Ephesians 5:21 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Submitting yourselves one to another— Though this verse, in grammatical construction, be joined to the foregoing discourse, yet it ought to be looked upon as introductory to what follows, and to be a general rule given to the Ephesians, to submit to those duties which the several relations that they stood in to one another required. After this general exhortation to the discharge of the relative duties, the Apostle proceeds to the particular consideration of the several relations of husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants; which he might rather choose to insist on, as some were ready to imagine that Christian converts were released from any further obligation to those who still continued in a state of heathenism. The Apostle therefore presses it upon them to shew a due regard to relative duties, in whatever station they were placed; and to remember that Christian privileges by no means excused them from the duties resulting from natural and civil relations of life, but rather enforced the obligations they were under to observe them: and if these duties were incumbent upon Christians towards relations of all kinds, even though they bore the character of unbelievers, much more were they engaged to practise them toward such, as were related to them, not only by the ties of nature or of civil institution, but also by the more endearing bonds of grace. See 1 Corinthians 7:10-24; 1 Timothy 6:1-2.