Headship

Wives,be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord.

For the husband is the head of the wife

just as Christ is the head of the church,

the body of which he is the Saviour.

Eph 5:22-23

The husband is the head of the wife.

The husband is in charge.

The wife is to do as the husband says.

As Christ is the head of the church, the husband is the head of the wife.

Any of you who know me and Sarah, will know this is not the way our marriage runs.

I remember  just after becoming a Christian, reading this passage to Sarah.

There was no way our lives, our marriage was going to work like that.

Our marriage has always been a partnership.

We are subject to each other in different areas of our lives.

Sarah is in charge of some stuff, I am in charge of other stuff.

Most of the time we discuss what ever it is and agree on what to do.

We are subject to each other.

Is that wrong?

Is Jesus angry at us for being so?

A lot of how we understand a wife being subject to her husband will depend on how the husband understands being the head.

As Christ is the head.

What was Christ like?

What is Christlike behaviour?

We know that Christ was not a bully.

He did not demand that people do as he said.

He did not hit, abuse, insult, domineer, silence, those he loved.

He loved them.

He invited them to walk with him.

He encouraged the downtrodden, and chastised wrongdoers.

Those who would dominate he put in their place.

Those who were treated as worthless, he treated as invaluable.

So, when we think about a wife being subject to her husband,

For the husband is the head of the wife

just as Christ is the head of the church

we need to think about how Christ was with others, and how Christ is with us.

If the wife is to be subject to her husband, what is the husband to be like.

Husbands,

love your wives,

just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,

Eph 5:25

Husbands, love your wives.

Love.

What is that like. What does Paul think Love is?

Love is patient;

love is kind;

love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.

It does not insist on its own way;

it is not irritable or resentful;

it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.

It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

1Cor 13:4-7

Husbands love your wives,

just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

As on the night before he died,

Jesus took a loaf of bread,
and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you.”

1Cor 11:23-24

And the next day he suffered and died on the cross, he gave himself up for his church. He gave himself as completely as was humanly and divinely possible.

That is how Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

And that is how husbands are to love their wives.

My body for you.

Self sacrificing.

So we know form Paul what Love is.

We know how Christ loved and gave himself up for the church.

It is these two things we need to remember when we say wives, be subject to your husbands.

What the wife is to be subject to is the husband who is to love his wife.

To be subject to a man who will love her, will support her, who will give himself as much as he can for her.

This is what a wife is to be subject to.

And nothing less.

Paul means this as a two way street. It isn’t about one being subject and the other in charge. Rather Paul is saying what a marriage should be like.

Subjection to love.  

Love that does not insist on its own way.

So, wives, you are to be subject to a husband that loves you, a love that does not insist on its own way.

And it within such a marriage, where each person can say to each other, my body for you, and in such way we witness the love Christ has for us and for his church.