Musings on Faith #7
A Christian Marriage
    Last week we talked about a man and woman becoming one, through marriage and putting forth the effort that becoming one requires. In Ephesians 5: 22-33, Paul gives us guidance in how to make that sacred relationship all that it should and can be. Of course we all know verse 22, "Wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord" (NIV). Unfortunately, this verse has been much abused by jealous, cruel, and abusive husbands to subjugate and demean, even to beat, their wives. I have heard wife beaters justify their violence by quoting this verse. But God did not give us this admonition in isolation. In fact, this verse, along with verses 23 - 24, "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" (NIV), constitute the total admonition to wives. I calculate this to be a total of 51 words. And why must there be a head in the household? Well, consider a business partnership of two men. They have equal voices, or votes, in the business. And when they disagree on an unresolvable point, so does the partnership dissolve. Someone must have the recognized authority to make the final decision.
 
But where the dominating, controlling, abusive husband fails miserably is in the 155 words in which God instructs husbands regarding their relationship with
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their wives, which verses (25 - 33a) bear quoting in their entirety. "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 his own body, but he tends and cares for it, 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 verse 33b goes on to say "and the wife must respect her husband" (NIV).
 
Wow, men, what a charge and what a responsibility God lays upon us as husbands. Let us not forget the holy duty we owe to God and to our wives to love our wives as Christ loves the Church. Then our wives will have no problem submitting to and respecting us, if both husband and wife are obedient to the perfect will of God in their lives, and seek Him in all things.
 
Yours in Christ, Tom Woodard
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