Waneta Dawn

I recently had an insight on what Paul meant by telling wives to submit in everything, and spell it out on my Dec, 16, 2010 post http://submissiontyranny.blogspot.com/2010/12/peter-models-church-wife-submission.html. Because Paul knew he was going to tell husbands to love their wives and give themselves up for their wives, he knew that wives were likely to have the same response Peter did when Jesus knelt to wash his feet. (John 13) Paul was telling wives to submit to their high status husbands-become-servants, even as Peter submitted to Jesus washing his feet. Just as it was seen as terribly inappropriate for Jesus, the high-status master, to wash the feet of his lowly disciples, so also it would be seen as totally inappropriate for wives, who are normally of servant status, to accept the service of their high-status husbands. The “in everything” Paul was talking about wives submitting to, was the sacrificial servanthood of the husbands; wives were already submitting in everything else.

By this teaching, Paul was continuing Jesus’s own teaching of the great reversal: those of high degree shall be brought low, and those of low degree shall be lifted up. Mary speaks of it in Luke 1:52, “He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.” Jesus uses the great reversal when he uses his death to bring life and defeat Satan, and James speaks of this in James 1:9-10 “Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted: But the rich in that he is made low.” These are only a few of the places where the great reversal is referred to.