Dear BPCWA worshipper, God expects His people to honour and submit to the authorities that He places over them in the government. We saw last week that submission even to bad rulers, in matters that are not sinful, is expected of Christians because it is submission to God’s authority. This week, I want to speak further on God’s plan for submission in the areas where Christ is even more obvious as Lord and Saviour, namely that of the church and the Christian home. This was a topic that I covered at the recent Family Seminar. I hope every worshipper, young and old, will desire to learn and make the effort to listen to the sermons (on our website) or watch the presentation videos ( which will be available on our YouTube channel tomorrow for part 1 and on 21^st October for part 2). The church and Christian homes claim His Name and so He must be seen to rule today inthese areas.  Do BPCWA and our homes truly follow God’s design? The word “submit” may make some progressive-minded women groan, “Not that term again”. However, if this is the pattern that God uses, His children must not have such a mindset but conversely, embrace it instead.

God’s house. God chooses the word “dispensation” to speak of how He works (Col 1:25, Eph 1:10, 3:2). The word in Greek is oikonomia, made up of 2 words, oikos (“house”) and nemo (“to dispense, manage”). So, dispensation means “the management of a household or of household affairs”. In the above verses, God is pictured as a householder caring for His house – His Church. With the many pictures of headship and submission in God’s dispensation, His institutions of the church and the home must reflect and submit to this order too.

Submission in the church. Ephesians is an Epistle where we learn much about what God’s church ought to be. The church is made of people “who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ” (Eph 2:13), “to make in himself of twain one new man” (Eph 2:15). Those who were once “strangers and foreigners” are now “of the household of God” (Eph 2:19) and the “family in heaven and earth” (Eph 3:15). The church, God’s covenantal family, made up of both singles and families, are bound together as “one body, and one Spirit” because of “one hope of your calling” (Eph 4:4). Though we are all children of God in God’s household, the Father appoints different roles (Eph 4:11) in His church for it to function in an orderly manner. Hence, Christians are reminded to “Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves” (Heb 13:17). Picturing himself as a father serving in God’s church, Apostle Paul would say of Timothy “that, as a son with the father, he hath served with me in the gospel” (Php 2:22). Refusing to submit to God’s appointed overseers of His church in matters not contrary to His Word is insubmission to the God who has given them to His church for its good (Eph 4:11, 12). Submission to church authorities is for your spiritual good as God says in Hebrews 13:17, “Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you”.

Submission in the home. Though despised by today’s “progressive” world which promotes gender equality of roles in homes, God’s model and design for a family is based on distinct roles of headship and submission. Hence, this must continue to be a characteristic of godly homes, regardless of what the world thinks and teaches. Every Christian who is married must submit to this model, and any young man or woman who wishes to get married must unequivocally accept this as God’s model. God categorically commands, “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord” (Eph 5:22). God repeats just 2 verses later, “Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing” (Eph 5:24). As if this was not already sufficiently stressed, it is reiterated in other parts of Scripture, like in Colossians 3:18, Titus 2:5, and 1 Timothy 2:11. With all this emphasis, wives who groan at the mention of submission are murmuring against the God who ordained it! But wives must realise that God sees the submissive wife as a character “which is in the sight of God of great price” (1 Peter 3:4). For wives with unbelieving husbands (e.g. she was converted after marriage), this virtue is still expected and very much needed, as Peter commands in 1 Peter 3:1-6. Submission to the husband is not because Eve sinned. Submission is God’s very design from the beginning of creation as Paul explains, “For Adam was first formed, then Eve” (1Ti 2:13). Besides, “the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. 9 Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man” (1Co 11:8-9). Since we believe in an intelligent Designer, we must also accept this as God’s all-wise dispensation for His household. To despise this is to despise the very Creator who designed this for Christian families. 

Submission of the heads. Church leaders and husbands are to submit to God’s purpose in their roles of authority. We must understand that God is not appointing heads so that their own wills are fulfilled. Neither is the obedience of the wife to him the end purpose of headship. Obedience in submission is to meet a spiritual end and purpose – to ensure that God’s will is done since the Head of all heads is God. As we studied last week, God gives authority because they “are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well.” (1Pe 2:14) and “is the minister of God to thee for good . . . a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil” (Ro 13:4). What this means is that every person vested with authority from God must exercise that authority with the intent of doing God’s will. God says to husbands, “But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God” (1Co 11:3). The church leaders are not above civil authorities but “are to handle or conclude nothing but that which is ecclesiastical: and are not to intermeddle with civil affairs which concern the commonwealth, unless by way of humble petition in cases extraordinary; or by way of advice, for satisfaction of conscience, if they be thereunto required by the civil magistrate” (Westminster Confession of Faith 31.4).  To those that rule the church, the injunction for the church to submit to them is interwoven with a reminder that there is a higher spiritual purpose, “for they watch for your souls” (Heb 13:17).  Church leaders are to submit to God’s model for the church. They are expected to care for God’s heritage by feeding and leading His flock, remembering that they are accountable to God Himself (1 Pet 5:2-4).  So, those in authority cannot act with a free hand, according to their personal likes and dislikes, and for their own benefit and self-promotion. This is because church overseers are reminded of a day which “they must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you” (Heb 13:17).

God’s design is always good. What fails is man’s sin. However, as redeemed children of God, we must return to His model and trust that that is the only remedy for the unhappiness and disunity that many experience even in Christian churches and homes. With so many verses commanding headship and submission in God’s household, I say without apology that no one; regardless of what position they hold, how much they serve, or how much they know of the Bible; can claim to be God-fearing and obedient to God if they blatantly disregard and have no desire to obey this clear command of God. May we all endeavour to reflect this in our lives, so that we can truly “bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Re 1:2) till Christ returns for His bride.

Yours in our Lord’s service,
Pastor