Every night before bed we read the Bible together as a family. We have gone through the gospels and we are in the Old Testament. We recently started 2 Samuel. One story caused such an uproar that we had to sit down and talk through it: the story of Uzzah in 2 Samuel 6.

Why Was Uzzah Punished for Touching the Ark?

At this point in history, David is hoping to bring the Ark from the house of Abinadab to Jerusalem. As the cart is heading to its new destination, we have this in verses 6 and 7:

When they came to the threshing floor of Nakon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled. The Lord’s anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down, and he died there beside the ark of God.

The confusion and frustration that erupted in our living room at these two verses was swift. “Why was Uzzah punished? Was he meant to let the ark fall? Why is it irreverent?” The kids have real concerns. When we pull apart the story, we can see that many of us are living where Uzzah is, an arms length from destruction.

Uzzah and the Ark: Familiarity with the Things of God

The ark ends up in the home of Abinadab (1 Samuel 7) after it is returned from being with the Philistines. It brings nothing but bad news to the enemies of the Lord, and they quickly devise a plan to send it back to God’s people. After it crosses the border, it ends up in the home of Abinadab and stays there for years. What does this have to do with Uzzah?

If we go back to 2 Samuel 6:3

They set the ark of God on a new cart and brought it from the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, sons of Abinadab, were guiding the new cart

Uzzah has spent years living in the same house as the ark. He has seen it, grown familiar with being around it and very likely forgotten the awesome power behind it. God, who knew Uzzah’s heart, calls his action “irreverent”. We can imagine he didn’t respect what the ark represented when he reached out.

Doing God’s Work According to God’s Instructions

1 Chronicles 15:13-15 gives us this last piece of the puzzle:

It was because you, the Levites, did not bring it up the first time that the Lord our God broke out in anger against us. We did not inquire of him about how to do it in the prescribed way.” So the priests and Levites consecrated themselves in order to bring up the ark of the Lord, the God of Israel. And the Levites carried the ark of God with the poles on their shoulders, as Moses had commanded in accordance with the word of the Lord.

The Israelites didn’t ask God how to go forward; they just went. The Ark shouldn’t have been on a cart with the sons of Abinadab. It should have been on poles on the shoulders of Levites. They didn’t follow the law. They didn’t ask God for the information; they just went forward with their plans and busyness.

Does Religious Busyness Reflect Obedience to God?

Many of us are living lives near God’s kingdom: in churches, discipleship communities, and Bible studies. Are we living under His lordship, or are we so comfortable with the proximity that we are irreverent? I look holy by being where I am, even when my heart posture is haughty. We want to be saved from Hell but don’t want to live as part of His Kingdom, bending the knee to His decree.

There can be a busyness that looks like kingdom work while the heart posture is far from where it ought to be. In fact, that is Uzzah. He is bringing the ark of the Lord into the city of David, without having consulted God for the plan. We can be running a thriving ministry and have a heart posture of irreverence.

Following Jesus Means Submitting to His Lordship

When I think the harvest is mine, the ministry is mine and the people are mine, I have made myself god. I can’t make a disciple. I can join God where He is working on someone. Trusting Him, I can obey and follow. You and I can’t make Him Lord in our lives. He is Lord. That is the title He holds. We can submit or we can wage war against Him.

If your ministry responsibilities disappeared tomorrow, what would your relationship with Jesus look like? Uzzah was involved in bringing the ark to Jerusalem. Where might you also be doing work for God while disregarding His instructions? Have you accepted Christ’s gift of salvation but denied His authority as Lord? What areas of your life are you not willing to submit?

This article was spurred on by the conversation started here.

All over my socials, I see the Netflix documentary “The Death of a Pastor’s Wife” being discussed. It wasn’t until submission started popping up in many of my conversations that I decided to hash it out here. We’ve lost the point of submission and buried it under modern thoughts. Let’s go back to the controversial Ephesians 5 passage.

What Does Ephesians 5 Say About Submission?

Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Ephesians 5:21-24

Submission is a loaded word. But are we bringing our assumptions to this passage before we hear what Paul is saying. Paul uses submit, which comes from a Greek military term and is used to show they are under the command of a leader. When used in a non-military way, it means it’s a voluntary attitude of giving in and cooperation. The way we submit to one another is voluntary. When Jesus saw the distress of his parents in Luke 2, He voluntarily left His Father’s house and obeyed His parents.

Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he was saying to them.
Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. Luke 2:49-51

This is when Jesus was a boy, and He stayed back at the temple, causing His parents to have to search for Him. He tells them, “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” This is where Jesus belongs, but He was “obedient” to his parents. That’s an authority that God put over Jesus in that season. The word obedient here is the same word we use in Ephesians 5:24 where wives submit to their husbands. That same root word is there in Romans 13 where we are told to submit to governing authorities. When we find ourselves struggling with submitting to authority, we can recognize that Jesus has walked that walk. Both with God (“Not my will, but yours”) and with people. He had a place He had to be, but allowed Himself to be subject under those who God put above Him.

Is Submission Only for Wives?

Biblical submission isn’t a gender based topic. It’s not “women must submit”, it is an overarching biblical principle that everyone needs. Jesus walked it out in obedience with His parents. We also see in Ephesians 5:21 that we as a body should be submitting to one another, and in Romans 13 we are called to submit to governing authorities. Why does God give us these places and roles in which we must submit?

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, Philippians 2:3

Submission in Marriage: Facing Fear and Choosing Trust

Submitting requires us to put aside our wants, ambitions ,and vanities and trust someone else. But what if I don’t trust them? What if the rulers and authorities don’t have my best interests in mind? Submitting requires my eyes to go from the person over me, past them to God. Can I trust God to be sovereign when the authorities are wicked? Can I trust Him to lead me if my husband isn’t acting godly? Will He still be good if this doesn’t go my way?

Ladies, we struggle with fear. It is so easy to say “I am safer when I am in control” and refuse to submit. Submitting to our husbands is submitting to God. He is asking us to die to our selfish ambition and value our husbands over ourselves.

What Does Ephesians 5 Ask of Husbands?

In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church. Ephesians 5:28-29

Men you aren’t off the hook here. Not only are you called to submit to one another in verse 21, but then it’s added that you have to love your wife. The love used in this verse is the selfless love that doesn’t demand anything in return. If women struggle with fear, men struggle with pride. Both calls in Ephesians call us to live outside of our comfort: Women must trust their husbands, and husbands must put themselves to the side to deeply love their wives.

If we both lived in that dynamic, submission would always be seen as a beautiful action. Our marriages are training grounds for how we walk with God. They are a witness to His goodness as they actively sanctify us. A healthy marriage is a beacon to the outside world.

Living Out Biblical Submission in Community

While we walk in discipleship relationships we must call the men and women under us into Titus 2 walks. Men need to be taught to be self-controlled and how to be an example of good works with integrity. Women need to be taught to be reverent and how to love their husbands and children. This happens in a community where lives are lived together. If you aren’t actively in each other's lives, you cannot correct and call people forward. Who knows your marriage well enough to challenge the way you love, lead, trust, or respond when you’re wrong? Does your pride get in the way of your obedience?

How many commands are in the Great Commission? What does it look like to be obedient to the Great Commission? If this is the guiding principle of our lives, how well should we know it? 

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20

How Many Commands Are in the Great Commission?

When teaching grammar, I taught a quick cheat for determining if a sentence is imperative, or a command. We look at the sentence and ask “is there a stated subject?” and if there isn’t, it’s usually a command. When we look at the Great Commission, the subject is “you”, but we don’t see it there. In this passage there is one main command, with three supporting clauses. 

Make Disciples: The Main Command of the Great Commission

The overarching commission is for you to make disciples. Are you actively teaching others how to follow the precepts of Jesus? Often I think we are looking for someone more qualified than we are. A more adultier adult to bring the gospel out. But when we go back to the text we can see this beautiful detail:

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Matthew 28:16-17

In obedience the disciples went up to Jesus. They saw him. They worshiped him. Yet we see that there’s not full confidence. I don’t know where their doubts lie, but I know where mine do. “You want to use me? Is there no one else?” God used eleven ordinary men. When we obediently come to him, we can be used. When we hold our doubts out as a disqualifier for obedience, what we really are saying is “I don’t trust you”. Doubt on its own isn’t bad, but it can hinder us from the commission.  

Our doubts can become our idols when we use them to not obey. Jesus commissioned ordinary men, some with doubts, no different than you and me. How do we overcome this idol? By truly believing he is always with us. It is Jesus’ goal that there be disciples in all nations; he is promising to go with us as we go out.

Three Supporting Actions of the Great Commission

Our first clause is “Go”. The word "go” is grammatically tied to “make disciples”, in the same way as when I tell my kids “Go and clean your room”. The main action isn’t the “going” but it is tied to the task at hand. I want the room cleaned, that is the main task, but they must “go” to get it done. The main thing for us to do is “make disciples” but it cannot be accomplished without us going. Just as my kids cannot clean their room without going to their room, we cannot make disciples without going to where there are people. Are we willing to be sent out? Is my “go” limited to a “local only” status? Would I be willing to go to the nations?

The second of the supporting clauses is baptizing those new disciples. It hangs onto the main clause: there’s no one to baptize if you don’t go and “make”. Going back to the Greek here we find my favorite note in all of the Blue Letter Bible, I’ll link it here. There is a note in the usage that contains a reference to a pickle recipe. Yes, a pickle recipe. There are two Greek words that are very similar, and to explain the difference a pickle recipe was needed. The first word is used when the soon to be pickles are dipped into boiling water to clean them off. The second word is what is found in the command here, and it refers to when the soon to be pickles are left in the vinegar solution. Our identity needs to change when we are baptized. We go from being under the weight of the kingdom of the world, to being under the commission of he who has all authority. 

The last clause we see here is very specific. It’s not just “teaching”, or just “teaching them to obey”, but to teach them to obey all of Jesus’ commands. We cannot obey what we don’t know, and we can’t teach others to obey what we refuse to do ourselves. We are teaching them not just blind obedience, but how to live under the Lordship of Christ. This is key to the life-change we see in baptizing. 

How Can We Obey the Great Commission Today?

Jesus is offering us a chance to join him in changing the world. We obey the commands in the Great Commission by making disciples: going, baptizing, and teaching others to obey everything Jesus commanded.  We are changed as we walk with him, and we get to bring the nations with us. As long as we are on this side of heaven, we are to make disciples who make disciples. That’s how the gospel goes to all nations; on the obedience of you and me. So are you ready to obey? Who can you impact today with discipleship? What doubts are holding you back?

This article was inspired by the conversation had here.