Who should submit to whom? That question seems to be a pressing one for some. Recently in reviewing It’s Good To Be a Man, I took issue with the position of the book on submission. The authors state their position (from which I dissented) that “All leadership, whether in the Old or the New Testament, whether civil or domestic or ecclesiastical, is exclusively male.” (page 9 in the Kindle edition)

A commentator on the review questioned my use of Ephesians 5:

I’ve seen you bring up that Ephesians 5 proof text to back up your logic multiple times. Unfortunately, you use that text extremely vaguely. What does that verse mean? Are you implying that husbands are to submit to their wives as well? If that is the case, then interestingly enough, the interpretation you use is the same one that egalitarians use. Hmmm might not be the best company to be lodging with theologically, don’t ya think? (July 23, 2022, comment by Dd)

Ephesians 5:21 reads “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”(NIV). Paul did not insert paragraph and section breaks in his original letter, but for our convenience the NIV editors placed a section break entitled “Instructions for Christian Households” before verse 21. They make that verse a separate paragraph, and then the following paired instructions for wives and husbands, children and fathers,  and slaves and masters are each separated into a distinct paragraph. The ESV, on the other hand, puts a section break between Verse 21 and verse 22. Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is making connections which our editorial breaks can obscure. Greek tends to use longer, more complex sentences than we do in English, and there can be good reason for a translation to separate a lengthy sentence into several for ease in reading. For instance, Ephesians 1:3–14 is all one sentence in Greek — trying to diagram (does anyone still diagram sentences?) it in Greek or English is a challenge!