Focal Passages:
Ephesians 5:21-33; 1 Peter 3:7
Nothing frightens
people more than to enter into a new relationship thinking that it will be a
situation where you are in a submissive role.
The biblical
understanding of submission is so far from the common understanding of
submission in today’s society that we will need to understand what the Bible
shows us about submission to understand this passage in Ephesians where wives
are to submit to their husbands.
Well, that phrase for
wives to submit to their husbands sinks like a rock in a pond when it is thrown
out in casual conversation.
The term used for
submit literally means to “arrange under,” and it is to be done in a voluntary
way.
This is better
understood as wives voluntarily respecting their husbands and letting them be
the spiritual and physical head of the household. This term for submit never is
to mean that someone is to become like a forced slave to another person.
Paul continues with
this marriage relationship theme and turns his attention over to the husbands.
The very first thing
that Paul says to the husbands is to love your wives. Now we think to ourselves
that this is a no brainer, but that was not the case 2,000 years ago.
Love did not usually
come into the equation for marriages in that time.
A woman was looked upon
as property and when she displeased her husband in any manner, then he (and
only he) had the option to write her a certificate of divorce and kick her out
of his house for any reason whatsoever.
“Love your wife, just
as Christ loved the church…” was an idea from way out in right field.
These believers knew
how much Christ loved them and when Paul told them that the husband was to have
this same type of love for his wife, then a new understanding of this marriage
relationship began to take place.
How did Christ love the
world?
We see in Mark 10:45
that Jesus came not to be served by us but to serve us and to give His life for
us.
This is the type of
love and service that a husband is to have for his wife.
The wife was not just
to be a submissive servant.
Both the husband and
wife were to have a new type of relationship of mutual submission to each
other.
Wives, give due respect
to your husbands in private and in public. Husbands, cherish your wives in
private and public.
When we do this under
the leadership and example of Christ, it will change our marriages and families
in ways we cannot even imagine.