Ephesians 5:21-33 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 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. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Normally, people in our egalitarian society find today's passage troubling, believing life consists of interchangeable roles, hampered only by physical differences such as strength, size or dexterity. Consequently, the focus of this passage is often skewed from the primary focus of submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. These verses are focused on the profound mystery of the unity of Christ and the church. People get lost in Paul’s statement of wives should submit to their husbands in everything. These words are accentuated above the idea that all Christians should be submissive to others in the family of God. Jesus clearly reveals the submissiveness in the Godhead and with the church. “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. (John 17:20-23) We often see Jesus express his desire to be subject to his Father's will at all times. At Gethsemane, before his arrest, Jesus submits to his Father’s will of the cross. By Jesus going to the cross, human beings will be connected to God forever in the holy blanket of Jesus’ blood, shed for them. Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. (John 12:23-24) In the focus verses, we see unity with God being equated with the family structure on earth. The man is called to love his wife as Christ loves the church, and the woman in oneness with her husband is to submit to his leadership in the family. These different levels of love or submissiveness do not mean that some in the family take lesser roles, just as Jesus does not take a lesser role in the family of God. As the family functions on earth with different roles for the genders, we find all roles within the family as vital for unity as it is with the Godhead: no role is less or more important than another in a relationship of oneness. We know full-well that women are on the same spiritual plane as men. In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. (Act 2:17-18 Paul knows women are not inferior, neither do they hold a lesser position before God. The Spirit of God was poured out on women and men equally and perhaps more importantly on daughters and sons equally. Without real authority on earth, in God’s economy they receive a full portion of the Holy Spirit. In God’s gifting of the Holy Spirit, all ages and classes receive the power of God. They are all equal in God’s domain, all called children of the living God in heaven. As we can see, all of these people have different roles on earth, but they all are equally honored by God. This equality before God is hard for us to appreciate because people function in the perspective of young and old, weak and strong, unlearned and learned, and the like. We note the status of people around us, but Jesus said our perspective should be based on belief and faith. The Spirit of God comes to all who have placed their trust in Jesus Christ regardless of earthly roles and positions. In the family as with God, submission is paramount in unity. The husband is to be submissive to his wife’s needs, the wife to the role of her husband, and the children obedient to the parents’ directions. Within the human family all are honored, precious, and obedient to oneness, functioning sometimes in their individual roles, but also serving within shared roles, culminating in harmony.
In Jesus’ teaching to the Sadducees, he points to the fact that earthly relationships will not be carried on in heaven. They wanted to damage his teaching on God and the resurrection. That same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. “Teacher,” they said, “Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for him. Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother. The same thing happened to the second and third brother, right on down to the seventh. Finally, the woman died. Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were married to her?” (Matthew 22: 23-28) Rather than emphasize their point of marriage, Jesus goes to the heart of the issue: they will be like the angels in heaven. (30) Jesus' conclusion of this scenario, God’s perspective of humans is that in the divine world they will be as angels, equal in honor and position. On earth people emphasize roles and positions, but in heaven we are God’s children, holy as the angels. This question was given to Jesus because of Moses allocating land to the Israelites. This land was to be theirs and their ancestors forever. If the eldest son dies without heirs, the land will go to someone else. So the brothers are to birth children through his wife so the land will be considered the elder brothers’ descendants’ land, even though he died without children. Jesus did not concern himself with Moses’ stipulation of how to keep land in the possession of a family or person. Jesus concentrated on the eternal nature of humans and the real purpose of life, not on the temporary regulations and roles of a people. Moses’ gave the people ways to live in harmony with each other, but Jesus focused on eternal life with God the Father. Of course society needs rules and regulations. Without direction, people will function only in their self-willed, fleshly interests, bringing chaos to any situation. The book of Judges mentions there was no God in the land, meaning that everyone was doing what was right in her or his eyes with little structure, direction or leadership. This lack of God’s authority caused the Israelites to be easily conquered by other people. Consequently, they often were subjected to the rule of others. To counter this condition of foreign rule, God intervened by lifting up individuals to drive out these Gentiles. Chaos, lack of cohesiveness, is lethal to any people and especially to the Christian walk. Paul addresses this need in Christians by saying, be submissive to one another, care for others as you want to be cared for, love others as you want to be loved. This kind of life demands a dying to self. A willingness to be obedient to Christ by giving deference to others is a way for a church to grow stronger and for a family to survive happily together. The Christian family has great respect for all members in the household of God. Cults and many religions besmirch women in their groups; even the boys are given special privileges over the girls. In some ethnic societies girl babies are considered not as important as boy babies. In some religions, girls are killed because of supposedly dishonoring the family, especially the man in the family. Horrendous and fllhy things happen to girls all around the world. But in Christianity, we have the blessed Holy Spirit infilling the daughters, giving them equality with all other members in the human family. A warning is given to people that they should never blaspheme the Holy Spirit, for whom He honors is honored indeed. What role do we see for woman in the Bible? Mary and Elizabeth were honored by giving birth to boys who would change the world. Miriam and Deborah were prophets who spoke the words of God. Deborah in Judges ruled over men. We find Jesus and Paul supported heavily by women. After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means. (Luke 8:1-3) Jesus’ mission to deliver the Jewish people out of bondage to the devil was possible because of women. Paul ministry in Philippi was made possible by Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth, a business woman. She kept Paul and Silas in her house as they were ministering the Good News to the Philippians. Paul's ministry affected many women to follow Christ. In Athen’s after Paul was hooted down by the learned men of the city because he mentioned the resurrection, a woman named Damaris was one of his converts from that session, along with others, men and women, who heard Paul’s words about Jesus and his redeeming power.
In the family of that age, men were powerful. A man in the Old Testament could write a bill of divorce and send his wife away, based usually on indecency on the wife’s part. Paul tells the wife in the Christian context to be submissive to a husband who is leading a family as Christ would lead a family. We have two equal parts in this relationship. The formula is: husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church; secondly, wives be submissive as Christians are to Christ. These are equal, and both sides should be held up in obedience to the Holy Spirit within them. In the synagogue for many years prior to this teaching, women were not allowed to speak, a secondary role in the worshipping of God. If women are equal before God’s eyes, why should they take a secondary role? The congregation within these Greek communities had a combination of Jews and Greeks within them. The Jews had a very standard understanding of women’s role within the synagogue. For centuries the Jews served God by the laws and regulations of Moses. These rules and regulations included many things such as not eating meat of strangled animals or consuming blood, and never have anything to do with idols or immoral acts. These were important aspects of serving a holy God. Paul went to the elders in Jerusalem to verify how far the Gentiles should go concerning Jewish customs and traditions. The elders in Jerusalem set aside most of the customs and traditions, but for the Jews in the congregation who were bound by the Jewish way of living, they gave four recommendations for the Greek churches to follow: not consume blood, not eat food given to idols, not be sexually promiscuous, and not to eat meat of strangled animals. If Paul could keep them from doing those things, he has done well by them. One tradition that remained was that women should hold their tongues until they got home and then talk to their husbands about what was said in the synagogue. As with the traditions and regulations that Paul would pass on to the mixed congregation, it was important for women to follow the Jewish tradition within the synagogue. A quick transition away from the traditional ways might have been more than the Jewish believers in these Greek communities could accept. We see in these nascent churches a slow movement away from following the old customs in the Jewish society. Instead of these societal norms of the Jewish way of living, Paul introduces submission to each other as the way to follow God. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Real deference to others reveals a willingness to die to self and to display a full harvest of the fruit of the Spirit: the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. (Galatians 5:23-26). We are not to be conceited or envy each other dependent on our roles in life. We can easily see that Paul was looking for a smooth transition in the churches, giving instructions that would lead to peace at home and in the church. We too in our modern day should find ways to work well with others as we live committed completely to Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.
Sorry about missing breakfast last week due to illness.
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