All In The Family (Part #2)

Ephesians 5:22-33

In this short series about marriage and family, we’re not going to have a separate message for the ladies. However, the scripture has much to say to wives and how they should conduct themselves in their families and toward their husbands. In this specific passage, women are instructed to “submit” to their “own husbands,” which is something that is still important today. However, the biggest problem with the concept of a wife’s submission is the misrepresentation of what it actually means.

For just a moment consider that there were three kinds of marriages that were prevalent in the first century. One type involved a married woman who was still under the authority of her father. Another was where a married woman functioned independently of both her husband and her father. And, there was the married woman that submitted to her “own husband,” which served to provide unity, structure and order in the family.

Unfortunately, some people have taken the idea of a wife submitting to her husband beyond what the Bible teaches. Submission did not indicate the modern chauvinistic ideas of servile subjugation, docile subservience, or mindless subordination. Nor was it the childlike obedience as is rendered by children to their parents.

Submission is better represented in words like understanding, support, encouragement, respect, loyalty, all of which serve to produce order, unity, harmony and a truly loving partnership in marriage.

Clearly, from Paul’s instruction about submission, there is no place in marriage for a wife’s manipulating, controlling, conniving, and/or stubborn independence. Nor is there any place for other such attitudes and/or actions that serve to undermine the harmony, unity and love in the marriage relationship.

Actually, in this passage, the greater responsibility is placed on the husband and his attitude/actions towards his wife. His love for her is to be like that of Jesus Christ! It is to be a selfless, sacrificial, and serving love that always seeks the best for his wife. Four times in these verses husbands are instructed to love their wives (5:25, 28 [twice], 33) and that love is to be like the love shown by Jesus in dying for our sins.

This whole concept of how a husband was to treat his wife would have been a revolutionary concept in first-century society. Instead of just the wife sacrificing for her husband, the husband was also to sacrifice for his wife. This was totally countercultural!

In other words, the way a husband submits to his wife (cf. 5:21) is by sacrificing his own needs for her needs. Instead of being the ruler of his wife, he is to be her servant...even to the place of giving up his life for her.

Each of the four times Paul says that a husband is to love his wife, he uses the strongest word avilable for love in the Greek language. It is a love that always GIVES itself to/for others: Ephesians 5:2, 25; John 3:16.

So, let’s ask the question of scripture concerning this love, “What should a husband give to his wife?”

1. He should give her himself.

Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. (Ephesians 5:31)

The text clearly says that a man “leaves his father and mother” so he can “hold fast to his wife.”

• He is to leave his parents emotionally.
• He is to leave his parents financially.
• He is to leave his parents physically.

There is a growing phenomenon among many young men who simply do not want to grow up. They drift in and out of jobs, live with their parents or their college buddies, and focus a lot of their energy on watching sports, playing video games, and chasing women.

The difference between this generation of young men and previous ones is that they are delaying marriage longer than before, and our culture is encouraging them to prolong adolescent behavior.  One sociologist writes about this phenomenon and says, “Guyland...is the world in which young men live. It is both a stage of life, [an] undefined time span between adolescence and adulthood that can often stretch for a decade or more, and...a bunch of places where guys gather to be guys with each other, unhassled by the demands of parents, girlfriends, job, kids, and the other nuisances of adult life. In this topsy-turvy, Peter-Pan mindset, young men shirk the responsibilities of adulthood and remain fixated on the trappings of boyhood, while the boys they still are struggle heroically to prove that they are real men despite all evidence to the contrary.

“However, manhood means taking responsibility—for your choices, for your family, for your community, and for the next generation.  A key step to becoming that man (for most) is to be married and raise a family.

“Unfortunately, our sinful, human nature craves independence; we want to go our own way, while avoiding the responsibilities we have to God and to other people.  We live in a culture that celebrates youth, beauty and independence—even at the expense of growing up.  Too many young men are immersed in a world of media entertainment and diversions that tell them it’s okay to live a self-centered lifestyle, free of commitments to anything except their own endless and mindless pleasure.”

Sometimes the most important thing I can say to a husband is, “GROW UP!” God says that in marriage a man gives himself TO HIS WIFE and leaves boyhood behind!

2. He should give her attention.

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… (Ephesians 5:28-29)

We naturally give attention to our own needs and to meeting our needs. In marriage our attention as husbands turns first to our wife’s needs before our own.

It’s not unusual that in marriage our wives are merely reflecting back to us (mirror illustration) how we have treated them. Husbands that don’t like the way their wives respond to them can often trace the problem right back to themselves.

For most wives, love is not measured by the number of things they have, the neighborhood where they live, the designer clothes that they wear, the types of automobiles they drive, the country club to which they belong, etc. Love is measured in time spent together, as well as the effort made to be there with your wife to listen and love who she is as a person.

Dr. Willard Harley, a marriage counselor and prolific author, lists some of the most common complaints he hears from wives in his marriage counselling.

• "I hurt all the time because I feel alone and abandoned."
• "My husband is no longer my friend."
• "The only time he pays attention to me is when he wants sex."
• "He is never there for me when I need him the most."
• "When he hurts my feelings he doesn't apologize."
• "He lives his life as if we weren't married; he rarely considers me."
• "We're like ships passing in the night, he goes his way and I go mine."
• "My husband has become a stranger to me, I don't even know who he is anymore."
• "He doesn't show any interest in me or what I do."

Dr. Harley goes on to say, “The most common reason women give for leaving their husbands is ‘mental cruelty.’ When legal grounds for divorce are stated, about half report they have been emotionally abused. But the mental cruelty they describe is rarely the result of their husband's efforts to drive them crazy. It is usually husbands being indifferent, failing to communicate and demonstrating other forms of neglect...

“Another reason for divorce reported almost as much as mental cruelty is ‘neglect’ itself. These include both emotional abandonment and physical abandonment...When all forms of spousal neglect are grouped together, we find that it is far ahead of all the other reasons combined that women leave men…

“Simply stated, women leave men when they are neglected. Neglect accounts for almost all of the reasons women leave and divorce men.”

Men have to battle the “conquer and move on” mentality. It’s part of the nature of who we are as men. We see something we want, we focus and work for it until it’s ours. Then, we move on to conquer the next great conquest before us. Consequently, wives too often feel like they’ve been fooled by a “bait and switch” scheme. They can’t figure out where their romantic, attentive and selfless fiance (now husband) has gone.

Men...we must make the adjustments to our lives so that we can obey the scripture to love our wives like Christ loved the church. We have to continue to give them our attention and listen to their hearts. We should be seeking to please our wives, not just ourselves!

But a married man has to think about his earthly responsibilities and how to please his wife. (1 Corinthians 7:33 NLT)

3. He should give her kindness.

Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. (Colossians 3:19)

Additional Translations:

• Husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly. (NLT)
• A husband must love his wife and not abuse her. (CEV)
• Husbands, love your wives and be gentle with them. (NCV)

There is no place in marriage for the kind of harshness that too often characterizes the world around us. If there is a safe place on this earth for your wife, it ought to be with you...her husband. This isn’t to suggest that there will never be disagreements, but that our attitudes, actions, words and deeds are most often characterized by lovingkindness.

This scriptural instruction would call for patience with our wives’ faults and failings. It also involves a refusal to vent toward them the bitterness generated by outside circumstances.

This type of lovingkindness and compassion is described in a book by Dr. Robert Seizer, entitled, Mortal Lessons: Notes in the Art of Surgery. In it he tells of performing a surgery to remove a tumor in which it was necessary to sever a facial nerve, leaving a young woman’s mouth permanently twisted in palsy. Dr. Seizer’s writes:

“Her young husband is in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed, and together they seem to dwell in the evening lamp light, isolated from me, private. Who are they, I ask myself, he and this wry-mouth I have made, who gaze at and touch each other so generously, greedily? The young woman speaks. ‘Will my mouth always be like this?’ she asks. ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘it will. It is because the nerve was cut.’ She nods, and is silent. But the young man smiles. ‘I like it,’ he says. ‘It is kind of cute.’ All at once I know who he is. I understand, and I lower my gaze....Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth, and I, so close, can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate to hers, to show her that their kiss still works.”

That is the love of kindness and compassion… It seeks not to embarrass or to point out the other’s faults. It passes over your spouse's weaknesses without drawing attention to them. It desires to lift with encouragement and gentleness so that our wives feel VALUED!

4. He should give her understanding.

Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered. (1 Peter 3:7)

Every husband should make his wife the study of his life. It’s impossible to fully understand all there is to know about your wife, but husbands must continually be learning all they can about them.

There is a funny article about knowing “The Rules” when it comes to understanding our wives.

1. The Female always makes THE RULES.
2. THE RULES are subject to change without notice.
3. No Male can possibly know all THE RULES.
4. If the Female suspects the Male knows all THE RULES, she must immediately change some of THE RULES.
5. The Female is never wrong.
6. If it appears the Female is wrong, it is because of a flagrant misunderstanding caused by something the Male did or said wrong.
7. If Rule #6 applies, the Male must apologize immediately for causing the misunderstanding.
8. The Female can change her mind at any time.
9. The Male must never change his mind without the express, written consent of The Female.
10. The Female has every right to be angry or upset at any time.
11. The Male must remain calm at all times, unless the Female wants him to be angry or upset.
12. The Female must, under no circumstances, let the Male know whether she wants him to be angry or upset.
13. The Male is expected to read the mind of the Female at all times.
14. At all times, what is important is what the Female meant, not what she said.
15. If the Male doesn't abide by THE RULES, it is because he can't take the heat, lacks backbone, and is a wimp.
16. Any attempt to document THE RULES could result in bodily harm.
17. If the Male, at any time, believes he is right, he must refer to Rule #5.

Whatever “The Rules” might be, a husband should seek to understand his wife’s likes, dislikes, interests, ambitions, desires, strengths, weaknesses, goals, dreams, etc.

5. He should give her honor.

Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered. (1 Peter 3:7)

(One note about 1 Peter 3:7, when the text refers to the wives as “the weaker vessel,” this has nothing to do with her intellect, abilities or character. It either refers to her muscular strength generally being weaker than that of the man and/or a reference to the “weaker” status women were given socially in the first century. Women of that time period were often treated more like property that persons.)

This involves treating our wives with respect, something first-century women too seldom received.

Listen to how the scripture describes a loving wife:

• He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. (Proverbs 18:22)
• House and wealth are inherited from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the Lord. (Proverbs 19:14)
• An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. (Proverbs 31:10)

Those verses express the great value of a wife to her husband. Wives should be treated like an expensive diamond that is preserved and protected with the greatest of care. She should be seen as something of rare value that you treasure like a family heirloom.

Maybe for men it would be better to think of her like the football on superbowl Sunday that has to be protected and put away to win the game. If you are careless with the game ball you will almost certainly fumble it and cost your team the game. How many men had the ball handed off to them (a father giving his daughter to him), but they didn’t protect it as they should and it cost them the game (their marriage)? It’s sad, but there are too many to count.

Closing:

What we want to do, men, is make our wives FEEL loved. Talk to your wife and listen to her. Let her tell you the things that mean the most to her and do them. Make sure to keep your focus on her and not just on your next venture.

Let me put this in the language most men understand and the way Paul described it.

In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. (Ephesians 5:28)

This verse doesn’t indicate it is OK to be selfish in marriage; that’s the opposite of everything this passage (Ephesians 5:22-33) teaches. However, the fact remains that a man that selflessly, sacrificially loves his wife will reap the innumerable benefits that return to him for doing so.