Ephesians

5:21-31

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
mysterybut 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.

I am not one qualified to talk about what marriage should or shouldnt look like. But I am friends with
many who are. I have seen bad marriages and good marriages and I am a child of both. In my survey I
noticed that there was a stark difference in peoples attitudes toward womens roles in marriage, and
womens roles in the church. Several people who thought it was totally okay for women to be pastors
also believed in marriage hierarchy. This makes sense because it turns from a hypothetical to a
practical. Many women are obedient to husbands who are kind and do not abuse their power. I am no
one to tell you who are married what your marriage should look like. But let me offer my short
thoughts on the subject from what I have seen in people I highly respect.

This passage begins with mutual submission. There is no indication that more submission is owed to
the man than is owed to the woman. What follows verse 21 is instruction to each spouse on exactly
how to submit to each other. Remember the cultural context and heresies regarding the Artemis cult
we previously discussed in the 1 Timothy passage. Paul here writes to remind the wives that creation
order is irrelevant because in fact, while women birth men, so men were before women. Headship
can be taken two ways, both legitimate. Either it can be to say, the head is the powerhouse and
instructor, or the head is the source of life, as in a fountainhead or head of a river. This makes sense as
we go on to read the following verses, that the husbands job is to be involved in his wifes growth and
sanctification, empowering her to stand before God with confidence. In saying this I have offended
both the traditionalist and the feminist. But thats a reality Im comfortable with.

Women are as dependent on men as men are on women. The feminist would do well to remember
that. The instruction to wives is almost laughably obvious when you think about the position of women
in the first century. Women had been in subjection to men for millennia. Its almost as if Paul is saying,
Wives, you get it. Youve been doing this forever. I dont need to remind you what submission looks
like. He turns to the men, however, and gives a detailed instruction about exactly how and why they
are to submit to their wives because they, obviously, had never heard of such a thing. They had been
ruling over women as owners of property since the fall of man in the garden. Even the remote
suggestion given with submit to one another that a man might need submit to a woman was
unheard of. So Paul spends the next seven verses explaining to men what this dastardly thing called
submission looks like. If you are a man reading this and feel insulted by the insinuation that you must
submit to your wife as she submits to you maybe you are finally starting to understand.