Introduction
There’s
an old parable about a cobbler’s wife that goes to her pastor for some marriage
advice. After exchanging the usual formalities, the cobbler’s wife says,
“Pastor, I’m having trouble with my husband and I just don’t think I’m in love
with him anymore and I’m wondering if I should leave him.” The old Pastor
considered the woman’s words with some confusion. He had known the cobbler for
quite some time and even performed the couple’s marriage many years ago and was
under the impression that the cobbler was a very good man. Nevertheless, he
conceded to himself, ‘no one really knows what goes on behind closed doors.’ So
before offering counsel to the woman, the old pastor asked the woman a few
questions. He asked, “Does your husband abuse you?” “Oh no” she said. He would
never do that. He has always been gentle with me.” “Does he then indulge in too
much alcohol?” asked the pastor. “No, he doesn’t really like alcohol.” “Is he
lazy or slothful?” asked the old man. “Oh gosh no” said the woman! “He’s up at
6:00 every morning and doesn’t get home until after 6:00 every night except
Sundays.” “Is he stingy with his money, making you do without the things you
need?” The woman replied, “No, he usually gives me almost all the money he
makes every week to pay the bills. He does keep some every once in a while that
he uses to buy flowers or a gift for me” she added. “Well then, has been
unfaithful to you; committed adultery?” Asked the pastor. “No!” Said the woman
in an almost angry tone. Adding, “He hardly even looks at other women.” The
pastor was quite puzzled by now but he had one last question. “Is your husband
harsh or abusive with the children?” “No, no” said the woman. “He absolutely
cherishes the children. He would never do anything to hurt the children.” The
old pastor was quiet for a long time. Finally, the woman grew uncomfortable
with the silence and asked him what he thought she should do. He looked at her
lovingly and said, “I think you should go home and beg your husband’s
forgiveness for your hard heart and then thank God everyday for the gift of a
wonderful husband.”
The
story has been around a long time and it makes me smile. At this point I’m not
sure if anyone knows if the story is real or not but it isn’t really that hard
to imagine is it? In a society where at least 50% of first time marriages fail
and nearly 80% of second time marriages fail, most of us know someone whose
only complaint about their marriage is that they’re either bored or just don’t
feel like they love their spouse any longer. There’s no infidelity, abuse, or
neglect. In fact, it really just seems like the marriage has become an
inconvenient arrangement. Oh I see that I neglected to mention that the failure
statistics I stated above are the same for believers and unbelievers! Certainly,
there are marriages that involve, infidelity, abuse and neglect and I’ll
address those at the end but for the purposes of this lesson, I want to look at
the biblical model of love and submission between a husband and wife.
Subject
Text
Ephesians 5:22-33
22 Wives, submit to your husbands as
to the Lord. 23 For
the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his
body, of which he is the Savior. 24
Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to
their husbands in everything. 25 Husbands,
love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing
her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without
stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands
ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves
himself. 29 After
all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as
Christ does the church 30 for
we are members of his body. 31 “For
this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,
and the two will become one flesh.” 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ
and the church. 33 However,
each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must
respect her husband.
Context
Let’s
look at the context of our subject text to get a better understanding of Paul’s
purpose behind this text. We don’t have to look far to find Paul’s overarching
theme for his letter to the church in Ephesus—unity. In Chapter 4, Paul
encourages his readers to “Be humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one
another in love” (Eph. 4:2). He goes on to say that they should, “Make every
effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3).
Paul points out that it is by God’s plan that some in the Church are apostles,
some are prophets, some are evangelists, some are pastors and still others are
teachers (Eph. 4:11). However, the end result for them all is to prepare the
Church for service and to facilitate the unity of the Body of Christ that is
the Church. Thereafter, Paul reminds his readers where they had come from and
where they are now through their belief in Christ—once sinful and now made new,
created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness (Eph. 4:24). The end
of chapter 4 hints back to the overall theme of unity when Paul instructs his
readers not to let anything unwholesome come out of their mouths but only what
is helpful in building others up according to what they need. Paul tells them
to get rid of all their bitterness, anger, rage, brawling and slander along
with any other malice that resides within and among them. Finally, Paul says to
replace these things with kindness, compassion and forgiveness (Eph. 4:29-32)
which will no doubt produce the unity Paul is hoping for. At the beginning of
chapter 5, Paul provides his readers with a brief outline of how they should
live as children of light. They are to reject sinful living such as sexual
immorality, greed, idolatry or any kind of impurity. Paul again comes around to
his theme of unity when he says that they are to submit to one another out of
reverence for Christ (Eph. 5:21). But Paul doesn’t leave us guessing about what
that looks like in the reality of our lives. Instead, in the remainder of
chapter 5, including our subject text, and the beginning of chapter 6, Paul
instructs the Ephesians, and by extension us, how we are to live lives of unity
as husbands and wifes, children and parents and employees and employers. Of
course Paul is not saying that these principals apply only to these
relationships but are illustrative of the way we should approach all our
relationships. But, for the purpose of this week’s lesson, I want to look at
Paul’s instruction on the very special relationship that exists between husband
and wife. Let’s take a closer look at our subject text.
Text
Analysis
Paul
instructs wives to submit to their husbands in v. 22 in the same way as they
would to the Lord. I already know that this text makes some women crazy so let
me address it grammatically. The word that translates “submit” is in the
imperative mood but in the middle voice. Why is this important? Because some
believe it is in the passive voice. This is problematic because it conveys the
idea that a wife must submit as one does to a dictator. However, we can reject
this interpretation because Paul says that wives should submit to their
husbands the way they would submit to the Lord and nowhere in scripture do we
find where anyone is “forced” to submit to Christ. Instead, “the middle
definitely connotes that the subject [wife] volitionally exercises the action
of submission, an act of a free agent.”[1] Paul
goes on to explain that wives should submit to their husbands because husbands
carry the responsibility of being the head of the relationship. I can already
hear women howling, especially women here in America. Let me just say: relax!
There is nothing in the text to suggest in any way that there is a qualitative
distinction being made here between husband and wife. Remember Paul’s theme of
unity. The focus of this text is not authority it is unity. Scripture makes
clear that there is no qualitative difference between men and women. “Ephesians
5:23 does not focus on authority, but on self-giving love of both Christ and
the husband. ‘Head’ in this context suggests ‘responsibility for.’ The husband
has a leadership role, though not in order to boss his wife or use his position
as privilege. Just as Jesus redefined greatness as being a servant (Matt.
20:26-27), Paul redefines being head as having responsibility to love, to give
oneself, and to nurture. A priority is placed on the husband, but, contrary to
ancient society, it is for the benefit of
the wife.”[2] Paul
completes this section in v.24 with the analogy that a wife should submit to
her husband in all things just as the Church submits to Christ in all things.
It isn’t by accident that only three of the twelve verses of this section deal
with instructions for the wife. If the husband is going to be assigned to the position
of “head” in the marriage relationship then it stands to reason that the bulk
of Paul’s instruction focuses on the husband’s responsibilities.
V. 25a
says almost everything that needs to be said on the topic of the husband’s duty
to his wife. Husbands are to love their wives in the same what that Christ
loves the Church and gave himself up for the Church. There are no conditions on
this command! There were no conditions for Christ’s sacrifice for the Church.
Remember that Christ gave himself for the Church “while we were still sinners”
(Rom. 5:8)! I don’t want to get too far away from the text we just finished
about the instruction to wives before I say to husbands that this text stands
alone; whether or not your wife accepts her responsibilities as outlined in vv.
22-24, you still have a duty to be faithful to do your part as outlined in vv.
25-33—no exceptions! Having said that, the instructions in vv. 25b-27 are a
little difficult to understand so let’s break them down.
We
have to be careful with vv. 25b-27 that we don’t assume that a husband can do
for his wife precisely what Christ did for the Church from an eternal
perspective. A husband cannot save his wife, he cannot sanctify his wife, he
cannot make is wife holy or blameless, nor cause her to be without blemish,
stain or wrinkle. Instead, this language is better understood in the context of
ancient marriage ceremonial terms and Old Testament imagery of the relationship
between Israel and God. This would make sense since the text centers on the
relationship of husbands and wives and Paul specifically references marriage a
few verses later. “The prenuptial bath in Jewish marital customs reflected the
imagery of God’s marriage to Israel related in Ezek 16. At the time of her
birth, Israel was in a pitiable state, lying in blood, uncleansed by the
washing of water, and was abhorred by all (16:4-6). When she grew up God
entered into a covenant with her and bathed her with water, washed off the
blood, anointed her with oil, and clothed her with the finest materials, making
her exceedingly beautiful, fit to be a queen (16:8-14)…Analogous to this bridal
bath, the present verse relates that Christ’s death on behalf of the church was
to cleanse her by the ‘washing of the water.’”[3] It
is most important to see in these verses the depth to which a husband’s love
must reach. A husband’s love for his wife, “which is modeled on Christ’s love
for the church, means [he] will be willing to make even the ultimate sacrifice
of life itself.”[4]
Paul
continues to illustrate a husband’s love for his wife in vv. 28-30 when he
writes that a husband should love his wife no less than he loves himself and
cares for himself and his own body. Paul then writes something very interesting
and insightful when he writes that the man who loves his wife, loves himself. This
is an implicit image of husband and wife as one flesh that Paul makes explicit
in later verses. “Husband and wife, then, are regarded as one person, a single
entity. Accordingly, the husband’s obligation to love his wife as his own body
is not simply a matter of loving someone else just like he loves himself. It
is, in fact, to love himself.”[5] Again,
in the same way that Christ cares for the Church, his bride, a husband should
care for his bride. The admonition for the husband to feed and care for his
wife is purposely intended to be specific in terms of meeting a wife’s physical
needs represented by command to “feed” her and more generally any other action
that would benefit her holistically represented by the command to “care” for
her.
Paul
begins v. 31 with a phrase that we need to clarify when he says “for this
reason.” To what reason is Paul referring? Paul doesn’t forewarn us, but since
this text has previously been bathed in Old Testament teaching on the union
between a man and woman, he makes the jump all the way back to the original
conception of a relationship between a husband and wife. Paul quotes Genesis
2:24 and the very first husband and wife. At that time, Eve was literally a
part of Adam’s body—being created from his rib. And it is “for this reason”
that a man is united to his wife as though they were one because at one time,
they were, in fact, one. Also, it fits nicely with the previous verses when
Paul says that the Church is a member of Christ’s body, which body includes the
husband and wife. It is also “for this reason” that a husband and wife are
united as one because they exist as part of one body in Christ.
In v.
32 Paul tells us that this is a “mystery” and that he says he is talking about
the Church and Christ. But what is the “mystery” Paul is referring to? When
Paul uses the term “mystery” he’s not referring to something unknowable but instead
to something that would have been hidden if God had not chosen to reveal it. “The
mystery is not any particular marriage of marriage itself; it is the union of
Christ and the church which is reflected in a truly Christian marriage. Such a
mystery is indeed ‘profound’…A Christian marriage, as envisaged in this
paragraph, is to ‘reveal the mystery of Christ loving his responsive church.
Such a marriage bears living witness to the meaning of the ‘two becoming one’.”[6]
Paul
completes this section of verses in v.33 as a kind of summation of what he just
finished saying about husbands and wives by reiterating, in the case of the
husband, that he should love his wife in the same way that he loves himself.
However, in the case of the wife, Paul adds a slightly different twist to his
original instruction to the wife that she should submit to her husband. Here,
Paul says that the wife should “respect” her husband. Certainly “respect” falls
within the context of submission but why the seeming inconsistency when his
instruction to the husband is quite consistent with his previous exhortation to
husbands? Here Paul is using his statement to wives to close a parenthetical
that started in v. 21. There, Paul instructs his readers to submit to one
another out of “reverence” for Christ. In v. 33 Paul uses the same word in the
Greek which is translated “respect” in the NIV and “fear” in other
translations. But the sense that is really being conveyed is the idea that
wives should be in “awe” of their husbands for the position they hold. “The
idea of ‘to respect’ is too mild a term.”[7]
From the beginning of our subject text to the end we see Paul illustrate that husbands
should treat their wives like Christ treats the Church (i.e. love, care, feed,
instruct, sacrifice, etc.) and wives should treat their husbands the way the
Church treats Christ (i.e. submit, respect, revere, fear, awe, etc.). Therein
is a beautiful image of relationship that results in perfect unity which takes
us back to Paul’s overall theme.
Application
This
text has been used through the years to justify countless abuses and
ridiculously unbiblical behavior by both husbands and wives—behavior that
generates hatred and resentment not love and submission and certainly not unity!
No one can honestly say that Paul’s instruction to husbands and wives in our
subject text isn’t the pinnacle of unity in a marriage relationship. Think
about it: What would be the divorce rate in the Church if husbands and wives
obeyed this teaching? Of course sin is always part of every relationship but
even then, Paul reminds us that we should replace all our animosity toward one
another with kindness, compassion and forgiveness.
What kind of a witness would the Church be to the world if husbands and wives
practiced Paul’s instructions and virtually eliminated divorce in the Church? Something
to think about. In this particular text, Paul’s instructions are pretty
practical and easy to understand so rather tell you what I think you should do,
I want to tell you about some friends of mine whose marriage will illustrate
what I want to say.
Last
week, my friend, Dawna, posted the following as her Facebook status: “Today
I am thankful that my husband is a man of God who wisely leads our family,
provides for our needs and our wants, loves being involved in our lives,
listens to me when I ramble and loves me unconditionally.” Can I just say that
this is such a beautiful picture of exactly what Paul was trying to convey in
our subject text. Clearly Dawna has followed Paul’s instruction to submit to her
husband since she acknowledges his Godly leadership. And nothing shows greater
respect, reverence or awe than a wife’s public affirmation of her husband. Let
me just say that Dawna isn’t some quiet, frumpy housewife who believes that
Christian wives should be seen and not heard. I can testify to this personally
as I have been on the pointy end of her rapier wit on more than one occasion.
Instead, Dawna is a beautiful, smart, articulate woman who understands who she
is as a child of God, a mother of two young girls and the wife of her husband,
Chris. I first met Dawna and Chris a few years ago during a mission trip to
Mexico. They led a group from their church down to Mexico to build a home for a
poor Mexican family. My girls and I were on volunteer staff for the mission
agency building the homes and we were assigned to Chris and Dawna’s church group
for their first time building a home through the agency. We all became quick
friends and have been blessed to be able to work with them in subsequent years
to build more homes in Mexico. I can say that based on my observation during
some difficult times in Mexico, that Chris is precisely the way Dawna describes
him. Chris is a mountain of a man; a former professional football player who
could snap me like an old, dry twig. Yet he approached his leadership task in
Mexico with tremendous humility. I watched as Chris always deferred to others
with more experience yet was always in complete control of the entire group on
a macro level. Through all the stresses of managing a group in a foreign
country, very hard work, uncomfortable weather conditions, not much sleep and
group members that weren’t always cooperative, Chris always treated everyone and
especially Dawna with the greatest respect and tenderness. I never saw him
order her around, speak harshly to her or take her hard work as a partner in
the overall venture for granted. You learn things about people during
missionary ventures that you wouldn’t learn in everyday life. You learn who
people really are. If you were to meet Chris, you’d first be intimidated by his
size and personality—both big! But I’ve seen a part that I’ll bet many probably
don’t get the chance to see. I’ve seen a big man, powerful enough to overcome any
obstacle, nevertheless be overcome by emotion and unable to hold back tears
when it came time to present the keys of a newly built house completed by his
group to a poor family living, to that point, in a cardboard shack. Again, this
is a beautiful picture of Paul’s instructions for husbands. It is clear that
Chris loves his wife dearly and would do anything for her. Together, Chris and
Dawna are a great illustration of what is possible in a Christian marriage. But
there’s something more important that Chris and Dawna provide through their
marriage—a witness! Remember what I said earlier? Their Christian marriage
bears witness to the “profound mystery” of the unity of Christ and his Church.
It is a powerful image. It is The Power of
Love and Submission. I’m sure that Chris and Dawna are only interested in
being faithful to Christ and don’t want or expect recognition for that. But
most of you know someone just like them in your churches. Please take some time
to thank them for their faithfulness to one another and to Christ (maybe even
buy them a cup of coffee). For you pastors out there, please lift these people
up as examples in your church so others can seek them out and begin to follow
their example. Finally, I want to address a couple of other issues related to
this week’s lesson.
Although this
lesson focuses specifically on marriage relationships, it contains universal
principals that can be applied to all relationships. Specifically, when relationships
are based in love, sacrifice and service, they don’t find space for division
and strife and the result is always unity. This is true in all relationships.
It is important to
remember that even though the commands for wives and husbands respectively are
unconditional, no scripture anywhere gives license for abuse. Although husbands
are often the victims of abuse from their wives, it is usually wives who most
often suffer in the cases of spousal abuse. Therefore, without neglecting the
pain suffered by some husbands, I want to speak directly to wives who live in fear
of being abused. Please protect yourself. Our subject text’s instruction for
wives to submit to their husbands is not given in the context of an abusive
relationship even if the relationship in view is not always ideal. Unconditional
obedience is not analogous to uninformed obedience. Protect yourself by
removing yourself from a truly abusive environment if possible. I’m not talking
about divorce, I’m simply talking about creating distance for the sake of
safety. I do not advocate divorce even as I recognize, as did Jesus, that it is
a reality in the lives of many people. Having said that, I caution you to not
deceive yourselves with the world’s definition of “abuse.” In our “everybody’s-a-victim”
society, we can make a case for abuse for virtually anything that offends us. Wives
and husbands should not use the claim of abuse as a convenient excuse to avoid
being obedient to the command for wives to submit to their husbands and for
husbands to love their wives all in accordance with our subject text.
Also, nothing in
our subject text takes into consideration the consequences of infidelity in a
marriage relationship. This topic is an entire lesson unto itself so I don’t
want to oversimplify it. However, Jesus spoke about this specifically and
stated that infidelity was the one exception permitting divorce (Matt. 5:32). However,
divorce is not mandated only permitted. Consider Jesus’ overall mission to the
world—forgiveness and reconciliation. Although not always possible, this should,
perhaps, be the goal of all marriages that have experienced the intense pain of
infidelity. In any event, divorce is an extremely serious matter particular in
the case of a Christian marriage. Please seek God’s direction, sound pastoral counsel
and marriage counseling before seeking a divorce. Christian marriage is a
profoundly sacred unity and its dissolution is not something to be taken
lightly.
[1] Donald
A. Hagner, Ephesians, An Exegetical
Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002), p. 731.
[2] Klyne
Snodgrass, Ephesians, The NIV Application
Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996), p. 295.
[3] Hagner, Ephesians, p. 754.
[4] Peter T.
O’Brien, The Letter to the Ephesians, (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Company, 1999), p. 420.
[5] Ibid.,
p. 427.
[6] O’Brien,
Ephesians, p. 434.
[7] Hagner, Ephesians, p. 783.
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