Submission | When Men in Power Answer to No One

Submission isn't weakness — it's the architecture of order. As U.S. strikes hit Iran and conflict spreads, Carlos Reyes asks whether any man in authority still answers to a power above himself. Open Scripture first. Let it govern you.

Show Notes

Monday, June 1, 2026 • Today's Principle: Submission

As U.S. strikes on Iran mark a significant escalation and leaders across the globe make unilateral calls with no clear accountability above themselves, today's episode drives home the principle of Submission — the conviction that a man who refuses to answer to God's authority can't genuinely lead anyone. Carlos works through Romans 13 and the Republic framework to show that submission isn't weakness: it's the foundation that makes real leadership possible, starting in private before the sun comes up and flowing outward into the household and public square.

Scripture: Romans 13:1-2; Proverbs 11:2

Today's Charge: Open Scripture before anything else today, let it govern a specific decision in front of you, and bring that same submitted posture to the leadership of your household this week.

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Today's Submission chapter reference: Ch 2 — Submission Before Authority

What is The Republic Briefing?

The Republic Briefing is a daily news podcast for men who take their faith, their families, and their responsibilities seriously. Host Carlos Reyes covers the same headlines everyone else is covering politics, culture, economics, world events but reframes them through Scripture and challenges men to respond with conviction, not reaction. Every episode ends with The Republic Charge: a direct call to lead your household, govern yourself, and steward the republic entrusted to you. The news. The standard. The charge.

This is The Republic Briefing. I'm Carlos Reyes. For men who govern themselves, their households, and their public square — this is your daily charge.

Today's principle is Submission — and what's happening right now between the United States and Iran reveals exactly what a nation looks like when men in authority answer to no one but themselves.

Over the weekend, the United States military bombed Iranian radar and drone control sites inside Iran. This came after Tehran shot down an American MQ-1 Predator drone. Then Kuwait's air defenses opened fire as drone and missile fire reached their territory. This conflict — a war, let's call it what it is — now extends from the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean. Sri Lanka got hit. Quiet towns jolted awake by fire that had nothing to do with them.

Here's what matters for this morning. Every man in a leadership seat — every president, every general, every senator — is making decisions right now that will cost other men their lives. Some of those men are fathers. Some of them have sons waiting at home.

And the question that nobody in the briefing room is asking — the one that should come before every other question — is this: Who are you answerable to?

Not strategically. Not constitutionally, though that matters. I mean ultimately. Is there a fixed authority above your own judgment that governs your decisions? Or are you the highest court of appeal in your own mind?

That's not a foreign policy question. That's a Submission question. And it doesn't stay in Washington. It comes home with every man who leads anything — a company, a church, a household, a country. The man who refuses to submit to authority above himself will eventually use the people under him to serve his own ends. Every time. That pattern doesn't start in the Oval Office. It starts at the kitchen table.

So what does a man do with this?

Today's principle is Submission. And I want to be precise about what that word means — because the world has turned it into weakness, and too many men in the church have let that go unchallenged.

Submission is not passivity. It's not weakness. It's not checking your backbone at the door. Submission is the recognition that you are not the highest authority. That there is a God above you, a Word that governs you, and that your leadership — in your home, your church, your community — flows from that foundation or it doesn't flow at all. Chapter two of Men of the Republic frames it this way: a man who won't submit can't lead. Not won't lead well. Can't lead. Because leadership without submission is just power. And power without accountability destroys whatever it touches.

Look at the pattern in the news. Leaders making unilateral calls. Nations striking nations. No one asking what God requires of rulers — only what the moment demands. That's not leadership. That's appetite with authority attached to it.

Romans thirteen, verses one through two. The ESV reads: "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment."

Now don't hear that as a blank check for any government to do anything it wants. That's not what Paul is teaching. He's writing to Roman Christians living under Caesar — not a godly king. The point is structural. God instituted the order of authority. That means authority itself is not neutral. It has a source. It has accountability built into its design by God. The ruler answers to God. The soldier answers to command. The father answers to Scripture. The moment a man removes himself from that chain — the moment he decides he's the final word — he's not free. He's adrift. And drifting men don't lead families. They shipwreck them.

Here's where the Republic framework bears down. It starts with you — not with Washington. The man who can't submit his own appetites to God's Word has no business demanding submission from his wife or children. The man who won't sit under Scripture in his church will eventually decide he knows better than the elders — and he'll take his family with him into that pride. The man who dismisses civic authority he disagrees with but has no moral case against is just practicing selective submission, which is no submission at all.

Where does this start? It starts in private. Before the sun comes up. Before anyone is watching. Is there a God whose Word governs your Monday morning — or are you your own highest court?

Which brings me to your charge for today.

Submit. That's the command. Not strategically, not selectively — submit your life to the authority of God and his Word, today, in the specific decisions on your plate.

Here's what that looks like this week. You've got a decision in front of you — maybe it's financial, maybe it's in your marriage, maybe it's something at work where you know what's right but it costs you something to do it. Open your Bible before you open anything else. Not for a feeling. Not for a word from the universe. For instruction. For correction. For the governing authority of God himself bearing down on a specific decision. Second Timothy three, sixteen says the Scripture is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness. That's not decoration. That's a man's operating manual.

Then take it to your household. If you haven't led your wife and children through a passage of Scripture in the last month — that's the cost of not submitting. They're getting their frame from the world because you didn't give them one from the Word. Your household is waiting for a man who's been under authority. Not a man performing religion. A man who's actually accountable to something above himself.

Here's what disobedience costs — and I'm not talking about disobedience to Washington. I mean to God. It costs your son a model of manhood he'll never get back. It costs your marriage the security that comes from a husband who answers to something higher than his own preferences. It costs your church a man who can actually be trusted with responsibility. It costs the public square — one more man who shows up with an agenda instead of a conscience.

The man who submits to God governs himself. The man who governs himself leads his household. The man who leads his household builds something that outlasts him.

Proverbs eleven, two: "When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom." That's the choice. Every morning. Wisdom or disgrace. Submission or drift.

Don't drift.

If today's charge moved you, Men of the Republic is where this goes deeper. The book is at carlosreyesiii.com. I'm Carlos Reyes. Govern yourself. Lead your household. Take your square. This is The Republic Briefing.