Ephesians 5:25-33

 A Focus on the Family

Guys, if you want your wife to follow Ephesians 5:22-24, you better be following Ephesians 5:25-33. If you aren’t, then you don’t deserve the submission described in these verses. The words given to husbands in this passage were radical, controversial, and extremely progressive for the first century. Each region was different but, on the whole, women did not have many rights in the first century. In most marriages, a wife was seen more like property than a partner. It was common for a man to have a mistress. So, for Ephesians to tell husbands to love their wives as they love themselves is revolutionary. 

The analogy given makes this principle even more profound. Love your wives like Christ loved the church. Christ loved the church so much that he died for the church even when the church didn’t deserve that type of love. Christ loved the church unconditionally. Husbands, without condition, you are to love your wife. 

Verse 33 concludes how husbands and wives are to treat one another. Love your wives and respect your husbands. If you will mutually submit to one another as verse 21 says, you will fulfill verse 33. Show love and respect. This is the key to having godly marriages.

Ephesians 5:22-24

 A Focus on the Family

There is no verb in Ephesians 5:22 in the original Greek. Verse 22 is literally “wives to your husbands, as to the Lord.” When reading Greek, what one does in this case is borrow the verb from the previous sentence. This is how we get “wives, subject yourselves to your husbands, as to the Lord.”

In these words to wives about submission, the verb comes from a sentence which calls for mutual submission to one another. Why is this significant? Because the message for submission is not just to wives. When you carry over the verb from verse 21, the assumption is that each member of the family will submit to one another in the fear of Christ. With Christ as the head, everyone submits to Him, and our human relationships fall naturally into place.

The analogy in verse 24 helps us to understand this as well. The church is to Christ as the wife is to her husband. We will get to the second person in this analogy tomorrow as the husband has the gargantuan undertaking of being like Christ in the marriage relationship. But for today, what can wives (and husbands) learn about her being like the church? The church follows the leadership of Christ because of the sacrifice that Christ made for her. A wife should not have an issue following the leadership of her husband if her husband is serving in the humble, meek attitude that Christ shows. When a husband acts like that, the wife can look to her husband for protection, love, and commitment. She submits herself to her husband because she knows that her husband has her best interest in mind. Tomorrow, we will review the husband’s role in his wife's submission to him. May we all have marriages that glorify God.

Ephesians 5:15-21

 A Focus on the Family

This weekend we will be hosting a Marriage Conference. In addition, Chad Schapiro, who is leading the Marriage Conference with his wife Erica, will preach for us on Sunday morning. As many of our couples focus on their marriage this weekend, we will spend our devotions focusing on the family this week. 

Over the course of this week, we will read part of the well-known household code that is found in Ephesians 5:21-6:9. We begin today with the verses right before the household code to get a sense of the context in which these words to the family are written. Ephesians 5:15-21 completes a section of Ephesians which describes how to “be imitators of God and walk in love” (5:1). Much of the second half of Ephesians is telling Christians how to live out their faith in their relationships. We are taught how to “not be foolish, but understand the will of the Lord” (5:17). 

My point is that the household code of how to treat your spouse and children is not just a list of dos and don’ts. It is an outgrowth of your relationship with Christ. How we treat our family shows the world to whom we belong. The way we live as a family tells the world about the God we serve. Verse 21 sums this up, and it is where we will begin again tomorrow: “subject yourselves to one another in the fear of Christ.” May it be so.