I truly appreciate how our loving Father lays out for us instructions to help us understand how He intends for relationships to work. He speaks to both a godly marriage relationship and to the relationship of Christ and the church in Ephesians 5. The relationships in some key ways are actually quite similar.
As you read, pray the Spirit speaks to you. Also block out what the world tries to tell us about a marriage relationship. The world wants us to believe now that both man and woman are made the same and are supposed to have the same role in the household. The world tries to fool us that one role is more important than another and thus for spouses to be equal they must both share the same roles. This is as silly as a football team having two quarterbacks and no lineman or a soccer team having everyone on offense and no one guarding the goal! Both the role of the husband and that of the wife are equally important, but they are different. The family structure needs both to thrive the way God intended. Seek to carry out your marriage God’s way rather than the world’s way.
As you read, however, do not lose sight of how God is also describing the relationship for us as His followers with Christ.
Marriage Like Christ and the Church
22Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. 24But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.
25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, 26so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. 28So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; 29for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, 30because we are members of His body. 31FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH. 32This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. 33Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.
As a closing note, observe how scripture highlights in closing this chapter once again that women and men are different. The Lord calls men to “love” their wives, but for women the focus is on “respecting” their husbands. We are different! The Lord knows the relationships do not function as well if we treat the roles or the individuals of husbands and wives the same. Think about it for awhile… I know it is true for my marriage. My wife benefits most from feeling loved, though she wants to be respected also. For me it truly is the reverse… if I had to pick between being loved or respected I would take respected. Of course, I also appreciate being loved!
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