Should we obey our husbands if they ask us to sin? This question is always asked when I teach about submission, since God tells us to submit to our husbands in everything. I have found a book I think ALL of you should read. It is fabulous. The name is Me? Obey Him? by Elizabeth Rice Handford. She is now in her 80s and is married to a pastor.
This is what her husband wrote about her in 1972 when she wrote book. With forty-six years of watching her life as a dedicated pastor's wife and successful mother of seven children, I can say Libby "practices what she preaches." She is the most unselfish person I know. She has deep, abiding, biblical convictions and never steps over the line of respect for the authority of her husband. Not always has she agreed with me in everything, but she has never "bucked" any decision I have made. She has followed me, painfully sometimes, through my changing enthusiasms ~ whether the farm, photography, flying and now computers.
She has been mentoring women for many years. Whenever she is asked questions about obeying a husband who is asking her to sin, which always comes up with this topic since women love to talk about the exceptions rather than how well they are being obedient to their husbands, she asks them several questions ~
1. Have you been living in daily obedience to your husband as part of your wholehearted, loving submission to God? {This is an essential part of the problem. If a woman has not been submissive, God has no responsibility for her situation and cannot be blamed if her husband requires something wrong.}
2. Has your husband ever actually commanded you to do something wrong? In the hundreds of time I have asked these questions, not once, if my memory is right, has a woman answered, "Yes, I am always obedient, and yet my husband has required me to break one of God's laws." Never! Why? Because, when a woman takes God at His Word, submits to her husband without reservation, fears God and loves him, then God takes upon Himself the responsibility to see that a woman does not have to sin!
When women question me about this, who have no intention of submitting to their husbands but usually just want an out, I tell them that when I mentor women, I deal with the sin in their lives. If, per chance, one came to me and told me her husband did ask her to sin, I would want to know the exact situation and go from there. I am not going to make a blanket statement about this subject since I believe it is a red herring to get off of the topic of submission and water it down since I seriously doubt there are many husbands out there who command their wives to sin.
...so let the wives be subject to their own husbands in everything.
Ephesians 5:24
***For the record, I firmly believe a wife should NOT submit if her husband does ask her to do something that is clearly against God's commands since He is our highest authority.
