Daily Bible Reading 29th July 2025 // Colossians 3:18-21

18 Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. 20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. 21 Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.

There are two further points to make in regard to a wife's submission to her husband, to clarify what Paul is and is not affirming:

(1) The first thing to say is that subjection is not a synonym for servile and menial bondage. We will come to Paul's balancing injunction to the husband, but it is clear that Paul would recognise the way the flesh can assert itself in the husband, as much as in the wife. Men, in their sinful rejection of God's sovereign Lordship have abused their God-given headship to oppress and to subjugate women. Paul is not defending that. There is no place in the biblical teaching for harsh domination and subjugation of the woman by the man.

(2) The second thing to say is that Paul is not suggesting that the woman is naturally or spiritually inferior to the man. Men and women are equal before God in dignity. Paul does assert, however, and very importantly, regardless of the modern assertion of sexual equality, the husband and wife are different in function, and according to the Bible, a woman's true function is fulfilled in submission to man. The biblical teaching is that God has so providentially ordered human affairs that a measure of authority must be recognised and exercised if human society is to hold together. There is a divinely instituted hierarchy in the order of creation, and in this order the wife follows that of her husband (1 Corinthians 11:3, 7-9; Ephesians 5:23-24). The Christian wife, Paul says, should recognise and accept her subordinate place in this hierarchy, as is fitting/proper/duty within the new fellowship of those who own Christ as Lord. It is only thus that she will find fulfilment and joy in the sovereign purposes of God.

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