What's the right way?

So, I was painting the bathroom. The house was quiet as I listened to my iPod at around three AM (why else would the house be quiet?). It is not always the case but this time around, a John MacArthur sermon was playing called A Plan for Your Family: God's vs. the World's, Part 1 (#1943a, Eph 5:18-6:2).

As it says, this is an exposition of Ephesians 5:18-6:2 where the discussion begins with what is happening with the family followed by a historical note about Dionysius/Bacchus, which was interesting but didn't click any switches for me at the time. However, the next part (Eph 5:19-21) did, especially when connected to another passage to come:
"...speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God."

Okay, we're now into nuts and bolts... This is how we speak and think toward each other and God. And, submit. But, what does that mean? Well, Mr. MacArthur elaborates on the word: "hupotasso" which means to "place or rank under" like in the military. (I double-checked this, not because I don't trust but, well, you know...) Anyway, if we start looking for where the Word tells us to put down our pride and serve, we quickly get quite a stack of references and actually the next verses in Ephesians, especially, give some more clarity of what this looks like in practice (Eph 5:22-27):
"Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish."

So, we " to one another in the fear of God" and, wives "submit to" husbands. Also, though, we see that husbands should "love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her". There appears, then, this submission in leadership as an expression of love. The bell really rang for me on this one when Mr. MacArthur linked this leading submission to John 13, which I'll put in the next post...