“Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake …For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.”
1 Peter 2:13a, 15 [KJV]
In 1970, a disgruntled farmer announced that his 75 square kilometres of WA farmland was no longer part of Australia. He called himself ‘Prince Leonard’, named his farm ‘Hutt River Province’, and claimed he was exempt from Australian laws.
As a teenager, I was fascinated by the romance and audacity of an Australian setting up his own kingdom and royal family. My parents had a more pragmatic interpretation. They said, “It’s a tax evasion stunt.” The Australian government agreed. Decades of court cases over breached Australian laws followed, and in 2020 ‘Prince Leonard’s’ family were forced to sell the farm to pay tax debts.
Most of us would have expected this failure. We don’t have to be legal experts to realise that saying or acting like you are a separate country does not make this claim true. Yet isn’t this what we often do in our Christian lives? We know Christ is our Lord, and we are under His headship. But in day-to-day life, we often say or act as though some areas of our lives are under our control. We really, really dislike that word ‘submission’ that pops up time and time again in the Bible, in the context of our relationship with God and others. But just like this self-styled Prince Leonard discovered, there are serious consequences to lack of submission, and sometimes we lose even the things we tried so hard to keep. So, today we’re discussing submission in four contexts: God, government, church and the home.
James 4:7a says, “Submit yourselves therefore to God”. This isn’t just outward conformity to a set of rules, but a heart attitude stemming from acknowledgement of God’s rightful rule over our lives. There is much about submission written in the book of 1 Peter, but the apostle firstly reminds us that we “were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver or gold …But with the precious blood of Christ,” (1 Peter 1:18-19a). Christ said, “I do always those things that please him” (John 8:29c), and “For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me” (John 6:38). Christ is our example of what perfect submission to God the Father looks like. When we look at Christ, and see how His submission demonstrates the enormity of His love, it stirs in us the desire to show our love for Christ through submission too. Romans 12:1 says, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” The word ‘reasonable’ simply means ‘logical’. Christ sacrificed Himself for us, therefore we should give our lives to Him. It’s the same pattern of logic found in 1 John 4:19, “We love him, because he first loved us.” Submitting to God means doing His will. And God’s will includes submitting to imperfect human authorities.
The first of these imperfect human authorities is the government. 1 Peter 2:13-14 reads, “Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme: Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well.” Some Christians have a rebellious attitude towards government. Their favourite verse in the Bible is “We ought to obey God rather than men”, from Acts 5:29. They apply this phrase across their lives with the discernment of a toddler smearing paint across a sheet of paper. In Acts 5:29, Peter and the apostles weren’t protesting a speeding fine or building without a proper permit. They were specifically talking about a situation where the Pharisees had attempted to stop them preaching the Gospel in the time and place where God had told them to preach it. The Bible is clear our default position is to obey government regulations except when they contradict the Bible or our conscience. Let me give an illustration. My sister is a nurse who works in a government-run hospital. Each workday, God expects her to willingly submit to the literally hundreds of regulations that exist in hospital settings – except when they violate scripture or her conscience. She refuses to participate in abortions and euthanasia, because these actions are contrary to scriptural teaching on the value of life (see, for example, Jeremiah 1:5, Exodus 20:13, Proverbs 6:16-17). She’s also had to work through various other issues. She did not submit, for example, to a new directive stating all staff were to wear scrub pants. Instead, respectfully but determinedly, she fought for – and won – permission through the right channels to wear a skirt. In 1 Peter, the apostle writes that submission to God’s authority structures is critical because “Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ” (I Peter 3:16). This verse makes me think of Daniel. Even his enemies had to admit, “We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God” (Daniel 6:5b). How many people could say that of us?
The Bible also discusses submission in the church context. This has two sub-branches, submission to God’s plan for the church and submission to pastoral authority. A church is a local body of believers who meet on Sunday (Acts 20:7), for preaching of the Apostles’ doctrine, fellowship, breaking of bread and prayers (Acts 2:42), and is under the headship of godly pastoral leadership (Titus 1 and 1 Timothy 3). Submission in the church context includes attending a Biblical church (Heb 10:25), being orderly during services (1 Corinthians 14), and working together as the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12). It also means rejecting unscriptural beliefs about the church, such as women having pastoral authority. If you are a church member helping in ministry, it also includes submitting to delegated authorities and expectations that keep the church glorifying God. For example, suppose you’re part of the Sunday School teaching team. In that case, this includes preparing a lesson as per the agreed curriculum, being on time, respecting other teachers, and communicating with the team leader. The Bible also tells us to submit to pastoral authority. Hebrews 13:17a, says, “Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account,” Submission is to the office of the pastor, not the man himself. Much as I respect my current Pastor, I would no longer be accountable to him if he stopped holding that office, or if I joined a different church. Both pastors and church members need to be ‘knowable’ to each other.
Submission is also required in the home setting. Firstly, this is required in the parent-child relationship. Ephesians 6:1-2 says, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord; for this is right. Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise”. Children are to obey, not control, their parents. As an adult living in the family home, honouring and valuing my parents includes being a good communicator, showing respect, asking for counsel, spending time together, doing housework. I’m blessed to have godly parents, but my mother didn’t have this privilege. After she became a Christian in her teens, her family still expected her to spend Sunday doing farm work. She had to work hard (literally) and negotiate even harder to get permission to attend church. Sometimes she had to submit, against her wishes, to reduce household conflict, and trust the Lord to fight for her instead. And as she trusted the Lord, He removed the hindrances. The second relationship requiring submission is the wife-husband relationship. When I read 1 Peter 3:1, “Likewise ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands,” my hackles go up. I’ve lived twenty-eight years in a feminist society that preaches that women are smarter, cleverer and better leaders than men. But what about in this or that instance? Let’s consider the caveats. Firstly, it only relates to a woman’s own husband. She is not obliged to submit to her father-in-law or anyone else’s spouse. Additionally, submission to the Lord remains every Christian’s priority (John 14:15, Matthew 6:33), so if her husband wants her to do something immoral, abusive or criminal, he has overstepped the bounds of his authority. Biblical submission involves supporting his leadership (1 Corinthians 11:3), being a helpmeet (Genesis 2:18), and surrendering the desired outcomes to the Lord. Since I’m not married, I suggest you ask other married women who’ve learnt submission for some practical tips. But for those of us who are single, let’s practice how to submit to other God-appointed authorities. Let’s learn to let go of our manipulative and me-centred tendencies, and instead trust the Lord to work all things together for good (Romans 8:28).
This is not an exhaustive study on submission. But I hope we’ve covered enough to help us see the importance of submitting to God first, and then to the authorities He has placed in our lives. Let’s stop flying our own rebel flags and instead “Submit [ourselves] to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake.”
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