Meditation

Hi there,

This week we are closing out our study of Ephesians 4 and 5 with Paul's instructions to Christian Households.

Paul's call throughout our study has been for unity, harmony...and now, mutual submission.

To be spirit-filled is to be in "submission" to a legitimate authority with the right disposition. Marriage is difficult – even the good ones. Imperfect people are placed in the most challenging form of relationship, by design, to learn how to love, lead, and be led.

We'll reflect on these verses and their application in more detail on Saturday. For now we're interested in the words.

I've highlighted the key word "submit" which appears three times in this passage. "Submit" (verb), "Submission" (noun) and "Mission" all share the same root, the latin verb "mittere" meaning "to send".

Submission is therefore, not servility. It's the act of yielding to a shared mission ordained by Christ.

Today's verses are Ephesians 5:21-24. (Subsequent verses are in grey for context).

Instructions for Christian Households

²¹ Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

²² Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. ²³ For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.

²⁴ Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her ²⁶ to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, ²⁷ and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

²⁸ In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹ After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— ³⁰ for we are members of his body.

³¹ “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” ³² This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.

³³ However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Encouragement

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

Philippians 2:3-4

​

Steve Pawley

God's word in your hand

John Piper's "Look at the Book" Youtube series goes deep on the individual words of a passage and their relationship to each other. I've included this video which uncovers much of the meaning of this passage.

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