Ephesians 5 (Part 3) :22-33 - The Role of the Wife

Welcome to Through the Bible with Pastor Paul from Life Bible Ministry. Journey from Genesis to Revelation as Pastor Paul guides you through every verse, leading you to a deeper understanding of the scriptures that will strengthen your faith and transform your life. Now, let's get started with today's teaching as we open God's Word together.

We are in Ephesians chapter 5, so open your Bibles there please. Ephesians chapter 5. I told you last week that we're going to meddle today, and we are. We're going to be talking about marriage for the next couple of weeks, actually, and talking about the roles of husband and wife. So you can start squirming. I'm going to actually start here in verse 22, and I'm going to read through the end of the chapter. And then this is going to be kind of part one of this section. It says, Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, His body, and is Himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit

in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives. As Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects Her husband. Stop there. Let's pray. Thank You, Father God, for giving us time to gather this morning in Your name. And it is in Your name that we come with a desire to learn and to grow in understanding.

And we pray for Your Holy Spirit to open each and every heart. We pray, Lord God, that You would fill us with insight and understanding from the Scripture. And Lord, we pray that You would also heal some of our misconceptions. We pray that You would help give us the tools that we need to understand Your Word and to walk it out. We thank You, Father, in the name of Jesus.

Amen. One thing we have to remember as we go into these verses is that the Apostle Paul has been exhorting us to walk out the reality of who we are in Jesus. You heard me talk about this last week. The first three chapters of Ephesians are all about who we are in the Lord. It's talking about our blessings in Christ. And then the last three chapters of the book are all about how to walk it out and the encouragement to walk it out. And of course, that is certainly the case when it comes to living together as husbands and wives. We are to walk out the same reality of who we are in Jesus. And the apostle begins here by addressing wives. And that's going to be the focus of our time here this morning. I

want you to know ahead of time that it was my total intention to do husbands and wives together today. But as I began to look at this thing, it was just so much to say to the women. I'm going to get in trouble for that. Anyway, so we're going to do the women today, and we're going to do the husbands next week. But the apostle begins here by saying in verse 22, wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. And then he explains why in verse 23. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, His body, and is Himself.

its Savior. And here, in these first two verses, we are introduced to the idea of headship. And I'll tell you that headship is not just a biblical term at all. It is also used in secular circles. And the definition of headship is just what you'd expect. Let me put it up on the screen for you. It is a noun. It means the position of a leader.

All right? And we learn in these verses about this headship as it relates to marriage, that God ordained the husband to be the head in the relationship. Don't ask me why. And I'm serious about that. I have no clue. I mean, well, you know, I can give you biblical clues, I suppose. But the fact of the matter is... I find personally that women are probably a little more qualified in a lot of respects to lead. I grew up in a home with a very strong maternal leadership example.

My mother was a very strong leader. The woman that I married is not the kind of woman who just sits around going, yes dear. She's a strong leader in her own right and I'm not bothered by that. I appreciate it very much. And I see often in these women great leadership qualities that eclipse my own. But the fact of the matter is the husband has been ordained by God to be the head in the home. And Paul says once again in verse 23, the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church. We talk about how all this applies to marriage, and we will talk about it. Let me address the elephant in the room. That is the fact that we don't like to submit. We don't like even to hear the word submit.

If you want to get people going, just bring it up in mixed company. Start talking about submission in marriage and things like that, and you're guaranteed to start causing fireworks. Everybody knows that we don't like to submit. We don't like to submit really in any particular way, but marriage is certainly one of them. I don't know how many of you subscribe to the Babylon Bee. Some of you probably never heard of it.

It's an online Christian satire thing, and a lot of the stuff that they share is probably a little over the top. About a week ago, and they do these in the form of news stories, like you'd see if you get online to read the news. There was one that was clever and I have it here for you. It says, Christian feminist having trouble clicking the submit button on website. Yeah, that's what I thought. any kind of submission is distasteful to us. It's funny, whenever the government changes the speed limit or whatever it is, it's never of course fast enough and they tell us that we have to go 70 miles an hour on the freeway and immediately we bristle and we go faster anyway. I'm a motorcyclist and have

been pretty much all my life and I've noticed that different states have different laws regarding like. requiring helmets and in those states where a helmet is required, you see that people driving through those, they'll go out and buy the smallest possible helmet that they can find to just get in under the law that they can get away with.

The reason for things like that, our responses is that we don't like to submit and we can argue all day long about whether a law is good or bad or useful or stupid, but in the end, We just don't want people telling us how to live. We don't like people telling us what to do. Many times we'll just come out and say it. You even hear kids saying things like that. You're not the boss of me or something like that. Then we get a little bit older and it's like who died and left you in charge or something like that.

We just don't like it. I don't want people telling me what to do. Yet the fact of the matter is in every well -ordered society, we find these issues or these what are referred to as pillars, supporting pillars of ordered society and they are authority and submission. We don't like it, but we know that it's there and we understand that it probably even has to be there, you know, for us not to devolve into chaos. So, As long as these things have existed, we have resisted them. In fact, the rejection or resistance of authority is one of the hallmarks of what the Bible refers to as godless and sinful people.

Let me show you a passage from Jude. This is an interesting passage on the screen. Jude writes with this warning. He says, certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. And then he says they're godless. And they change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and they deny Jesus Christ our only sovereign and Lord.

Look what he goes on to say. These dreamers pollute their own bodies, reject authority, and slander celestial beings. So there's the warning. One of the characteristics of these godless men is that they reject authority. And yet on the flip side, we know that God has established His kingdom with this very idea. Check out 1 Corinthians.

Look at this. Chapter 11. But I want you to understand, Paul writes, that the head of every man is Christ. The head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ. God and that's an interesting passage I want you to take note of that because it says that within the context of God's kingdom even Jesus has chosen to submit He does not submit because of his inferiority He has chosen to submit within the context of God's order and his kingdom but Paul's talking about marriage here in Ephesians chapter five and how this idea of authority and submission comes into play. We know from experience that it doesn't come into play very easily. In fact, it's a very, very challenging one. It creates a challenge every single day for married couples.

As someone who's been married for 40 years, it has been a challenge, I can tell you. I know that I'm not alone. here regarding that. We all know how the world deals with the idea of authority and submission in marriage. They just ignore it. Well, first they ridicule it and then they ignore it. But then just a quick look at the divorce rate tells us how smart that is. So something's not right here, something's got to change. Maybe what we need to do is we need to stop for a minute and take a good look. and what the Bible is saying here, and challenge and question some of our preconceived ideas and notions, and see if maybe we've been missing something. And we need to start by realizing one very important thing,

and that is that marriage is God's idea, not man's. Mankind did not just at some point decide that marriage would be kind of fun. Why don't we just do this sort of a thing where, you know, And we'll call it marriage. No, this was God's institution. And as the creator of marriage, he might just know best how it works. You think?

Yeah. But we have questions. There's always a lot of questions. And one of the first questions that comes up when we read passages like this where it says, wives, submit to your own husbands. And I'm going to put these questions on the screen here. First of all, what does it mean to submit? What exactly does that mean, all right? Well, and that's a great question to ask because I find that when most people read Ephesians 522, they interpret it within the context of their own assumptions and definitions. And it's usually quite negative. And so they'll read this verse, And they're just immediately go, well, that's old, weird, outdated garbage. And there's nothing that's relevant to your life and my life today.

Well, that's an assumption based on what we think it means to submit. Well, I got to looking around and I found what I believe is a beautiful definition of biblical. Submission, and I want to share it with you on the screen. Check this out. Biblical submission in marriage is the disposition to follow a husband's authority and a loving response to yield to his leadership. It is an attitude that says, I delight for you to take the initiative in our family. I am glad when you take responsibility for things and lead with love. I don't flourish when you're passive and when I have to make sure the family works." Isn't that a great definition?

So it's a loving response by a woman to respond to her husband to say, I like it when you lead. I like it when you take responsibility. I like it when you're out in front and you're taking serious the needs of the family. Now the second question that arises about biblical submission is the next one we'll put on the screen, which is why should a wife submit to her husband? And the reason for that is given in verse 23. We've already read it a few times here, but again verse 23 says, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church. And what Paul is saying in this verse is that the husband has received his role of leadership from the Lord. And that means he didn't take it upon

himself. It was given to him. He was ordained to that role. Most of the men that I talk to would rather not be in that role. They many times find it intimidating and difficult. And it can be those things. But the fact of the matter is they are there because God put them there, not because they asked to be there, or even wanted to be there. The Lord made the man that position of head in the family. And that presents a wife with what I believe is the most important reason to submit to her husband, and that is because she understands it is God's plan for marriage.

and she trusts God's plan even more than she trusts her own reason or understanding related to that sort of a thing. And here's how Paul put it in verse 24. Look with me again in your Bible. Now as the church submits to Christ, in other words, as we the body of Christ submit to our head, which is Jesus, so also, wives should submit in everything to their husbands. And that brings up the third question that we want to put up on the screen, which is, what does biblical submission look like? And I think the best and most descriptive word is the one that's found at the very end of this chapter. Look with me in verse 33. Skip all the way down in your Bible to the last verse of the chapter which says,

however, Let each one of you love his wife as himself, and look at this, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. I think the word respect sums up the answer to that question of what does submission look like? I remember a number of years ago when I was meeting with a couple doing some marriage counseling, and we were going over these passages, and I was talking to her about her role by God to submit. And we started talking about what that means. We talked about the respect that goes along with that.

And she spoke up very, very quickly and just said, well, then we have a problem here. And I said, why? She said, because I don't respect him. And I understand that. But she misunderstood. She misunderstood the fundamental aspect of what God's Word was saying to her. confused the idea of showing respect with feeling respect toward an individual. And because she didn't feel that her husband was worthy of respect, she didn't show him any respect and felt that there was no need to respect him. But God isn't telling the wife here to judge whether her husband is respectable. What the Lord is telling a woman to do in this case is to show respect to her husband by virtue of his God -given role. In other words, God is challenging a woman to respect

himself, God, by showing that respect to the man that he has chosen to lead that family. And I believe that respect is the one need that a man has within the context of marriage that is his greatest. Doesn't mean that he doesn't need other things. He needs love, he needs understanding, he needs all the other things that human beings need. But in a marriage, in the context of marriage, I believe that there is nothing greater that a wife can do for her husband than to show him Respect. Now, before we go any further, I want to take a moment to talk about what submission does not mean. So we're going to put that up as a heading here, and I'm going to give you five pretty rapid fire points here, bullet points

of what submission does not mean. First of all, number one, submission does not mean agreeing with your husband about everything. It doesn't mean that you're forced into a position of agreeing. Every married couple knows that men and women think very differently about things, and there are many times that we clearly disagree. However, biblical submission on the part of the wife means that in your disagreement, you don't resort to disrespectful and demeaning language or attitudes.

You see? A woman is free to disagree, but she needs to do it respectfully. Rather than to respond to him in a belittling or demeaning sort of a way, her response needs to be respectful. Number two, submission does not mean leaving your brain or your will at the wedding altar. Submission is not promising at the altar that you're never going to think for yourself again. However, it is about learning to voice your thoughts and ideas with respect in a way that honors your husband's role of leadership. Thirdly, submission does not mean avoiding every effort to influence your husband. I want to be careful about how I say this. I've noticed over the years doing marriage counseling that often what happens,

two people fall in love and they decide to get married. Then after the honeymoon is over, they spend the rest of their married lives trying to change one another. What I mean by that is the man does his level best to try to get his wife to think like him. The woman is constantly attempting to get her husband to think like a woman. It is an exercise in futility. It's never going to happen. Try as you may, it's not going to happen. In fact, the diversity of who we are and how we think is one of the things that can make marriage delightful. Now, having said that, there may be times when a woman sees a situation going on in her marriage and she understands that there is a need to influence her husband

as far as how he's thinking about the situation or whatever. Women are very good at seeing problems. They're very adept, they're noticers. Men don't notice things nearly as much, but women notice things. When they see a situation that is problematic and they There's obviously different ways they can approach their husband about it. When a wife responds to her husband with disrespectful words and attitudes, what happens in your marriage?

It just makes things worse, doesn't it? It doesn't make it better. Instead, when a woman understands that maybe the family's headed in the wrong direction and she needs to influence her husband, she needs to speak to him with words of grace, words of respect. and also speak by her actions. And we'll talk more about that in a little bit. Fourthly, submission does not mean putting the will of your husband before the Word of God. This is a very important thing to understand. When a husband is clearly on a path of unbelief or disobedience, a woman is under no obligation to put his will above The clear instruction of God's Word a Woman is first and foremost a follower of Jesus Christ All right, very important that women understand

that and then number five Submission does not mean that a wife is to respond out of fear It's important ladies that you know that the role of head is not the same as dictator And any husband who bullies or dominates his wife through fear or intimidation is guilty of the worst kind of abuse and knows nothing of what it means to be a godly husband. Once again, once again, biblical submission on the part of the wife is a response, a willing response of love. And by the way, may I also say men, maybe take a moment just to say, I believe it is completely inappropriate for a husband to say to his wife, you are to submit.

Because it is to be a volitional act on her part. It is a response of love, meaning her love for him and the recognition of his love for her. And so men, please understand something. There's two sides to this coin. If your wife isn't submitting the way you think she should, maybe you need to look in the mirror and find out if your leadership is a loving, gracious, and kind headship and leadership in the home that makes it easy for her to submit. A man ought to make it easy for his wife to submit and to respond with respect to him. Final question that I want to put up on the screen here. What should a woman do if her husband is neglecting or rejecting his role as head? I know that some of the ladies, even

some women in this fellowship are married to unbelievers. It presents a very, very difficult situation. First question I get is, is he still the head in our home if he's not a believer? The answer is absolutely. He is still the head. and how to respond to a husband who is either an unbeliever or who is stumbling over some aspect of God's Word is a very, very challenging question, but it is one that the Apostle Peter addressed in his first letter. Let me put this on the screen for you. It says, likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands so that if some do not obey the Word, and again, that could apply to an unbeliever, or a believer who's simply being disobedient.

He says, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives when they see your respectful and pure conduct. In other words, when they see you respecting them and the purity of your conduct toward the Lord. This means, women, that as you walk in obedience to Jesus, Your conduct your actions your life is to speak to your husband who is in a position of disobedience It is not appropriate For a woman to instruct her husband about areas of disobedience in his life, and I'm telling you it'll never go well He is in a position of headship even if he's an unbeliever if he's walking in disobedience. It's between him and the Lord Ladies, you live for Jesus.

You walk with Jesus with all of your heart and let him see through your respect of him and your purity before the Lord the things that he needs to see. You know, I share with couples who are getting married when we go through pre -marriage counseling that women often don't understand how significantly they can affect their husbands simply by their actions. You know, and I share just a kind of an example of what I mean by that, by saying, if we ever get up in the morning, Sue and I, and she sees that I'm not opening my Bible like I should in the morning, maybe I'm not spending my devotional time like I should, I just get up right away and turn on my computer or something like that, or get busy doing something

else, she could say something to me, I suppose, but that's probably not going to go over very well. The best thing for her to do is to snuggle up in her favorite chair and open her Bible and Let me walk by and see that that speaks volumes to see my wife's Devotion to see her love for the Lord and then it's the Holy Spirit that brings conviction into my life, and I'm thinking to myself That's what I need to be doing All this other stuff can wait. I'm gonna go grab my Bible and sit down now. I might not You know, your husband might not respond that way. I might not even respond that way right away. The point is, it's just too easy to give into the temptation to say, don't you think you should be reading

your Bible this morning? Boy, that Bible, I think I can write my name on the cover in the dust or something that's kind of snarky. And we think we're doing him a favor. Well, you're not. And again, it's not going to go over well. because a woman at that point puts herself in the position of instruction and Paul says in the scripture I do not allow a woman to teach a man why it is a reversal of his position as head and It puts the man in a position of submission and ladies. You don't want him there You don't want your husband in a position of submission in your family You don't want him to be submitted to you. He needs to be submitted, certainly. There are people he must submit to, but it's not you,

because your marriage relationship is going to become inverted, and your husband is going to be more like your little boy, and you don't want to be married to your son. Believe me. You want to be married to a man who's going to be a leader, a godly, strong leader. It's very important that women understand. how important their actions can be in conveying things to their husband.

I want to end here with one of the, I think, one of the most powerful passages in the Bible on submission that you're gonna find in the scripture. Let me show you this. It's from Philippians, chapter two. And this is another passage I use in pre -marriage counseling, but it says, your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus. who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped which means held on to but made himself nothing taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man he humbled himself and became obedient to death even death on a cross now Some of you might be wondering why I read that passage for you in

the context of marriage and the submission of wives because I have to tell you honestly, this passage was not written just for wives. Philippians chapter 2 was written for all of us. And it is a powerful passage. But I believe it is also a wonderful example of what a woman is called to do, and that is willingly subordinate herself to her husband and why. Well, take a look at this passage. I believe that there are some things that if women will meditate on this will give them great insight. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who being in very nature, God did not consider that equality something to be held onto. You see, that's the reason I think this passage is so applicable to women

in their particular situation in marriage, because ladies, you are equal to your husband. As far as the Bible is concerned, you know, the Bible says there's no difference between Jew, Gentile, male, female, slave or free, it doesn't matter. Within the context of God's economy, those differences don't exist. Women, you are equal to your husband.

So the question of equality isn't even a question, it's a non -question. If we're getting rid of biblical submission because we believe women should be equal, You're fighting for the wrong cause, because we've always believed that women were equal from a biblical standpoint. I'm not saying everybody in the Bible even ever believed that, but the Bible declares it. Women, you are equal. Now, can we put that passage back on the screen? I want to refer to that a few more times.

So once again, the statement here is, your attitude should be the same of that as Christ's. who being in very nature God, in other words, being equal with God the Father, did not consider that equality something to be held onto, but rather released that aspect of subordination. Look at what it goes on to say, making himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant. Right? Who caused Jesus to subordinate himself to the Father? Nobody.

Nobody did. It says in this passage, he made himself nothing. Ladies, that's why this passage applies very closely to you in marriage, because once again, men are never to ask a woman to submit. She is called by God to do it. It is to be a response to her savior, not her husband, right? Specifically telling her, you need to submit.

No, no, no, no, no. Just as Jesus made himself nothing, a woman is to respond out of her own willing attitude to submit to her husband. And then it goes on to say, he took the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness and so on and so forth, and he humbled himself. And it can be a very humbling situation to put yourself in a position of subordination. I get that. Because we all have to subordinate ourselves to somebody, even if it's the legal authorities. When I'm driving down the road and there's a car behind me with the lights flashing and I am subordinate to that authority and I submit to that authority and I pull off to the side of the road whether he just wants to get past me or stop and talk

to me. I am going to submit to that. We all have to do it. It can be a humbling situation to do it, but we're all. called to do it. And so this passage in Philippians is such a beautiful passage, particularly for women, although it should be applied to all of us, but for women because it helps a woman to understand Jesus is your example.

We're going to talk next week how Jesus is the example for men in the loving of their wives, but he is no less an example for women. Listen, ladies, Jesus. doesn't ask you to do anything he hasn't been willing to do himself. And Philippians 2 shows you that. Now, we've only looked at one side of the equation, and I'm telling you right now that if you don't come back and listen next week, it's going to be lopsided. Because that's the thing that bothers people about when we talk about submission. You really can't talk about biblical submission and the role of the wife without addressing the role of the man because without putting the role of the man in there, it's slavery. It looks very much like slavery

and domination that we're asking a woman to live with and that's not what's going on here. When we talk next week, you're going to see that the requirements upon a husband are incredibly high. in his role of leadership and how he is to respond to his wife in order to make her willingly desire to submit. You've been listening to Through the Bible with Pastor Paul from Life Bible Ministry.

For the complete library of Pastor Paul's teaching and full transcripts, visit LifeBibleMinistry .com. We hope today's teaching has encouraged and inspired you. We look forward to you joining us again as we continue our journey through the scriptures.

Ephesians 5 (Part 3) :22-33 - The Role of the Wife

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