Ephesians 5:21 — Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.

I was talking to a good Christian today. And before you jump in, no I don’t mean he’s absolutely good. I mean he’s accepted Christ as his Savior and he’s working hard to be a good disciple.
In the conversation I was having with this man, I was reminded of thus verse, which I can’t help feeling is sadly neglected. So often the next verse, a subject of controversy, gets all the attention: “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.” (Ephesians 5:22)
Christians, just like everybody else, I suppose, are inclined to see things hierarchically. Somebody’s on top, somebody’s on the bottom, and maybe there’s a few levels in between. But that’s probably not how it should be!
We live, in an increasingly selfish and self-centered world. But here’s Paul offering this prescription that is completely counter-cultural in that world. Submit, he says, each to the other. That is, each of you seek to adjust your thoughts, plans and behavior to accommodate the needs of those around you.
Jesus was no stranger to submission … He submitted to His Heavenly Father — “And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.” (1 Corinthians 15:28) — and He submitted to His earthly parents — “And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them: but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart” (Luke 2:51)
Paul too, even as he wrote about submission, knew about submission — “For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more.” (1 Corinthians 9:19)
In the redeemed world, each of us will submit to the other. Does that mean there will be no leaders? By no means, but there leadership will be the leadership that Paul describes in the verse only a few lines further down in his letter to the Ephesians: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;” (Ephesians 5:25). In the redeemed church, each of us will have a place, and will exercise the leadership appropriate to that place — and each of us will submit to the others, as appropriate.
I love this notion. In the New Jerusalem we will be a picture of the Trinity, for the persons of the Trinity surely have this kind of mutual authority / submission. So let none of us demand submission, nor let us fear to give it … but let us rejoice in it!