The Believer's Family Life

Colossians 3:18–4:1 ESV

Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality. Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.

Scripture: Colossians 3:18-4:1

Sermon Title: The Believer’s Family Life

While this is one of the shortest passages in our series through Colossians, it struck me as I was writing that there is too much for just one sermon. So, our focus today is going to be on verses 18 and 19. There will be some tie-ins with the other verses, but that’s where we’re primarily going to look. We may or may not come back next week or in following weeks to what we hear in verses 20 and 21 and then 22 through chapter 4 verse 1, but as we get into the sermon, I don’t want you to think, “Wow, he’s going on and on about husbands and wives. We’re going to be here a while if he deals with everything.” We’re just going to focus on that part today.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, I was going through some of my family’s pictures and keepsakes this week, and among them I found a couple little books. I’ve seen these before, but I had forgotten about them and what they even were. Both of these books are marriage advice books that friends and loved ones wrote in at Christie’s bridal showers.

This one was from her church, 14th Street CRC in Holland, Michigan, and the front page has this message pasted in: “Titus 2:2-4 encourages ‘older women to be reverent in the way they live,’ so that ‘then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children.’ Collectively, there are a lot of years of marriage among the women of 14th Street, and therefore, wisdom. This little book contains advice about marriage from women of our church, to be shared with brides-to-be. We hope that you find it helpful as you begin your married life.” There’s a number of little messages from those women—many incorporate Scripture or are related to faith.

This other advice book was from a family shower, and whoever set it up used the alphabet—each page is a different letter which was supposed to start the advice. For A—I’m pretty sure this is my sister Rachael—she writes, “Always agree with your wife!” I don’t think she was even dating her future husband at that point, but that can be worthwhile advice. For B, Christie’s cousin wrote, “Be forgiving. Even when you really don’t like it.” That’s a tough one. For L, her Grandma Rozema wrote, “Love your husband.” It goes on, some of these things Christie has done, or we’ve done, others not so much. But I’m sure you’ll all find this just as shocking as I did. When I got to the letter S, I didn’t find the message: “Submit to your husband, as is fitting in the Lord.” I was shocked to not find that. I’m kidding, I wasn’t surprised to not find that.

As we take up this passage, that’s the main elephant in the room. Writing to the Christians in Colossae, Paul’s been delivering a message that they likely could easily agree with, even be excited about and recognize valuable points, theologically and practically. They were good points, not just because they were already doing them, but when it convicted them, it made sense. They lived in a culture where it was accepted for men to be over women—at points, women didn’t hold much higher status than property. It made sense for children to be under their parents, for slaves or servants to be in submission to the master they were serving. That’s worth noting—while we are talking about relationships, about households or families, the husband-wife, parent-child, master-slave relationships are all described in such a way that there is a head or one who leads and there is one who should submit to the head. These people aren’t the same or perfectly level.

Yet in our culture today, assumptions and practices have changed. Wives and husbands often view themselves as completely equal and should be able to do whatever each of them wants. How dare anyone tell a woman that she needs to submit to a man!? I’m sure there’s at least one person who is thinking “Amen!” to that. That’s in our minds today.

So, too, with the other relationships. Who holds the authority between parents and children is not always clear. The ideas that children or youth have seem to be accepted more and more without scrutiny. Kids and young people are allowed to act without discipline in some families. So too, fathers, mothers, parents, can be too attached to their kids or completely absent, denying their responsibilities. We don’t exist in a slaves and masters system, but when it comes to employees and employers, we’ve seen significant shifts in recent years. The expectation that people will work and need to work in order to earn a paycheck, which seems to have been a given in the past—that’s not necessarily the case anymore. People at times unnecessarily depend on handouts. Or they’re willing to work, but they expect their boss or manager to go by whatever their schedule is, even at a moment’s notice. The thread in all of this is a disregard and dislike for anything having to do with submission. As people who like and cherish freedom, we hold that even among Christians without any consideration for what Scripture is calling for

As we look at these verses and the rest of Scripture, what are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to live in our marriages and why? I want to jump in to looking at the rules that Paul gives in verses 18 and 19, but first we need to consider: how are we approaching the Bible? When we hear and see differences among Christians, in our church, in our families, this is a question that must be asked. How do you and I see what the Bible is saying?

One way, and I don’t think, and I surely don’t hope this is popular among us is what I’m calling a general disregard for the Bible. Someone could say, “I know the Bible talks about Jesus, I like him, but that’s all I know. I’m just trying to be a decent person.” Another way a person can approach the Bible is to say that what we’re reading, at least when it’s not preceded or followed by the words “Thus says” or “declares the Lord,” is simply the author’s views. So, what we have in Colossians 3 is simply Paul’s view, his opinion, if he even was the writer. If you don’t like what he says or agree with him, you can just ignore him. Some would take it farther, and label Paul as misogynistic—he hates women; he wants to keep them down. Any idea of male headship is ignorant regardless of if it was thought to be okay back then. Ignore the stuff you disagree with.

A third and fourth way to approach Scripture is to say this is cultural. Back then, women were subject to men, that was culturally acceptable, but things have changed now. From a more humanist outlook, someone might say, “We’re more enlightened. We’ve progressed and understand things better. After all, slavery was bad, that’s not supposed to stick around even though it’s in this passage.” Or you can read from different Christian theologians an argument along the lines of because men and women are both made in the image of God, and in Christ there’s no male or female; God wants to fix this relational hierarchy that used to be. Submission is a thing of the past. Under cultural arguments, what Scripture says can or should be temporary.

A fifth way to interpret Scripture is to accept it as the abiding truth. That’s how I view it and am going to preach based on that. What I mean is yes, we do accept that Scripture’s writers were human beings; none of them were perfect. To be clear: the Bible’s original form was not a golden notebook passed from writer to writer with all these chapters and verses marked out, and when it reached the final page, there was no longer any room. No, different people wrote in different times, in different genres and styles, to different people, and those writings were collected. In the processing of how it was collected, the church held that the Holy Spirit worked through these people to provide truth for the lives of believers. “It is God-breathed”—the Holy Spirit has been at work. Orthodox Christianity has held this to be the infallible and authoritative word. That’s not to say there aren’t nuances, but the truth abides and to that truth God calls believers in any culture and any time to commit themselves to it because it’s from him.

When I say that’s the way I view it and how I preach on it, I’m placing a flag there. I’m saying that’s the right way, the most faithful way, the most God-glorifying way to understand what’s been written and what we’re reading. God has given us the Bible to reveal himself, absolutely! He’s given us his word to reveal his love for sinners who repent. He’s also teaching us the way of holiness, the way he intended life to be when he created us. Does that we mean I or we can perfectly understand every single thing in the Bible? No, but this is God’s truth.

With that understanding, let’s go back to verses 18 and 19, and using the word in the NIV’s title of this section: What are the rules for husbands and wives? When wives are called to “submit to [their] husbands, as is fitting in the Lord,” and husbands to “love [their] wives and…not be harsh with them,” that applied to the Colossians, and it still applies today.

Let’s be clear, this isn’t the only place or group of people Paul wrote something like this to. Earlier this summer we looked at 1 Corinthians 7, which has a lot of mutuality. “…Each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time…” Mutuality, level partners, sharing in each other.

Yet Paul builds on what he wrote there in 1 Corinthians 11. Starting at verse 3, “Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.” It’s with that understanding that he goes on to talk about head coverings. It’s also the reason why in 1 Corinthians 14, starting in verse 34, he writes, “Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.”

In Ephesians 5, Paul gives the same commands as Colossians 3. Starting at verse 22, “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 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. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and give himself up for her….” It shows up in 1 Timothy 2 verses 11 and 12, “A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.” In Titus 2 verse 5, the younger women who are being trained “to love their husbands and children,” are among other things “to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.”

This isn’t just Paul, though. The apostle Peter, 1 Peter 3, “Wives, in the same way,” in the same way that citizens submit to authorities and slaves submit to masters, “Wives…be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. Your beauty should not come from outward adornment…Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear. Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.”

When these six passages call for submission or recognizing the husband as the head, the Greek word is the same word used to describe Jesus’ submission to his parents as he grew up. It’s the same word used of the demons in submission to the name of Jesus, the mind of the Spirit to God, of all things in submission to God. As we heard with 1 Peter 3 and elsewhere, citizens submit to governing authorities, servants to masters, younger people to their elders. Submission is one part of something abiding in the ways of another. It’s recognizing authority, serving someone else.

But that brings up a question that we as curious or hesitant believers bring up: Why is this the case? Why is Scripture repeatedly telling women they are under their husbands? If the Bible called for women, for wives to submit to their husbands, and stopped right there, without any explanation, it would still be truth based on the interpretation I’m using, but seeing that as misogynistic would make sense. Paul, and God through his holy word, gives us answers, though.

Men, husbands, are spoken to. We are called to love our wives, not just with any type of love or cultural definition of love, but with agape, with the love that a Christian has for their neighbor, with the love that God has shown us in his Son Jesus Christ. We’re not to get arrogant, we’re not to sin in how we live with our wives—that we turn this submission into abuse or degrading them or mocking them or anything like that. No! We are to treat them as Christ treats his bride the church.

In this headship language of the Bible, husbands are given the position of head over their wives, but men aren’t the ultimate head. Men, husbands, we are servants, we are subjects, we are submissive to Christ, who submits to God. It’s so important for us as men and women that we remember that what God sets out for the covenant of marriage is not just one man-one woman, not just romance, not just a helper who complements the man, but that marriage throughout all of time is to image the relationship of Christ and his church. We are the bride of Christ, and in no way are we ever equal with him. We depend on Jesus for everything. Out of love, faithful love, we submit to him and his commands. God doesn’t hate us. He doesn’t try to knock us down and oppress us, let alone abuse us. It’s a loving relationship, but yes, we are to submit to Christ. If we that’s always the case in our relationship with him, then there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be in our marriages.

How do we live this out? In marriages, where both the husband and wife are believers, the husband ought to be the spiritual leader. They should be devoted—and I’m encouraging this to you, men, if you’re not doing it and to continue intentionally, if you are—be devoted to the word and prayer. Be devoted to growing—to seeking out help and wisdom in areas where you need to be discipled. As a young husband and father, I need that continual reminder to prioritize family devotions and worship. It’s not just about the Bible and opening it up, but love your wives well. Love them with encouragement and honor and faithfulness. Help them, don’t see them as your servant. Value them, value their mind and opinions. Part of being considerate is recognizing that it’s best to have the support of our spouse and recognizing their strengths. We can learn from them.

Women, don’t think yourselves to be dumb or unable to grow in spiritual things. I don’t think that’s a problem here, but I’ll say it anyways. As much as there are those calls for silence in the church, we also hear the names of both the husband and wife, Aquila and Priscilla, in Acts 18:26, as helping to teaching Apollos. There is a difference between authority and educating. If you are married but your husband is an unbeliever, continue to practice the love of the Lord in your marriage, your parenting, and the rest of your life. Grow in the Lord that you might help your husband if the Spirit gives that opportunity.

If you are looking to marry, consider how you can live into this. If you are widowed or continue in singleness, continue to grow in the Lord on your own or with Christian brothers and sisters. Use your gifts in service to the church and your community. Whatever our situation, let us remember and take back a biblical understanding of submission. Yes, there are relationships where it is about authority and that needs to be measured properly. But submission and love in marriage images the greatest love and most beneficial relationship of all. The Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. Amen.