The Wise Woman Builds Her House — Part 2 — R: Reverent (hupotassō)
This is for women wanting to grow their marriages. If you or your children are in an abusive or unsafe situation, please seek safety immediately — this article is not for that. National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233.
The Wise Woman Builds Her House Series at a Glance:
1. Foundation — Praying the Truth
2. R — Reverent (hupotassō) (you are here)
5. S — Service-oriented ('ezer)
7. Conclusion — Reference Card, Prayer
"Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as [a service] to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as Christ is head of the church, Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives should be subject to their husbands in everything [respecting both their position as protector and their responsibility to God as head of the house].”
— Ephesians 5:22-24 (AMP)
A Word Full of Beauty
The Apostle Paul’s word for "be subject to" is hupotassō. This Greek word means “to arrange in order under” or to “subordinate”. The word’s origin is a descriptor of how soldiers fall into step and line in the military. Outside of the military, hupotassō is used to describe a choice to take on a subordinate role as a voluntary service for the good of the whole.
In our homes, hupotassō describes the glad and reverent choice we are to make in our own hearts and actions: to honor the orderly roles God has set. Our husbands are designated by God to be heads of household as Christ is to the church, and we are designated by God to be subject to our own husbands as the church is to Christ. As wives, this is our trusting and worshipful service to Him — the One Who designed marriage and Who lovingly created ours.
Even if we are unfamiliar with the concept of hupotassō or hard-pressed to imagine how to implement it, it lives inside the infallible Word of God and is therefore a gift to us. God made us, and all His commands cause us to flourish. His Word lights our path (Psalm 119:105), and His Spirit faithfully guides and teaches us (John 14:26).
The Reverence of the Son
Beautifully and importantly, hupotassō characterizes Christ’s relationship with His Good Father. We can look to Him and be inspired by how He perfectly and freely empties and humbles Himself in pure-hearted obedience to His Father:
"Have this same attitude in yourselves which was in Christ Jesus [look to Him as your example in selfless humility], who, although He existed in the form and unchanging essence of God [as One with Him, possessing the fullness of all the divine attributes—the entire nature of deity], did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped or asserted [as if He did not already possess it, or was afraid of losing it]; but emptied Himself [without renouncing or diminishing His deity, but only temporarily giving up the outward expression of divine equality and His rightful dignity] byassuming the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men [He became completely human but was without sin, being fully God and fully man]. After He was found in [terms of His] outward appearance as a man [for a divinely-appointed time], He humbled Himself [still further] by becoming obedient [to the Father] to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
— Philippians 2:5–8 (AMP)
We can then consider the full flow of headship that God created:
“But I want you to understand that Christ is the head (authority over) of every man, and man is the head of woman, and God is the head of Christ.”
— 1 Corinthians 11:3 (AMP)
The Greek word for head here, kephalē, is the same word as in Ephesians 5:23.
In 1 Corinthians 11:3 just above, we see that God is the head of Christ, Who is the head of man, who is the head of woman. This ordering plays out in two spheres: in marriage, as we see in Ephesians 5:23-24, and in the church, where men are called by God to shepherd the household of faith.
The Son shows perfect reverence to the Father. Men are called to mirror reverence to Christ. And we as wives are called to mirror reverence to our husbands — which the Bible says is ultimately reverence to the Lord: a service rendered worshipfully unto Him (Ephesians 5:22).
Our sustainable and true reverence for our own husbands can only flow from our heartfelt adoring reverence for God Himself (Proverbs 31:30).
Reverence in Everyday Moments
Reverence from the heart reveals the beauty of Christ. He said the world will know we are His disciples by our love for one another (John 13:34-35), which obliges us to serve in humility rather than clamor for recognition, superiority, or headship the Lord has not granted (Philippians 2:3, Mark 9:34-35).
"Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as [a service] to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as Christ is head of the church, Himself being the Savior of the body."
— Ephesians 5:22–23 (AMP)
In our marriages, we have many special opportunities to serve our own husbands in hupotassō to them, as an ultimate act of service and worship to our God.
Here are heart postures a wife can pray to cultivate, day by day:
Carrying a peaceful tone in his presence and about him to others. A calm voice, an unrushed pace, a face that isn't braced. When we speak of him — to our children, our friends, our extended family — our tone communicates as much as our words. A wife who speaks of her husband with peace and reverence speaks a covering over her marriage.
Speaking words that build him up — in our minds, to him one-on-one, and in front of others. Every word about him is either a brick laid in the house we are building or a stone chipped out of its foundation. This includes the words we let echo in our own heads. What we rehearse silently, we eventually reveal aloud.
Refusing every form of quiet contempt. The eye-roll he was not meant to see. The sigh at the end of his sentence. The rushed body language when he walks into the room. The dismissive tone that says nothing here matters. These are small daggers, and Scripture is sober about them (Proverbs 19:13). We are to turn from them the moment we notice them — and if we did not notice in time, we repent quickly.
Standing guard against any erosion of respect. Reverence is not a mountain we climb once. It is a garden we tend daily. Weeds that go unpulled become the yard. When we notice disrespect slipping into our thoughts, our tone, or our choices, we go to God immediately and ask Him to restore us — before it becomes a pattern.
Bringing concerns to him directly, in private, with gentleness and faith. Not over-emotionally. Not sideways in front of others. Not with the sting of an old fight underneath. A concern spoken privately, gently, and with the assumption of his good will is a concern a husband can actually receive and constructively address.
Trusting his leadership — even when his decision is not the one we would have made. He will not always choose what we would have chosen. Sometimes he will be right and we did not see it; sometimes he will be wrong and God will use it. Reverent trust says: I brought my counsel, I brought my prayers, and now I trust the Lord to work through my husband's leadership.
Delighting that it is his role to lead spiritually — and praying for his shepherding. Not resenting the headship he carries. Not wishing to bypass him. Not feeding discontent over what we’d like to be different. Instead, thanking God for the man He gave us to walk beside, and asking God to strengthen him, teach him, and pour into him — which not only blesses him but gives him more to pour into us and our children.
How do we grow in these expressions of reverence and countless others?
Prayer can help us submit to the Lord’s pruning hand in those hard times.
The Most Powerful Thing a Wife Can Do
Reverent submission is active trust in the Lord, which especially comes into focus when we are facing a difficult time and know we desperately need Him.
At a wives' workshop at my church, our leader offered a prayer that anchors me when I am feeling overwhelmed or discouraged and am tempted to try and take the reins:
"God, I am choosing to do Your will by submitting to my husband in this. So now this is up to You. I am not trying to control — because You have told me to submit. I entrust this situation to You. Please move on our behalf."
Whenever I pray this, I am forsaking passivity and a thirst for control. Instead, I am doing the most powerful thing available to me inside God's perfect will — praying hard for my husband’s sanctification and mine, and releasing the outcome to God Who runs everything.
While God can work the miracle of growth in any circumstance (1 Corinthians 3:6-7), He often uses difficulties to produce a special kind of fruit (Hebrews 5:8).
How God Grows Reverence in Us
Reverence is forged in a special way through hard times, just as the Son's obedience was:
"Although He was a Son [who had never been disobedient to the Father], He learned [active, special] obedience through what He suffered."
— Hebrews 5:8 (AMP)
Since Christ learned from suffering on earth, surely He will strengthen us to do the same.
Suffering is part of God’s good discipline:
“For the time being no discipline brings joy, but seems sad and painful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness [right standing with God and a lifestyle and attitude that seeks conformity to God’s will and purpose].”
— Hebrews 12:11 (AMP)
The difficult circumstance God provides is His special training-ground: a gift He uses to richly produce the peaceful fruit of reverence in our hearts and lives.
So the next time it is difficult and painful to obey God’s call on your life as a wife, pray for His strength and guidance, thanking Him for this training ground opportunity and the peaceful fruit that He promised is coming!
Small signals — like delighting more in God’s Word — are a huge encouragement along the way.
“… encourage the young women to tenderly love their husbands and their children, to be sensible, pure, makers of a home [where God is honored], good-natured, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.”
— Titus 2:4b-5 (AMP)
The other day my husband read part of Titus 2 including this passage aloud, and I noticed I sat up straighter with passion and gratitude. The bristling resistance I used to feel when hearing or reading that passage was gone. Where did it go?
Several months prior, I had prayed that the Lord would make me more loving. He answered by graciously showing me my own sin.
God took me on what I can only call a deep clean of the kitchen of my heart — pointing out the corners I had long ignored and equipping me to clean them with Him, together, through His Word, prayer, and the kindness of my husband and sisters in Christ. I had, in fact, been asking Him to make me more loving. He was answering that prayer by graciously pointing out my sin so He could cleanse me.
During that special time of extra-deep cleaning, passages on submission started to land differently. I began to see the ways I had been subtly or not-so-subtly disrespectful and rebellious — ignoring my husband's preferences, deprioritizing his requests, entertaining critical thoughts in my heart even when I held my tongue.
The reason I submit now is not because my husband is perfect. He is far from it, and I am even further. I submit to my husband because I cannot submit to God otherwise. And I must submit to Him. The smiling face of my Good Father in Heaven is worth everything to me. And the more He empowers me to obey, the more I see how bright and beautiful and genuinely helpful His commands are.
The hard time of deep-clean discipline and training produced lasting fruits, just as He promised (Hebrews 12:11).
The Son’s Reverence, Ours Reflected
"So Jesus answered them by saying, ‘I assure you and most solemnly say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself [of His own accord], unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever things the Father does, the Son [in His turn] also does in the same way.’”
— John 5:19 (AMP)
The reverence we see in Jesus shows us his totally devoted, unquestioning heart posture of deep respect toward His Father. Like Jesus, may we only want to do what we see the Father doing.
This reverent focus can naturally flow to our own husbands — imperfect as they are — because our obedience is rendered not to their worthiness, but to God’s.
Small Acts, Strong Pillars
So let us practice small acts of reverence today: a peaceful tone, a word of honor, a gladly-yielded preference, a trusting prayer instead of a pushback. In God's eyes, obedience is never small. Neither is disobedience. Each moment we choose obedience strengthens the pillars of a home that honors the Lord.
“Wisdom has built her [spacious and sufficient] house;
She has hewn out and set up her seven pillars.”
— Proverbs 9:1 (AMP)
A Prayer
If the words don’t come, borrow these:
Lord, You are worthy of all my reverence. Make me a wife who reflects Christ — joyful, clear, and submitted to You. Warm my heart toward my husband in reverence. Soften my tone in subjection to him and ultimately to You. Unfetter me from my well-worn urge to try and control. Where I want to take matters into my own hands, help me cast all my cares on You because You care for me and for us (1 Peter 5:7). May an ever-deepening reverence for You spill over into an ever-deepening reverence for this precious husband You have given me. Amen.
Reverence opens the door to a God-honoring marriage. Affection walks through it again and again.
A wise woman builds her house.