This week, Facebook has been reminding me that it was at this time last year that my family and I packed up to move to North Dakota and join everyone here at Faith Community Church of the Nazarene. I still remember the first message that I preached to this congregation on Mother’s Day last year. It’s funny, sometimes, how God works things out. As we’re working through the book of Ephesians, the same passage that I preached on that day is the same one we’ll be covering today.
However, just because a passage may be difficult or unpopular does not give us reason to skip it or ignore it. Especially with difficult passages, we need to dive into the scripture and determine what the author is saying within its given context and within the entire context of scripture, and as I stated last year, this entire passage hinges on one particular phrase.
Ephesians 5:21, which also serves as a concluding statement for the previous section, serves as an introduction to everything we’re about to cover today. Under the context of this verse he then goes on to give specific ways that each of us are to interact within the family. In order to understand the context in which Paul speaking to us, we need to understand what Paul is saying in this verse.
While we are clearly commanded to submit to one another, we must understand that words have meaning. It would seem absurd for us to say that a master must submit to his slave or that parents must submit to their children, but that seems to be what Paul is suggesting. Typically when we think of submitting to someone or something else we think in terms of authority. If I submit to you then I am admitting that you are in charge and that I have to obey you. In turn, if you are in charge and I have to obey you, therefore I am not in charge and you don’t have to obey me.
We hear it a lot in my house. One kid will tell another to do something, even something as innocent as, “You’re supposed to put your plate in the sink,” and the immediate response is, “You’re not my boss!” It’s as if they’re saying, “You’re not an authority figure over me, and I don’t have to submit to you.”
However, this submission that Paul is talking about doesn’t have anything to do with the order of authority or chain of command. Who’s in charge of who or who has to obey whose commands is not the intent of Paul’s call to submit to one another. Rather it is how that authority is used as well as received.
In Matthew Jesus states, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you.” (Matthew 20:25). By our very nature, we desire to promote ourselves and to use what authority we have in order to gain more. Yet Jesus demonstrated to his disciples that to be the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven that you needed to be a servant. It is out of reverence for Christ that we submit ourselves to one another just as Christ did for his disciples. In today’s modern world, that translates into two different areas. Loving and respecting those that we have authority over and loving and respecting those that have been placed in authority over us. This is what Paul is talking about when he tells us to submit to one another.
With all of that being said, we can now begin to look at the rest of Paul’s instructions within the context of this verse. Continuing on to Ephesians 5:22-24, we find our first controversial topic of the day, the relationship between wife and husband. Again, this is often an unpopular text and as well as one that is often taken out of context. The submission that Paul is speaking of in these verses is the exact same type of submission that we just finished talking about, not the idea of slavery but love and respect. Now to clarify, this verse does not place women in a subservient role to men. It is specifically stated to submit to “your husbands,” and not to men in general. This is not every man who you meet on the street. In that regard we fall back on “submit to one another.”
Paul gives two reasons for a wife to submit to her husband. First is because of the Lordship of Christ, and second is because the husband has been placed as the head of the household. Just as Paul states that we are to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ, he uses the same plea in regard to wives and husbands. Because of our love for Christ and the example he’s laid before us, we are to submit to one another out of love. Ladies, if that’s how we’ve been called to act to one another, how much more should that be the case for the man you chose to marry? The second reason, the man as the head of the house, leads us to the next portion of our text, Ephesians 5:25-33.
Like it or not, we as husbands have been called to a high task. Yes, scripture states that wives are to submit to their husbands, but as a wise man once said, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Men, we have been called to love our wives as Christ has loved the church. Christ’s love was a sacrificial love, a love that put the needs of other above even his own life. This isn’t to say that you must bend over backwards to meet every desire of your wife, but you must be wise enough to discern her needs from her desires and then how best to fulfill as many of both as possible.
Marriage has many purposes. It serves an emotional purpose, for God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18). It serves both a physical and social purpose of bearing children and fulfilling the natural desires of both man and woman (1 Corinthians 7:1-3). And here in Ephesians Paul indicates a spiritual purpose. Men, we have been given the responsibility of presenting our wives as holy and blameless before the Lord. It is our responsibility to ensure that our wives and our children are walking with Christ.
Ladies, this is the second reason the scriptures say to submit to your husband, because as the head of the household your actions reflect on him. God has placed him in charge of your well-being. God has tasked him with loving you with the same sacrificial and sanctifying love that Christ loves us with. God has tasked him to love you as he does his own body, because the two have become one flesh. If you truly love him as Christ intends and he truly loves you as Christ intends, loving each other and submitting to one another should not be a chore but a joy.
Moving on, Paul now directs the focus away from the husband and wife relationship and towards the parent child relationship in Ephesians 6:1-4. I’m not going to go too deeply into this one since I’ve covered it before, but it is clear that children are to honor their father and mother by obeying them. This dynamic changes as we grow into adulthood and are no longer children, but even then we are called to honor our parents and submit to them just as we do all others out of reverence for Christ. As Paul says, this is the first commandment with a promise, “that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.” I said it last year and I’ll say it again, this is not a bribe from God. This is not God telling you that if you’ll honor your father and mother that he’ll make you happy. This promise is the natural consequence of honoring your father and mother. You will learn from their wisdom. You will gain additional insight into the world, and you will your children what this commandment looks like so that in turn they will do the same when you are older.
Once again, Paul turns his focus back on the man of the house imploring us to not exasperate our children. Another translation reads, “Do not provoke your children to wrath.” This means that just as we are to love our wives and submit to them out of reverence for Christ, we are likewise to have the same respect and servant’s attitude toward our children. You are still in charge of the household, but Paul is saying that you’re to teach and instruct them in the most loving way possible.
I was scrolling through Facebook the other day when I came across a video that had the words scrolling across pictures of a dirty bedroom. They spoke of a mother that had been fighting with her son. She was stressed out from work and her son just didn’t seem to want to listen. The morning ended in the middle of a fight with him storming off to school and slamming the door. The mom so wanted to put him in his place and teach him that he had to respect her because she was his mother.
However, as she began to settle down she realized that he was likely just as stressed out as she was. With school, homework, friends, and chores, he didn’t need her yelling at him on top of it. She realized that when she was stressed out like that all she really needed was for someone to show that they cared. She began to pick up his room, do his laundry, and make his bed.
When he came home from school, he picked up right where they had left off. He began yelling and stomped off to his room. After slamming the door, he slowly came back out, walked down the stairs and quietly asked his mother, “Why did you clean my room?” She responded, “Because I love you, and I know that you’ve been stressed lately. I was hoping that by taking that chore off your plate that it might help lighten the load.”
Sometimes what your child needs is a loving gesture rather than a stern talking to. I’ll admit that I’ve fallen into that place where my thought is no longer about how to help my child but rather it’s an attitude of “I’ll show him. I’ll teach him that he can’t act like that.” “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” Men, this is what we signed up for when we became husbands and fathers. Yes, the patriarchal, biblical view puts much emphasis on the authority of the man, but it also gives him much responsibility.
Finally, Paul begins to speak of the relationship between slaves and masters. You may look at passages like this and think that they have no insight for us in a modern society without slaves, but if we culture in which Paul is writing, these words could just as easily be written to employer and employee (Ephesians 6:5-9).
In those days, family and work were not mutually exclusive things. You didn’t put in your forty hours and then return home to spend time with family. The work that you did was just as much a part of your life as your family’s lives. The relationship between slaves and masters was most definitely related to family relations, but today it’s not uncommon for your wife or children to never meet your supervisor or, if you’re a supervisor, those under you.
Paul guides men in these relationships as well. You are to serve the one you work for as if you were serving Christ himself, submitting out of love and respect. As a worker, you should work diligently, whether you’re being watched or not, so that you might honor Christ. If you are a supervisor, you must treat those under you with properly, not showing favoritism or malice but submitting even to them just as Christ did with his disciples.
With today being Father’s Day, men, the focus is squarely on us. Today is a day in which our families show us how much they love and appreciate us, but it is also a day to remember what it truly means to be a father and a husband. Yes, God tells wives to submit to their husbands and children to obey their parents, but every time Paul mentions the responsibilities of somebody else, he always comes back to the responsibilities of the man of the house. We have been given authority over our entire household, but with great power comes great responsibility. Let us all submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.