August 21, 2025 • 15 mins
Christians misunderstand what the Bible says about submitting to authority. Whether it is in marriage, the church, the family or society, learn what the Bible says about this important principle that affects all relationships. #healthyrelationship #abusiverelationships #dysfunctionalrelationship
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You're listening to an audio recordingby Change My Relationship, featuring
licensed marriage and family therapistand author Karla Downing.
These audios are designed to provide youwith practical solutions
based on biblical truthsfor all your relationships.
(00:21):
I'm going to talk to you
about refusing to submit to authority.
And what I mean by that is,
as Christians, we believe there's an order and that God
is ultimately the one that we obey
and that we submit to and that we follow.
(00:42):
And then there are orders of authorityunder that.
And and to a certain extent,there's some authority
that we believeour pastor has not necessarily
to tell us what to do,but somebody that we value for advice.
And in different denominations of churches
they will give more,consideration to their pastor.
(01:03):
And the other is
the man as head of the house.
And whether or not therea wife should submit to her husband.
And if you're familiar with my videosand my writings,
then you will know thatI very clearly teach that
a woman has a choice of whether or notto submit to her husband,
(01:25):
and never submits to anythingthat is harmful, or against God,
or against her own conscience,or against her own will.
And as the same thing goes for government,
that as Christians,we do not submit to a government
that tells us to do somethingthat would cause us to disobey God,
(01:48):
or where they are telling us todo something that God has told us to do.
Which I guess would be the same thing.
And I want to talk to youfor a few minutes about some scriptures
that kind of explainwhat I'm talking about,
and I'm not giving you the entire teachingof any of these things,
because that would take a very,very long time.
(02:09):
And my videos are normally not that long.
But the first one that Christiansthink about is submission
to government authorities,and that's in Romans 13:1.
And it says, and this is the NIV, everyonemust submit himself to the government
governing authorities, for there'sno authority
except that which God has established.
(02:30):
We know God has established governmentand order in society.
And it says the authoritiesthat exist have been established by God.
Consequently, he who rebels againstthe authority is rebelling against
what God has instituted, and those who doso will bring judgment on themselves.
For rulers hold no terror for thosewho do right, but for those who do wrong.
(02:54):
So basically it says, do you want to befree from fear of the one in authority?
Then do what is right,
and he will commend you, for he'sGod's servant to do you good.
But if you do wrong, be afraid, forhe does not bear the sword.
For nothing is God's agent
who of wrath to bring punishmenton the wrong doer.
(03:16):
Therefore, it is necessaryto submit to the authorities
not only because of possible punishment,but also because of conscience.
And then it says,this is why you also pay taxes
for the authorities are God's servantsand give their full time
to government governing.
Give everyone what you owe him.
If you owe taxes, pay taxes.
(03:37):
It says if you if revenue, pay revenueif respect, then
respect if honor then honor.
So that was actually Romans 13:1-7.
So what that is talking about is basicallythat government has been established
to do good for us to showwhat is right and what is wrong.
Now, many Christians believe,okay, I'm just that means I have to submit
(03:58):
to everythingthe government tells me to do.
This is affected even some people.
When churches have been told to shut downover COVID, and others believe that
if the government is not doingwhat is good and healthy and right,
or taking away or any of our rightslike our First Amendment right to assemble
or our First Amendmentright to freedom of religion,
(04:22):
then we have a right and a duty to say no.
Now, it's interesting that the
Apostle Peter
did exactly this, because the apostles, itsays, were brought before the Sanhedrin.
And this is in Acts 5:27.
(04:42):
It says, that they were brought
before the Sanhedrinto be questioned by the high priest.
And they said, we gave you strict ordersnot to teach in this name.
Yet you have filled Jerusalemwith your teaching
and are determinedto make us guilty of this man's blood.
Peter and the other apostles replied,
(05:05):
we must must obey God rather than men.
Period.
In other words,we are going to continue preaching.
We are going to continuetelling people about Jesus
because we are obeying God.
And we know that Jesus told usto go into all the world
(05:27):
and to preach the gospel,to share the good news with other people.
So basically they're saying,we're not going to give in to
someone who is telling us to not dowhat God has told us to do.
So there's an exceptionof when we are to obey the authorities.
So that in itself shows youthat absolutely, there are a exceptions.
(05:50):
You're not going to do something
that is wrong,something that is against your conscience.
And for one thing, in the United Statesand in other democracies,
we are allowed towe're given we're given rights.
And when the government infringesupon our rights, then that is wrong.
That is not them upholdingwhat they should be doing.
(06:11):
And some Christians believe stronglythat that means that we have
a responsibilityand a right to stand up and say no.
So in marriage, one of the stories
that I like to talk about,which I think is, very interesting,
that really relates to thisand gives us a really clear example
(06:32):
is, scripturally, when Abigail
was, married to a man named Nabal,
and this was when, David
and his men werehad had done things for Nabal.
Nabal was wealthy.He had a lot of, flocks.
He had a lot of men that worked for him.
(06:53):
He had a family.
And David had helpedprotect him and done things
for him as favors in the past.
And so David came throughand he had his men, and he basically was
he came to Nabaland he said, basically, hey,
we've done these things for you,and now we need something in return.
We need food. We need, provision from you.
(07:14):
I need it for all of my menand please supply that.
And it was pretty significantwhat he was asking for.
But this was culturallywhat naval should have done.
And this is actually in 1 Samuel, 25.
And, so basically, Nabal
(07:36):
was his name actually means fool.
Okay. And he was foolish.
He instead of saying, why,of course we will supply that for you.
He had plenty he had no problems withdoing that was going to hurt him at all.
But he refused.
He said, no, I'm not going to do that.
So basically he sent his, man or his,
(07:59):
person there and he said to David,no, I'm not, I'm not doing that.
And when David found out
that he had said no, David was going to do
what any man of honorwould do in that culture in that time,
which was to retaliate,to basically kind of
come in and kill some of Nabal’s
(08:22):
men and possibly take
some of the provisionsor the things that he felt entitled to.
And so,
he, some
servant of Nabal’s found out about this,and he came to Abigail,
came to Nabal’s wife,and he explained the situation
(08:42):
and he told her,hey, if you don't do something,
if you don't intervene in this,if you don't
do something, we're going to die.
Like David is going to retaliate.
This is going to be, really bad.
And it says here in verse 18, it says,
Abigail lost no time.
(09:04):
She took 200 loaves of bread, twoskins of wine, five dressed feet, sheep,
five seas of roastedgrain, 100 cakes of raisins,
and 200 cakes of pressed figs,and loaded them on donkeys.
And she told her servants,go on ahead, and I'll follow you.
She didn't tell her husband Nabal.
(09:24):
She did not tell him what she was doing.
She came to Davidand she basically said, to David,
essentially forgive my husband.
He's a fool.
Hey, he should not have told you. No.
And I'mbringing all of this stuff for you.
I'm bringing this to you and giving youbecause you deserve this.
Now I'm asking you,please don't do anything
(09:47):
to my family, or my servants.
And David basically said, okay.
And he said, right here in verse32 to Abigail,
praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,who has sent you today to meet me.
May you be blessed for your good judgmentand for keeping me from bloodshed
(10:10):
this day, and from avenging myselfwith my own hands.
He says so basically.
Davidrealized, okay, she did what was right
if she kept him from doing that and
interestingly,the outcome of this was that Nabal died.
(10:30):
God basically took his lifeand David ended up marrying Abigail.
So this was not God saying,how dare you go against your husband
and not submit to his will and his desire?
God was basically reinforcingthat she did the right thing.
So this is one of those storiesin Scripture that we can look at
(10:54):
and just say, you know,I mean, can't use it across the board
to everything, but recognize that, hey,there's there's times.
And for some of us in modern dayrelationships
and we're not in that culturein the Western world, what if our husband
is not wanting to allow us to do somethingto take care of our child,
maybe to take the child to the doctoror to get the child
(11:17):
the medication that is neededor to help our child emotionally.
Do we give in to somethingthat is actually going to hurt our child,
or do we take a stand and say,no, I'm not going to allow you
to make a foolish decisionthat harms my family.
There are many timeswhere that is appropriate.
(11:37):
If your husband asks you to do somethingthat is immoral sexually
in the bedroom or in your relationship,do you have to submit to that?
Absolutely not.
No, no, no or somethingthat is painful to you or something
that is not appropriate for you, orsomething that is against your conscience?
No, you do not have to give in to that.
(11:59):
Do you have to sign a loan tothat would be harmful
to your financial situation?
Do you have to give, husbandyour paycheck from your John,
when you know that he will spend it onthings that are immoral
and not pay for the things that the familyneeds and causes harm to the family.
(12:19):
All of these are real situationsthat women are dealing with,
not only in our Western culture, but,even even worse
in other cultureswhere they don't have rights in society.
So what is that precedent?
The precedentis that you do not have to submit
to authority, that you can sayno to authority when it violates
(12:43):
what God wants you to do,and violate your conscience and violates
what you know is the right thing to doand causes harm to people.
So I hope that this has helpedyou at least get you thinking about it
and maybe doing some further scriptural,
research yourself or listen to listeningto some other people.
(13:04):
Just throwing this out therefor you to kind of, begin
making decisions for yourself, too.
I mean, you don't have to go byjust what I say.
You can begin to think about thisand search scriptures and come to you.
Come to the conclusionwhere what God is showing you.
So I've livedmany years in very difficult,
(13:25):
dysfunctional
relationships in my life,and I've I've talked
to thousands of peoplethat have dysfunctional relationships
and seen what the real world isand what the real situations are.
And I can tell youthat there is absolutely
no waythat God would say, under any circumstance
(13:46):
that you have to, submit to authorityno matter what.
So thank you for listening,and I'd love to hear from you.
And I hope that you will go to my website
and look at my resourceson changemyrelationship.com.
And for those of you listening,that don't know about my book, Change
(14:07):
My Relationship 365 Daily Devotionsfor Christians in Difficult Relationships.
This will give you a lot of foodfor thought,
a lot of things that you can beginto think about.
How to apply scriptureto your difficult relationships.
I hope you'll look it up.
I'd love to hear from you.
Thank you for watching this videoon Change My Relationship.
(14:31):
Thank you for listeningto Change My Relationship.
We hope you will subscribe to thesepodcasts and share them with your friends.
Karla would love to hear from you.
She welcomes ideas for a future podcast,as well as your feedback
on how the podcasts have helped your lifeand relationships.
You can email her at.
karla@changemyrelationship.com
(14:53):
For more informationon Change My Relationship and Karla
Downing's ministry, including her books,studies, devotionals, podcasts
and YouTube videosvisit changemyrelationship.com.
You're listening to an audio recordingby Change My Relationship, featuring
licensed marriage and family therapistand author Karla Downing.
These audios are designed to provide youwith practical solutions
based on biblical truthsfor all your relationships.
(00:21):
I'm going to talk to you
about refusing to submit to authority.
And what I mean by that is,
as Christians, we believe there's an order and that God
is ultimately the one that we obey
and that we submit to and that we follow.
(00:42):
And then there are orders of authorityunder that.
And and to a certain extent,there's some authority
that we believeour pastor has not necessarily
to tell us what to do,but somebody that we value for advice.
And in different denominations of churches
they will give more,consideration to their pastor.
(01:03):
And the other is
the man as head of the house.
And whether or not therea wife should submit to her husband.
And if you're familiar with my videosand my writings,
then you will know thatI very clearly teach that
a woman has a choice of whether or notto submit to her husband,
(01:25):
and never submits to anythingthat is harmful, or against God,
or against her own conscience,or against her own will.
And as the same thing goes for government,
that as Christians,we do not submit to a government
that tells us to do somethingthat would cause us to disobey God,
(01:48):
or where they are telling us todo something that God has told us to do.
Which I guess would be the same thing.
And I want to talk to youfor a few minutes about some scriptures
that kind of explainwhat I'm talking about,
and I'm not giving you the entire teachingof any of these things,
because that would take a very,very long time.
(02:09):
And my videos are normally not that long.
But the first one that Christiansthink about is submission
to government authorities,and that's in Romans 13:1.
And it says, and this is the NIV, everyonemust submit himself to the government
governing authorities, for there'sno authority
except that which God has established.
(02:30):
We know God has established governmentand order in society.
And it says the authoritiesthat exist have been established by God.
Consequently, he who rebels againstthe authority is rebelling against
what God has instituted, and those who doso will bring judgment on themselves.
For rulers hold no terror for thosewho do right, but for those who do wrong.
(02:54):
So basically it says, do you want to befree from fear of the one in authority?
Then do what is right,
and he will commend you, for he'sGod's servant to do you good.
But if you do wrong, be afraid, forhe does not bear the sword.
For nothing is God's agent
who of wrath to bring punishmenton the wrong doer.
(03:16):
Therefore, it is necessaryto submit to the authorities
not only because of possible punishment,but also because of conscience.
And then it says,this is why you also pay taxes
for the authorities are God's servantsand give their full time
to government governing.
Give everyone what you owe him.
If you owe taxes, pay taxes.
(03:37):
It says if you if revenue, pay revenueif respect, then
respect if honor then honor.
So that was actually Romans 13:1-7.
So what that is talking about is basicallythat government has been established
to do good for us to showwhat is right and what is wrong.
Now, many Christians believe,okay, I'm just that means I have to submit
(03:58):
to everythingthe government tells me to do.
This is affected even some people.
When churches have been told to shut downover COVID, and others believe that
if the government is not doingwhat is good and healthy and right,
or taking away or any of our rightslike our First Amendment right to assemble
or our First Amendmentright to freedom of religion,
(04:22):
then we have a right and a duty to say no.
Now, it's interesting that the
Apostle Peter
did exactly this, because the apostles, itsays, were brought before the Sanhedrin.
And this is in Acts 5:27.
(04:42):
It says, that they were brought
before the Sanhedrinto be questioned by the high priest.
And they said, we gave you strict ordersnot to teach in this name.
Yet you have filled Jerusalemwith your teaching
and are determinedto make us guilty of this man's blood.
Peter and the other apostles replied,
(05:05):
we must must obey God rather than men.
Period.
In other words,we are going to continue preaching.
We are going to continuetelling people about Jesus
because we are obeying God.
And we know that Jesus told usto go into all the world
(05:27):
and to preach the gospel,to share the good news with other people.
So basically they're saying,we're not going to give in to
someone who is telling us to not dowhat God has told us to do.
So there's an exceptionof when we are to obey the authorities.
So that in itself shows youthat absolutely, there are a exceptions.
(05:50):
You're not going to do something
that is wrong,something that is against your conscience.
And for one thing, in the United Statesand in other democracies,
we are allowed towe're given we're given rights.
And when the government infringesupon our rights, then that is wrong.
That is not them upholdingwhat they should be doing.
(06:11):
And some Christians believe stronglythat that means that we have
a responsibilityand a right to stand up and say no.
So in marriage, one of the stories
that I like to talk about,which I think is, very interesting,
that really relates to thisand gives us a really clear example
(06:32):
is, scripturally, when Abigail
was, married to a man named Nabal,
and this was when, David
and his men werehad had done things for Nabal.
Nabal was wealthy.He had a lot of, flocks.
He had a lot of men that worked for him.
(06:53):
He had a family.
And David had helpedprotect him and done things
for him as favors in the past.
And so David came throughand he had his men, and he basically was
he came to Nabaland he said, basically, hey,
we've done these things for you,and now we need something in return.
We need food. We need, provision from you.
(07:14):
I need it for all of my menand please supply that.
And it was pretty significantwhat he was asking for.
But this was culturallywhat naval should have done.
And this is actually in 1 Samuel, 25.
And, so basically, Nabal
(07:36):
was his name actually means fool.
Okay. And he was foolish.
He instead of saying, why,of course we will supply that for you.
He had plenty he had no problems withdoing that was going to hurt him at all.
But he refused.
He said, no, I'm not going to do that.
So basically he sent his, man or his,
(07:59):
person there and he said to David,no, I'm not, I'm not doing that.
And when David found out
that he had said no, David was going to do
what any man of honorwould do in that culture in that time,
which was to retaliate,to basically kind of
come in and kill some of Nabal’s
(08:22):
men and possibly take
some of the provisionsor the things that he felt entitled to.
And so,
he, some
servant of Nabal’s found out about this,and he came to Abigail,
came to Nabal’s wife,and he explained the situation
(08:42):
and he told her,hey, if you don't do something,
if you don't intervene in this,if you don't
do something, we're going to die.
Like David is going to retaliate.
This is going to be, really bad.
And it says here in verse 18, it says,
Abigail lost no time.
(09:04):
She took 200 loaves of bread, twoskins of wine, five dressed feet, sheep,
five seas of roastedgrain, 100 cakes of raisins,
and 200 cakes of pressed figs,and loaded them on donkeys.
And she told her servants,go on ahead, and I'll follow you.
She didn't tell her husband Nabal.
(09:24):
She did not tell him what she was doing.
She came to Davidand she basically said, to David,
essentially forgive my husband.
He's a fool.
Hey, he should not have told you. No.
And I'mbringing all of this stuff for you.
I'm bringing this to you and giving youbecause you deserve this.
Now I'm asking you,please don't do anything
(09:47):
to my family, or my servants.
And David basically said, okay.
And he said, right here in verse32 to Abigail,
praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,who has sent you today to meet me.
May you be blessed for your good judgmentand for keeping me from bloodshed
(10:10):
this day, and from avenging myselfwith my own hands.
He says so basically.
Davidrealized, okay, she did what was right
if she kept him from doing that and
interestingly,the outcome of this was that Nabal died.
(10:30):
God basically took his lifeand David ended up marrying Abigail.
So this was not God saying,how dare you go against your husband
and not submit to his will and his desire?
God was basically reinforcingthat she did the right thing.
So this is one of those storiesin Scripture that we can look at
(10:54):
and just say, you know,I mean, can't use it across the board
to everything, but recognize that, hey,there's there's times.
And for some of us in modern dayrelationships
and we're not in that culturein the Western world, what if our husband
is not wanting to allow us to do somethingto take care of our child,
maybe to take the child to the doctoror to get the child
(11:17):
the medication that is neededor to help our child emotionally.
Do we give in to somethingthat is actually going to hurt our child,
or do we take a stand and say,no, I'm not going to allow you
to make a foolish decisionthat harms my family.
There are many timeswhere that is appropriate.
(11:37):
If your husband asks you to do somethingthat is immoral sexually
in the bedroom or in your relationship,do you have to submit to that?
Absolutely not.
No, no, no or somethingthat is painful to you or something
that is not appropriate for you, orsomething that is against your conscience?
No, you do not have to give in to that.
(11:59):
Do you have to sign a loan tothat would be harmful
to your financial situation?
Do you have to give, husbandyour paycheck from your John,
when you know that he will spend it onthings that are immoral
and not pay for the things that the familyneeds and causes harm to the family.
(12:19):
All of these are real situationsthat women are dealing with,
not only in our Western culture, but,even even worse
in other cultureswhere they don't have rights in society.
So what is that precedent?
The precedentis that you do not have to submit
to authority, that you can sayno to authority when it violates
(12:43):
what God wants you to do,and violate your conscience and violates
what you know is the right thing to doand causes harm to people.
So I hope that this has helpedyou at least get you thinking about it
and maybe doing some further scriptural,
research yourself or listen to listeningto some other people.
(13:04):
Just throwing this out therefor you to kind of, begin
making decisions for yourself, too.
I mean, you don't have to go byjust what I say.
You can begin to think about thisand search scriptures and come to you.
Come to the conclusionwhere what God is showing you.
So I've livedmany years in very difficult,
(13:25):
dysfunctional
relationships in my life,and I've I've talked
to thousands of peoplethat have dysfunctional relationships
and seen what the real world isand what the real situations are.
And I can tell youthat there is absolutely
no waythat God would say, under any circumstance
(13:46):
that you have to, submit to authorityno matter what.
So thank you for listening,and I'd love to hear from you.
And I hope that you will go to my website
and look at my resourceson changemyrelationship.com.
And for those of you listening,that don't know about my book, Change
(14:07):
My Relationship 365 Daily Devotionsfor Christians in Difficult Relationships.
This will give you a lot of foodfor thought,
a lot of things that you can beginto think about.
How to apply scriptureto your difficult relationships.
I hope you'll look it up.
I'd love to hear from you.
Thank you for watching this videoon Change My Relationship.
(14:31):
Thank you for listeningto Change My Relationship.
We hope you will subscribe to thesepodcasts and share them with your friends.
Karla would love to hear from you.
She welcomes ideas for a future podcast,as well as your feedback
on how the podcasts have helped your lifeand relationships.
You can email her at.
karla@changemyrelationship.com
(14:53):
For more informationon Change My Relationship and Karla
Downing's ministry, including her books,studies, devotionals, podcasts
and YouTube videosvisit changemyrelationship.com.
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