When Submission Becomes Subversion

Something happened the other day that completely changed how I understand Paul’s letters. I was reading Philemon—you know, that short letter tucked near the end of the New Testament that most of us skip over. It’s the one where Paul sends a runaway slave named Onesimus back to his owner, Philemon.

As I read, Holy Spirit began impressing something on me. Not in words at first, just this gentle persistent nudging that there was something here I’d been missing. Something profound.

You have to understand—I’m a truth crusader. Truth is one of my highest values. So when the Lord starts showing me something that challenges what I thought I knew, I don’t just accept it immediately. I have to know that I know that I know. And I’m still open, always. I could still get things wrong. But this revelation? This one settled deep.

Here’s what hit me: Paul doesn’t pull the apostle card with Philemon. He doesn’t command him to free Onesimus, even though that would have been the righteous thing to do. Instead, Paul says something like, “This is your decision. I trust you to make the right choice.” (Philemon 1:8-9, NRSV)

Think about that. Paul—who had every right to command Philemon—instead appeals to him as a friend. He reminds Philemon that Onesimus is now his brother in Christ. That in Christ, there is no slave or free (Galatians 3:28, NRSV). But in the world they were living in? That wasn’t the reality yet. It was their positional truth in Christ, but not their conditional truth in how they lived it out day to day.

And Paul is essentially saying: “I’m sending him back to you. You legally own him. You could brand him as a fugitive. You could beat him. But I’m trusting you to treat him as you would treat Christ himself.”

The Two Kingdoms at Work

That day, as I kept turning pages—backwards instead of forwards for some reason—I landed in Titus. And there it was: slaves be subject to your masters, in the exact same context as wives be subject to your husbands (Titus 2:5-9, NRSV).

We’d mentioned this connection in our earlier work, but we hadn’t seen the full picture. Every single time Paul says “wives, submit to your husbands,” it’s in the same breath—either verses before or verses after—that he also says “slaves, submit to your masters.”

It’s not a coincidence. It’s the point.

In that culture, women were domestic slaves. Just as much as Onesimus belonged to Philemon, wives belonged to their husbands—and before marriage, to their fathers or older brothers. Women had no voice, no rights. They couldn’t earn wages. Couldn’t own property. Couldn’t divorce, even if their husband was abusing them. They were at the mercy of the world’s power structures, exactly like slaves.

And here’s what we’ve missed for two thousand years: Paul wasn’t endorsing these power structures. He was showing believers how to operate within broken systems while releasing Kingdom transformation into them.

See, there are two kingdoms operating with completely different rules. In the world’s empire-like system, power flows downward in one direction. Authority means control. Leadership equals being in charge. Submission means inferior status. Success means rising above others.

But in God’s Kingdom? Power flows in all directions—it’s circular. Authority means responsibility to serve. Leadership equals lifting others up. Submission means mutual support. Success means bringing everyone up together.

Accommodation Without Capitulation

This is where it gets revolutionary. Paul couldn’t just command slave owners to free their slaves or command husbands to stop treating their wives as property. Why? Because bringing God’s Kingdom through the wrong kingdom doesn’t work.

If Paul had started a slave revolt, what would have happened? Rome had crushed many slave revolts before—violently, horrifically. The slaves always lost. Violence to achieve justice only empowers the very system you’re trying to overthrow.

So Paul does something brilliant. He accommodates the world’s system without capitulating to it. What does that mean?

Accommodate means to work within the system. Capitulate means to surrender or yield or give in to it.

Paul tells slaves and women: In the world, you’re bound by these systems. But in Christ, you’re actually free. “For freedom Christ has set us free” (Galatians 5:1, NRSV). Now here’s the key—in your freedom, I want you to submit out of free choice. Not because you have to. But because you get to.

This is my husband Gregory’s life message: It’s a get to, not a have to. It’s even tattooed on his arm. And he understands this in a profound way because he knows that the Kingdom cannot be released by just doing the right thing. You can give ten percent, you can tithe down to a tenth of your spices if you want to, but that doesn’t release the Kingdom. It has to flow from the heart, because the Kingdom operates in love, period.

The Textual Proximity We’ve Missed

Here’s the pattern I discovered. Look at these passages:

Ephesians 5:21-6:9: Submit to one another... wives to husbands... slaves to masters (NRSV)

Colossians 3:18-22: Wives, submit... slaves, obey (NRSV)

1 Peter 2:18-3:7: Slaves accept authority... wives accept the authority of your husbands (NRSV)

Titus 2:4-9: Train young women to be submissive to their husbands... tell slaves to be submissive (NRSV)

Every. Single. Time.

This isn’t coincidence. This is what I call textual proximity—the deliberate placement of these instructions together to show us something profound. Paul is addressing people in the same condition: those who were legally powerless in the Roman world.

And he’s telling them: Yes, you’re in bondage in the world’s system. But you don’t have to stay in bondage in your spirit. In church, when you gather, you’re free. You operate in full gifting there. Junia was an apostle (Romans 16:7, NRSV). Priscilla was a teacher (Acts 18:26, NRSV). Phoebe was a deacon (Romans 16:1, NRSV). Women prophesied and prayed in the assemblies (1 Corinthians 11:5, NRSV).

The early church was a practice ground. A safe space where women and slaves could learn to operate in power they’d never known—power that no generation before them had experienced. They were learning to ride the bike of freedom while the apostles ran alongside them, holding the seat steady.

From Obligation to Free Choice

Here’s why this matters so deeply: In order for there to be love, you have to have freedom. You cannot force love. You cannot manipulate people into releasing the Kingdom.

So Paul tells slaves and women something radical: Submit to your master, to your husband, as if it’s Christ himself you’re serving (Ephesians 6:5-7, Colossians 3:18, NRSV). Not just what the law requires—that’s the one mile. Go two miles. Do more than obligation demands.

Why would he say that? Why would Paul tell the oppressed to submit even more?

Because that second mile? That’s the part you do out of free will. That’s the part where you release the Kingdom. That’s where you release love.

You can’t force other people to give you freedom. You can’t make them stop being oppressive. If you try to force them, you’re just using the wrong kingdom’s methods. But you can choose to love anyway. You can choose to serve from a position of strength rather than weakness. You can choose to release Kingdom power through submission that isn’t required but is freely given.

And that’s what begins to transform everything.

Peter even says it: “Your conduct [may] win over” those who don’t yet know Christ (1 Peter 3:1, NRSV). Paul tells slaves, “If you can gain your freedom, do so” (1 Corinthians 7:21, NRSV). He’s not saying it’s better to stay enslaved! But he knows most of them don’t have a choice. The only other option would be to die in a revolt—and that’s still trying to bring God’s Kingdom through violence, which you can’t do.

This is how the Kingdom comes. Not through power grabs or violent revolution. But through free people choosing to love in ways that dismantle the very structures that tried to bind them.

The Leaven That Changes Everything

Jesus gave them a whole generation before the temple came down. He didn’t force immediate change. Because everything in the Kingdom takes time. Yeast takes time to leaven the whole lump (Matthew 13:33, NRSV).

The most successful movements for social justice in history have come through years—sometimes generations—of kneading truth into the culture. Ideas shared through art, conversation, writing. Hearts changed slowly. Minds renewed gradually.

And then, often, there’s a final push. But that push only works because the ground has been prepared. The yeast has done its quiet, invisible work.

That’s what Paul was doing. Kneading Kingdom yeast into the dough of Roman culture. Teaching slaves and women how to be free in their spirits even while their bodies were still bound. Showing them how to release transforming love into oppressive systems without becoming oppressors themselves.

It’s slower. It’s harder. But friends, it’s the only way that actually works.

A Truth We Can’t Unsee

Here’s what breaks my heart: We took Paul’s instructions for how to live under Rome’s oppressive systems and made them the standard within the church.

Paul would never have tolerated slavery within the church. Never. In Christ, there is no slave or free (Galatians 3:28, NRSV). But we’ve taken his accommodation to worldly power structures and baptized it as God’s design.

We stood for “truth” by saying the church must be led by men, that women can’t preach—and in doing so, we actually became worldly. We imitated Rome. We brought the kingdom of darkness into the place that was supposed to be light.

The irony is devastating.

God was never interested in keeping slaves bound or women subjugated. That was never His design. He was teaching the powerless how to transform the world through submission that subverts—not through violence or manipulation, but through love that changes everything from the inside out.

Just as we now understand Paul wasn’t endorsing slavery for all time, we must recognize he wasn’t endorsing male domination either. He was planting seeds of Kingdom reality that would eventually undermine both systems.

The truth has been hiding in plain sight all along. We just needed eyes to see it.

When you’ve been taught something one way your whole life, it’s hard to unsee it. We proof-text verses about wives submitting while completely missing that Paul places those instructions right next to slaves submitting—showing us they’re addressing the same condition.

But once you see it? You can’t unsee it.

And the truth—the real truth—sets us free.

The Revolution Continues

This is how the Kingdom comes in the world through you and me: through love, not power. Through free people choosing to submit in ways that release transformation. Through yeast that leavens the whole lump, slowly, quietly, inevitably.

The revolution Paul started is still going. We’re still learning to accommodate without capitulating. Still learning to live in God’s Kingdom while the world’s systems crumble around us. Still learning that submission freely chosen is the most powerful force on earth.

Because when submission becomes subversion—when love freely given begins to dismantle the structures of oppression—that’s when heaven invades earth.

That’s when God’s Kingdom comes.

And friends, it’s already happening.

What are your thoughts? Have you seen this pattern of accommodation without capitulation in Scripture? I’d love to hear your reflections in the comments below.

Blessings,
Susan 😊