Ephesians 5:21-33 Sermon Podcast - Husbands and Wives

Today we look at one of the most debated and difficult sections of scripture. What does Ephesians teach about the roles of husbands and wives ? Is the bible the source of sexism, oppression, and inequality, or is it the source of revolutionary freedom and equality ? Men and women often have a hard time understanding each other, and it is not always clear how we should relate. How can I have the kind of healthy relationship with my significant other that God intended for me to have ?

“There is, hidden or flaunted, a sword between the sexes till an entire marriage reconciles them… What poor warped fragments of humanity most mere men and mere women must be…Jointly the two become fully human.” – C.S. Lewis

Committed Christians tend to split into two camps when it comes to how they understand the roles of husbands and wives. Complementarians believe that men and women are of equal value, dignity, and importance and that God has ordained different roles for husbands and wives – they tend to point out the husband as the head of the household. Egalitarians believe that men and women are of equal value, dignity and importance and that 1st century cultural norms were not intended by God to become permanent role expectations – they tend to focus on mutual submission. There is enough scriptural support for both views for committed Christians of good will to disagree. Traditional roles seem to work well for some couples, but don’t work at all for other couples. Marriage = mutual self-sacrificing love.                                                                      

Why don’t the New Testament writers speak more forcefully against things like patriarchy and slavery? Here is ONE perspective. Paul is writing to actual average people who were just as much products of their culture as we are of ours. We all tend to view our own culture’s values as “normal” and “right.”   What values would have seemed normal to both the men and the women Paul was writing to?

“In general, the ancient Greco-Roman Mediterranean society was structured as follows. The average age of a man at marriage was thirty, but the average age of a woman was eighteen or less at marriage. When a man married he was already a man of the world who know how to live in society He was a person who could function socially and economically. When a woman married whew s still a girl who had never even been allowed to answer a knock at the front door of her home. A typical woman bore a child about every two years or thirty months through her child bearing years. She was always “barefoot and pregnant” and at home. Further; women generally had no education beyond the domestic arts” – David M. Scholer

Paul first says we should all “submit” to each other. He then tells children to “obey” their parents, but tells wives to “submit” to their husbands which seems like a subset of mutual submission. But doesn’t Paul imply the Husband is like the Lord? Yes, but what if this was more descriptive than prescriptive ?

“In a social situation in which the husband has more power – social, intellectual, political, and financial – because patriarchal society has awarded it to him simply on the basis of his sex, he should use that power self-givingly to benefit his wife, as Christ uses his superior power on behalf of the church… I think the Holy Spirit counts patriarchy as a sinful, oppressive structure to which he nonetheless accommodated himself and the church until such time as both church and society could do away with it…in each case, the apostles condone the relationships of their day and then ameliorate each one in light of the gospel.” – John Stack House

Paul was writing to a minority group who had virtually no political or cultural power in a vast empire. They were already viewed with suspicion, and stridently defying the patriarchal social norms of their day would have seemed to prove to their neighbors that Christianity was degenerate (the opposite of our culture). Paul calls for men and women to be self-sacrificial for the sake of love and witness to the gospel. He said “to those under the law I became as one under the law” signifying his willingness to lay down his personal rights for the sake of being understood by others. Paul was not writing a political manifesto, he was giving practical advice to ordinary people about how to be faithful to Jesus in the actual cultural situation they found themselves in. The treatment of women in the scriptures is significantly “progressive” compared to the surrounding cultures and religions of the day. There is both a pragmatic realism and a redemptive trajectory towards full equality in the unfolding revelation of the scriptures over time. Regardless of where we come down on the question of appropriate roles for husbands and wives, the key questions are: “Am I truly trying to being obedient to the scriptures, or just trying to get my own way?”,   “Am I willing to lay down some of my rights and all my selfishness for the sake of my spouse?”, “God, what would you have ME do in order to love my spouse well ?”