Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to adorn themselves.

Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. But none of these thoughts are helpful, right, or biblical! We think about our husbands ordering us about and demanding that we comply with his every wish and whim. We associate it with living in fear, cowering in the corner, and being afraid to speak, have our own opinion, or disagree with what our husbands say. When we think about submission, our minds often go to negative thoughts about the word. We don’t want anyone telling us what we can or can’t do. After all, we’re all rebels who want to do what we want, when we want, with whomever we want. Submission is something we have to learn because it doesn’t come naturally to us. We can’t just take a pill or catch it from someone else. It’s something that we have to be active, not passive, about. Here’s the dictionary definition of submission: “The action of accepting or yielding to a superior force or to the will or authority of another person.” Submission is described as an action, which tells us that it’s a verb-a ‘doing’ word. We don’t need to bother with it now-life has moved on, hasn’t it? My aim here is to help us get a clearer understanding of submission and be able to apply the teaching in our own lives. Others think that it’s just something people did years ago. Some single women, assuming this applies only to the married folks, think they can simply switch off when submission is discussed. Often women associate it with being a doormat, not being allowed to think for themselves, or being a man’s slave. Submission is a word that provokes all kinds of reactions from women. So, I get the pleasure of addressing the really uncontroversial topic of submission.

What does it mean to be submissive