They don't by nature of the role. Imagine if I had to submit to my children because of a bad interpretation of the verse that says submit to one another. That would be chaos. God knows how to avoid chaos.
Imagine if only the wife had to submit in her marriage because of a bad interpretation of Ephesians 5:21!!! And yet, that's exactly how so many have interpreted the verse.
The bible tells us...ALL of us to submit to one another. The bible does NOT say that we ALL must submit to each other
in equal measure.
Ephesians tells children to obey their parents.
It also tells fathers not to provoke their children to anger, but to bring them up with training and instruction in the Lord.
The parent-child relationship is based on
mutual respect (notice I didn't say
'equal' respect). Children owe their parents obedience and parents owe their children the respect
as children in correspondence to their dignity as sons and daughters of God. Parents should avoid abusive and unreasonable disciplinary measures that can rob those children of their dignity. They owe it to their children to provide for their physical needs and education.
Because a child cannot do for him/herself, the parent
submits to that child by helping the child to learn how to grow and be self-sufficient.
Heaven is a monarchy, not a democracy. God says, creation obeys. Authority does not automatically lead to abuse.
You're right. It doesn't. But it
can lead to abuse if the person's ego is out of control, and if a bible verse is misinterpreted.
God is a good Father. His right to our obedience is absolute. But like any good father, his strength and might is for the good of his loved ones.
And just how many 'good father's are out there? Hint: Not as many as you may think!
Fearing men and their potential to abuse can cause women to not give them a fair chance to improve in a relationship---as it almost did in my case.
That's because most men who DO abuse women have no desire to 'improve'. Their ego prevents them from believing that they might be doing something wrong.
Men have such a tremendous potential to care and sacrifice. But if all we ever mention are the men who send their wives to the hospital, we'll never see or understand this capacity.
Abuse comes in many forms, Wynona. Financial, sexual, emotional, religious, verbal, physical... I saw a statistic recently that said something like, although divorce is initiated by 80% of wives, 53% of those wives are divorcing their husbands because of SOME form of ABUSE.
While these men have the potential to care and sacrifice for their wives, many of them don't.
We have to love even our enemies. Its not fair and it never was meant to be...just like Jesus going to the cross was not fair to Him. We can't just act as if "oh of course Jesus went to the cross"... we didn't deserve that and God couldve rightfully let us all die in our sins.
Oh, I can love my enemies. From afar.