The Wife’s Role

READ Eph. 5:22-24.

PRAY.

Introduction

Do we have any actors or actresses in here? Any theater people? I know Libby is. Well, even for those who aren’t in theater or have never acted in their lives, what do you think happens when someone in a play or a movie doesn’t play their role well?

It can potentially ruin the play or movie right? Any movies come to mind when you think of someone not fulfilling their role well? It causes mishap and awkwardness. The play or the movie doesn’t flow well. And, it can throw everyone else off.

We don’t live in movies or plays, but as Christians, you and I have roles to play. In life, in our families, in church. God has given us all different roles that we are to function in, for His glory and the good of our neighbors.

God has also given wives and husbands roles within marriage. That is why the title of my sermon this evening is simply “The Wife’s Role”. This is where we have landed in our study of the book of Ephesians.

As you all think about potentially getting married someday in the future, its crucial that you know what the Bible has to say about marriage and how God has designed marriage. Tonight we’ll focus on the girls role as a wife, but don’t worry, the guys time is coming next week.

What I want to emphasize at the outset of tonight for you to keep in mind is that Paul is painting the most glorious picture of marriage here. It is a mystery being described, in that marriage is a picture of Christ and His church. That is the overarching view here.

So, what we’ll do is work through the text together line by line, verse by verse. And at the end, I’ll be sure to describe to you as clearly as I can what these verses ARE saying and they ARE NOT saying.

Instruction

Initially in verse 22 Paul gives an instruction: “wives, submit to your husbands, as to the Lord”. That is wives, submit to your husbands in obedience to Christ the Lord. Now, in order to get a better grasp at what’s being said here, we must understand what verse 21 said.

Paul is giving instruction here for how Christians ought to live, and in that he says Ephesians 5:21 “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” This does not mean that husbands and wives submit to one another in the same way.

It can’t mean that, for Paul clearly connects wives to the church and husbands to Christ for one anothers example. The Bible cannot read here in an interchangeable way, for that would be completely wrong.

Rather, what verse 21 does is it introduces us to the different forms or displays that submission to one another plays out. Wives submit to their husbands and husbands love their wives as Christ loves the church.

For the wife’s role, this is a willful submission to the husbands leadership. For the husband’s role, this is a self sacrificial love where he puts his wife before himself in all things.

I know the idea of submission may strike you as odd at first ladies, but if you decide to marry a husband that strives to love you in this way everyday, why wouldn’t you want to submit to him?

Back to verse 22, what is in view here is the idea of a wife submitting to her husband out of her love for and obedience to Christ her Lord. Paul is not making a one to one correlation that your husband takes the place of the Lord in your life.

Rather, there is a correlation here in the since that the example that the wife has to follow is the church’s submission to Christ. All for the glory of Christ!

According to the Bible here, the wife takes cues from the church and the husband takes cues from Christ. This DOES NOT mean that wives are in any way inferior to their husbands. Husbands and wives are co-inheritors in the kingdom of God!

God has designed male and female differently, and thats a gloriously wonderful thing! Women have strengths and weaknesses and do so men. That is why we complement each other so well!

The idea found from Scripture called complementarianism is just that; that men and women complement each other in non-abusive, God glorifying, righteous ways.

Ladies, you will have a different role in marriage one day than your husband. That is a wonderful thing! This is not in any way to tear you down but rather build you up in Christ!

It is sinful disobedience that has caused this beautiful design for marriage to be fogged up and distorted. Think about being in a movie again: there’s a director that assigns actors their different roles.

The director knows the way they want the movie to go and what vision their trying to capture. You’re not in a movie, but that’s similar to the Lord and us.

He has given us His perfect plan and roles for us to carry out and fulfill. We should trust Him and His plan. His way is higher and best.

Reason

In verse 23 we then are revealed to the model, motivation, and reason for the instruction in verse 22. As God has designed it, the husband is the head of the wife. And this is a picture of Christ as the head of the church.

In the gloriously different ways God has designed men and women, men are designed to lead their homes, modeled after Christ. In verse 22, Paul tells wives to submit to their OWN husbands.

All that we’re talking about here is to be carried out within the confines of the husband and wife relationship. Also the church, in that the office of elder/overseer/pastor is reserved for only men according to the Bible.

Just those two areas, not society at large.

How are men designed to lead the home? We will cover that in detail next week. However, just know for tonight that it is through self-sacrificial love, putting their wives above themselves, dying to themselves daily. The man’s premium example to lead is Christ!

Paul is not saying that the husband is his wife’s Savior. Rather, the husband’s leadership is to be modeled after the Savior. How did Christ save His church? He died for her!

Reason with Instruction

We observe reason with instruction as we move on here. That is, the model of the church submitting to Christ is the example for the wife to submit to her husband. Remember what I said earlier: wives take their cues from the church, according to God’s design.

Why? Because the purpose of marriage is to reflect Christ and His church!

This is a joyful and loving submission from the wife! This is not a blind submission in that wives are to follow their husbands, even into sin. Instead this is a joyful, Christ dependent (Piper) disposition to submit to her husband.

A Christian wife is a woman that is joyfully and lovingly willing to submit under the headship of her godly, Christ-following husband. And the husband is to put her needs above his own, following after Christ!

A Final Reason

Finally, I want you to see a final reason for the wife’s role. Ephesians 5:18 “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit,”. This is all in the context of being filled with the Holy Spirit!

This only happens, for men and women, if we are filled with the Holy Spirit of God. That is, this is a fruit that the Holy Spirit brings forth in a from a male believer and a female believer in Christ in a marriage relationship.

So, as promised. Here’s what is NOT being said in these verses: that wives are to be quiet, take abuse, be talked down to, be bossed around, treated poorly, be disrespected, blindly follow her husband, treat her husband like Jesus Christ, have no say in anything, hold no leadership roles outside the home/church, be seen as “less than”, or be condescended.

Here’s what IS being said: God has designed men and women gloriously different, the wife’s role is to submit to her husband in obedience to Christ, women take their cue’s as wives from the church, men take their cues as husband’s from Christ, God has given men and women different roles within the home and church, and this is a good, God glorifying thing.

Conclusion

Abuse, talking down to, disrespect, and inferiority are all due to sin in a marriage relationship. I’m so sorry if any of you have seen your mom or dad treated this way. That is not right and is not pleasing to Christ.

What is Christ’s purpose for marriage is a wife submitting to the headship of her godly husband, who puts her first above himself and strives to serve her daily.

This is all because marriage is meant to be a glorious, beautiful picture of Christ and the church.

PRAY