The other week I was teaching a co-ed bible study. We were going over 1 Peter. We had read the whole thing through several times, and were then stepping through it verse by verse, chapter by chapter. But we ran into trouble when we started going though chapter 3.

3 Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, ²when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. ³Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. ⁴Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. ⁵For this is the way holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands, ⁶like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear.

Some of the women in the room did not appreciate being told they had to submit to their husbands. Note that this is a singles bible study and no one in the room actually had a husband yet that they could submit to. But they did not even like the idea. The men's reaction to this passage was along the lines of 'yeah, that's right!' which of course just made the women more offended.

Everyone there was a Christian, so I find it curious that people would disagree with one of God's commands. Not surprising, in fact I rather expected the reaction, but curious nonetheless.

So what is it about submission that so gets women's hackles up?

The root of the problem lies in the difference between how God ordered society and how America has ordered society. Here in America, post the feminist movement, women are considered equals, and often times betters, to men. Women either want to be in charge, or do not want men to be in charge, but in either case, women do not want anyone telling them what to do. It is anathema to our society to place limits on our behaviors. This is as true of men as women, but women have an organized movement to make sure nobody thinks it's acceptable to limit women.

This is in direct contrast to God's plan, which states that the wife submits to the husband, and the husband submits to God. Here, the husband is in charge of the family, responsible for its instruction and behavior. The wife is to assist in this, but follows the husband's lead in how to go about it.

You can see the conflict between the two approaches to family. The two are not reconcilable. There is no middle ground and can be no compromise. There is no half submission and half in charge. You can try running your family like a committee, but ultimately, when a decision has to be made and the husband and wife have two different ideas about it, one prevails and one is discarded. Whoever has the final say is the one running the family. This is not to say that two people can't talk things through, but still, at the end, a decision is made by someone and the other goes along with it.

So there is the reason for our curious response. We have been taught the world is a particular way, or at least should be a particular way. But we find in the bible that God made the world a different way. So Christians who have spent more time learning the world's ways than God's ways become flustered when the two contradict.