Peter the Apostle reminds us that women are the weaker vessel, which means we men can hurt our wives if we ask too much of them. Which sadly many modern men do. Some men have seen this dynamic in this passage and twisted it to use as an excuse to abuse their wives, but for the life of me I cannot see anywhere in this passage where that is encouraged, allowed or supported. As Paul says, “For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church.”
But we can see that Paul was not only not out of date, he absolutely knew what he was talking about, and because of this his advice in this passage is genuinely timeless. If you can get this dynamic right in your marriage it will make a massive difference.
Read full text:
Ephesians 5 is one of the most maligned passages in the whole Bible because it tells wives that they should submit to their husbands. A lot of people would like to ignore what it says, and many others try to mitigate what it says or change it. But it is actually a vital passage for understanding the relationship between a husband and wife and how it is supposed to work.
If you want to have a healthy marriage you cannot get away from the need to look at this passage for several reasons: This is the most significant passage explaining what marriage is in the whole Bible. The rejection of this passage has actually led to many of the problems that both society and individuals experience in their marriages today. The abuse of this passage in the Church is manifest all over the place, usually by bad men, and this should be addressed. But also, I don’t think this passage is as radical to accept as people think. In fact, I am going to argue that it actually understands men and women very well.
Wives - Let’s start by looking at what Paul says to wives,
“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.”
Wow, you could almost say considering what our culture is like today that this passage is anti-Australian “Wives, submit to your husbands”? Woh!! But is this actually as un-Australian as it sounds?
Let’s look at what it does not say:
- It does not say, husbands make your wives submit.
