Submit one another
Friday, September 8, 2017
1 Peter 5:5
Yes, all of you be submissive to one another …
The Apostle Peter seems to be really determined to show those who read his letters that after fidelity to Christ who suffered for us the next most important thing is relationships in the household of faith.
Peter uses the word submission, a word that is the cause of much debate and conflict in the Christian context because of its application to the woman in the marriage context. The word is often misunderstood in its marriage application but that is not the focus of our meditation today.
Peter addresses many different relationship categories with this idea of submission. He talks about our submission to God in Christ. Essentially, he says that having come to Christ we can now have a different quality of relationships with others, “Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart.”
He addresses our relationship with government, our relationship with our “masters,” our relationship with out spouses, our relationship with our elders, and our relationship with each other. Christ, and our relationship with Him, is the basis for our conduct in every other relationship.
All of the relationships he mentions seem to have a superior player, for example, the government, the master, the husband, the elder and so on. But in the verse that we are contemplating today he seems to quickly insist on a clarification that, as believers, we have a call to mutual submission.
This idea of mutual submission is a difficult one. It’s difficult for us because we are easier able to think of submission as a citizen to a government, as a younger to an elder, as a slave to a master, and, given our traditions, a wife to a husband. However, to think of equals submitting to each other is beyond our upbringing, training, traditions, and culture.
The Christian is often called to row in the opposite direction. While the culture, and our instincts, call for relationships in which one is superior to the other we look also for relationships where we submit to other as the other submits to us.
How different our relationships in the Kingdom would be when we learn to not just submit to our elders, but to mutually submit to one another.
Think of these things:
- Do you see the others with whom you serve as persons to whom you could submit?
- Are you able to contemplate relationships where there is mutual submission?
- What would mutual submission look like if practiced with your fellow workers?
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today that we, with the help of the Spirit, would learn mutual submission among believers with whom we serve.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex