Unchanging Truth - "Submission: A Lot More Than Giving In"

Gender Blog continues with the latest installment of our "Unchanging Truth" series. These articles, while not as current, are still beneficial, and they demonstrate the consistent application of biblical truth by complementarian scholars, authors, and pastors through the years.

The following is an excerpt from Rebecca Jones's article, "Submission: A Lot More Than Giving In." It was first published in The Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood in 1998.

As I drove my fifteen-year-old daughter home from gymnastics, I listened intently to her description of a painful, embarrassing moment. Her emotions weighed not only on my soul, but on the gas pedal. A sick feeling came over me as I saw the flashing lights behind. When the policeman asked me if I had any reason for driving 40 miles an hour in a 30 mile an hour zone, I simply replied, "No sir, I just wasn't paying attention."

When we had finished the formalities of the ticketing process, I drove away (slowly!). My daughter, now truly sobbing due to the increased strain of watching me get a ticket I couldn't afford, began complaining about how unfair the officer had been.

"No," I insisted. "He wasn't unfair. If I was going over the speed limit, he had every right to stop me and give me a ticket."

"But he was so arrogant, so know-it-all," my daughter argued. "And he could have just warned you."

"Well, I've seen worse," I answered.

I didn't resent that policeman, nor did I fear him as a person. I didn't feel either better or worse than he, but he was a policeman and I wasn't. In that situation, I was called to submit myself to his jurisdiction.

Cultural Changes

This situation of legal authority is about the only picture of submission we have left in our society. Though it may not be particularly helpful when we think of a wife submitting to her husband, it does illustrate one principle. Just as the policeman was not "better" than I was, but was simply exercising the authority he had been delegated, so a husband is not "better" than his wife merely because he is in authority. She is no less a worthy human being than he, but authority is a part of his job, his identity and his calling.

You can read the rest of the article here.