Last night, Liv and I were asked by family what the bible says about a woman's role in marriage. It was an attempt get my wife to openly confirm that wives are to submit to their husbands, but we immediately followed with what the bible calls husbands to do for their wives offsetting the trap. We felt it to be a good idea to share these points with you.
The scripture that Liv referred to was in Ephesians 5:22-33 (12 verses altogether). It’s the famous “wives submit to your husbands verse”.
Most guys only focus on the first 3 verses of this section, the part that says wives should submit to their husbands in everything. We tend to ignore the fact that God needs NINE verses for the men to get it right.
In those 9 verses, husbands are to (1) love our wives the way Christ loved the church by giving up ourselves to our wives referring to the giving up our selfish desires to meet the needs of our wives. (2) We are to make our wives holy through praise, encouragement, and instruction. (3) We are to love our wives as our own bodies, feeding and caring for them both spiritually and physically, and (4) we are to be united in love as one flesh where words like “I”, “mine”, “my” and “me” get replaced with “us”, “we”, and “our”. A husband and wife are a team that works together. The husband has the responsibility leading the family, but he’s not to rule like a dictator.
This section ends with a reminder to wives to respect their husbands.
Among those 9 verses for men, “love” is mentioned 3 times, how to love as Christ loved the Church (sacrificially), love as a man loves his own body (nourishment), and love as a man loves himself (emotionally, spiritually). Whew! Amen!
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