We need to bring this verse home where it hurts. If our attitudes are wrong at home, they are wrong everywhere. This is not multiple choice. There is only one right answer: Rid yourselves!

Bible Studies for Women

Daughters of Sarah: Wives of Great Worth

Rid Yourselves!

"Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands..." (3:1).

Does this mean we are not to have any role in the decisions of our home? Not at all.

We owe it to our husbands to share with him our insights on the issues we face together. But we are not to force these insights upon him. We are to offer them in love with respect for the leadership role that God has given to him.

"Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind" (2:1).

Rid yourselves! Rid is an action word. We tend to think of this Scripture as referring to someone else. We think it refers to our attitudes toward other people in general.

We need to bring this verse home where it hurts. If our attitudes are wrong at home, they are wrong everywhere. This is not multiple choice. There is only one right answer: Rid yourselves!

In your home, toward your husband, is there

malice?
deceit?
hypocrisy?
envy?
slander?

"Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation" (2:1)

A newborn baby craves only one thing -- pure milk. When we are born again, we are born to crave God's pure milk. We feed on it. We are nourished. However as we grow, and develop an appetite for more solid food, we often turn away from God's wholesome word to the delicasies of the world.

"Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly -- mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? (1 Corinthians 3:1-3).

We are like a two-year-old whose favorite word is "me." We stomp our feet if we don't get our candy bar. We bang our head on the wall when our husbands fail to live according to Godly standards. We sulk and pout when our husbands attempt to lead us against our "better" judgement. What we don't realize is that our role of submission is just as important and just as honorable in the kingdom of God as our husband's role of leadership.

Where is a wife to turn when her husband fails to honor her as he should?

"As you come to him, the living Stone -- rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him -- you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says: 'See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame'" (2:4-6).

Are you rejected by others, maybe even your husband? You are chosen by God. Think about it: not just accepted, but chosen! You are "...chosen by God and precous to him." He uses the same words for you that he uses for his Son when he calls him a "chosen and precious cornerstone..." You are chosen and precious.

By submitting, we are not accepting a role of second class citizens. Some husbands may treat their wife as though they were inferior. But the wife who submits her heart and actions to God is highly honored by God. He himself was rejected by men and he understands the plight of a wife whose husband has rejected his responsibility to care for her in love.

The real problem is not our husbands. The problem is our own hearts.

"Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, 'The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone,' and, 'A stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.' They stumble because they disobey the message -- which is also what they were destined for (2:7-8).

Many women stumble at the command of submission. They fall because they disobey. They miss God's best.

Let us rid ourself of the selfish attitudes that keep us from God's best for us. Let us submit to God and experience the security and richness of a life rooted deeply in the Cornerstone of life itself, Jesus Christ our Savior.