Welcome to Timeless Truth with Pastor Jim Thomas. In season 1, Pastor Jim is leading us in a study of Ephesians. Today’s passage is Ephesians 5:21-33.
What exactly did Paul mean that wives are to submit to their husbands as to the Lord?
- As we come to these verses, it’s always good to remember that Paul wrote within a very real, space and time cultural context. To get to the timeless truths of these instructions we do well to seek the help of the Holy Spirit as we look for godly guidance rather than simplistic rules to follow.
- Paul’s instructions regarding familial relationships and the house codes we find here in Ephesians 5:21-33 are that all believers are to be in submission to one another and to Christ v21
- Whenever Christ is preeminent in our thinking, it will make us better family members, whether we are husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters.
- This passage is not a command for all women to submit to all men. It is a call for Spirit filled Christian wives to submit to their husbands and for Spirit filled Christian husbands to lay down their lives in loving service to their wives, just as Christ loves the church.
In the biblical view submission is not the same as inferiority. All we need to do is look at Jesus. Jesus submitted Himself to the will of the Father. Jesus laid down His life for those He loved. Here, every Spirit filled husband is called upon to be just like Jesus and lay down their lives for their wife.
– N. T. Wright, Paul’s Letters for Everyone
“’Authority’ in biblical usage is not a synonym for ‘tyranny’. All those who occupy positions of authority in society are responsible both to the God who has entrusted it to them and to the person or persons for whose benefit they have been given it. In a word, the biblical concept of authority spells not tyranny but responsibility.”
– John Stott, God’s New Society: The Message of Ephesians
“In sharp contrast with our culture, the Bible teaches that the essence of marriage is a sacrificial commitment to the good of the other. That means that love is more fundamentally action than emotion. But in talking this way, there is a danger of falling into the opposite error that characterized many ancient and traditional societies. It is possible to see marriage as merely a social transaction, a way of doing your duty to family, tribe and society. Traditional societies made the family the ultimate value in life, and so marriage was a mere transaction that helped your family’s interest. By contrast, contemporary Western societies make the individual’s happiness the ultimate value, and so marriage becomes primarily an experience of romantic fulfillment. But the Bible sees GOD as the supreme good – not the individual or the family – and that gives us a view of marriage that intimately unites feelings AND duty, passion AND promise. That is because at the heart of the Biblical idea of marriage is the covenant.”
– Timothy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage: Finding Happiness in Your Most Profound Relationship
