Walking in Love: PT 2
The Divine Dance: Marriage and Family in God’s Design
Bible Passage: Ephesians 5:22–33, Ephesians 6:1–4
1. Wives: Embrace Loving Submission
22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
2. Husbands: Reflect Christ’s Sacrifice
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
5:26–27 The focus in these verses is on Christ, for husbands do not “sanctify” their wives or “wash” them of their sins. sanctify. Set aside for the Lord’s service through cleansing. washing of water. Perhaps baptism (see
3. Unity Through Love and Respect
28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
5:31 two shall become one flesh This quotation of
5:32 mystery is profound Refers to the union that believers have with Christ as members of His Church.
Elsewhere in Ephesians, the Greek word used here, mystērion, refers to God’s plan of reconciling all things in Christ (1:9; 3:3–6). Here Paul uses mystērion to describe the union of Christ and the Church. These concepts overlap; God’s cosmic reconciliation of all things, the center of theology in Ephesians, is most fully expressed in the joining together of sinful people to the one who died for their sins, Christ.
In vv. 31–32 Paul places Christian marriage within the context of God’s cosmic redemption to show that marriage concerns more than just two people; it is a sign to the world of the powerful reconciliation made possible through the gospel. The union of male and female in marriage is meant to point beyond itself to God’s work of redemption and unification.
4. Children: Obey for Blessing
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), 3 “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.
5. Fathers: Foster Through Christ’s Guidance
4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
6:4 do not provoke your children to anger In first-century Greco-Roman society, fathers—as the head of the household—had complete authority within the household to administer discipline. Paul advises them to avoid exercising that authority in ways that might cause their children to harbor resentment. Paul is advocating for fathers treating their children with kindness, which would have been unexpected for Graeco-Roman society; he is arguing that parents treat their children as Christ would.
