The D1AG blog has just posted on "submission: a virtue". The last two paragraphs state:
I agree. True biblical submission is not just something to take place within a marriage. To really understand it, it needs to be viewed as something which God desires of us within the Body of Christ, as we interact with each other. Submission is an act of love. So is sacrifice. Each virtue focuses on benefitting the other person. And, somehow, as one of God's paradoxes, when we benefit another, we ourselves benefit also.one of the virtues that often gets overlooked is submission. but perhaps no virtue is as important in living in community (think, in your family, church, neighborhood) than submission. submission moves past the talk of “my rights,” “what i’m due,” “my want” to concern, deference, and support for the other. in fact, submission is paramount to a healthy marriage, and it’s not just wives submitting to husbands. the apostle paul instructs couples to “submit to one another” (Eph. 5.21 TNIV). it’s a two way street.
but submission isnt only a position of weakness. it isnt just giving up the sock because someone stronger than you won. submission is most powerful when it’s willful, when it’s sincere and not begrudging. submission can be demonstrated by letting someone go in front of your in line/traffic, changing the channel to what your spouse likes on TV, or dying in humiliation on a cross while people laugh and your friends abandon you.
5 comments:
amen.
Ditto that amen.
One cannot do something by free will and by force at the same time. If anything is to be done willingly, it cannot be coerced.
It's the same with "tithing". It is impossible for anyone to give cheerfully, willingly, and as the Spirit leads, while being forced or intimidated into handing over one's money. (That is to say, the typical thundering from the pulpit over how people should be ashamed at how little they tithe makes it impossible for them to give Biblically.)
Likewise, no one can submit while being forced or ordered to obey.
I like how he expresses that submission is not about winning/losing or weakness.
I also see another paradox, that God commands us to submit to one another, but that we do it selflessly out of love.
*Letitia*
The word that comes to mind as I read this description is deference. I'm working on this particular trait with my son right now. In a family, there is a constant give and take. Nothing I do only affects me. Learning to willingly defer to one another(and receive the deference of another) is an important part of both leading and serving well. But, in a more practical way, it's an important part of just being able to coexist with other people--to share the same space, whether that space be a bedroom, a classroom, the road or an office.
The word that comes to mind as I read this description is deference.
Yes, that is a word that I like to associate with submission, also. In fact, I made that association in a series I posted on this and related topics on the Better Bibles Blog a few weeks ago. I think that the word deference gets us away from the idea of hierarchical submission which I don't find supported as a biblical concept--at least it is not explicitly taught in the Bible, as far as I know. Deference is something we can do to anyone, and it is something we are instructed to do, to "consider another better than ourselves", etc.
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