous relationship.
Now some questions women have asked are what if my husband isn’t a Christian? Do I still submit to him, is he still the leader of our family? Well, let’s see what the Bible says -
“Wives, follow the lead of your own husbands. Suppose some of them don’t believe God’s word. Then let them be won to Christ without words by seeing how their wives behave. 2 Let them see how pure you are. Let them see that your lives are full of respect for God.”
1 Peter 3:1
The answer is yes! God still calls you to submit, because what a great example of Christ you will be to them!
THOUGHTS TO PONDER:
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Galatians 3:28
You better believe that Jesus was very pro-women! In Jesus’ time, women were truly second class citizens. No legal rights, no voting, no owning property. However, Jesus was counter-cultural based solely on His treatment and inclusivity of women. The fact that he valued women equally to men, was absolutely radical for his time. His command several times throughout scripture that wives should submit to their husband not to punish, oppress, or demean them. But our loving God is actually caring for them. Setting up an earthly order that reflects a heavenly order. Submission does not mean inferiority.
When we understand what submission is NOT, we can start to understand what submission is.
Biblical submission is a blessing.
How does knowing what submission is NOT change your perspective of what it looks like for a wife to submit to her husband? Has there been a time where you have seen someone abuse the idea of submission? How did that experience shape your perspective of what submission looks like? Knowing that Jesus is pro-women, how does that challenge or encourage you in what you believe about wives and their roles in a marriage?
