Hi Rac

Your previous post wasn't addressed to me so I hope it's OK that I respond.

Firstly, the submission in marriage.

1) It's submission, not obedience. Children are told to obey their parents, wives are told to submit to their husbands.

2) In Ephesians 5:22 it says

'Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.'

What very few opponents of this see is the verse just before it (and remember when it was written there were no chapter and verse breaks.)

Ephesians 5:21

'submitting to one another out of reverence to Christ.'

This comes on the end of a long sentence which was addressed to everyone - not just women.

Submitting to one another - there is nothing in here to suggest that the women should be the ones to submit to the men.

However, there is one relationship that is too important to leave to the hope that someone will submit - the marriage relationship. Therefore, it goes on to address wives specifically in relationship to her own husband.

My take is that Ephesians 5:21 is be tried first - and in 25 years of my marriage the overwhelming majority of conflict/potential conflict has been worked out with compromise - AKA submitting to one another.

There have also been times when my husband has chosen to give in/submit to my wishes.

BUT - should a situation reach a point where there can be no compromise and should my husband (who has been directed to love me as Christ loved the church - ie is willing to die for me) genuinely believe that a certain way is best for me, him, our marriage, our children, and our family, it is my God-given responsibility to submit.

It does not involve being a doormat, it does not involve my opinions being brushed off as unimportant, it does not in any way suggest superiority/inferiority.

I know the idea of submission rankles with many women, but as Terry said, when the husband does his part in totally and sacrificially loving his wife, there really aren't too many problems.


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I think Jesus was an extraordinary teacher of morality and there is little better one can do than to follow his example in the Gospels.
This is a popular view, but, I believe logically flawed.

Jesus made extraordinary, mind-blowing, earth-shaking claims about himself. Here's just one of many ...

John 14:6

'Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."'

What an incredible statement.

There are only three possibilities.

1) It's not true - Jesus is not the way, the truth and the life and he's not the only way to the Father - and Jesus knew it wasn't true.

That makes him a liar and a deceiver - certainly not 'an extraordinary teacher of morality'.

2) It's not true - but Jesus thought it was true. That makes him delusional - with severe delusions of grandeur.

Again - he can't be 'an extraordinary teacher' if he's so severely misinformed about who he is.

3) It's true. Jesus is all the things he claimed to be, including being the only way to the Father.

And if it's true, his claims warrant so much more than thinking of him as nothing more than a teacher of morality.

Corrina.