Walking in Submission, Love and Respect

Abril Hbadagov;yamp5 Sirow yv #arcankow

(God's Magnificent Work through Christ)

Ephesians 5:21-33

Marriage is a school, a school of learning to love God and being united with each other as partners in life. Actually, it takes a lifetime to accomplish unity. There is no graduation in this school. No matter how old you are, there is always something new to learn. It is like the process of sanctification in our Christian spiritual life. Every day we learn, grow, and become closer to Christ through the work of Holy Spirit in our lives.

The definition of marriage is under attack in today’s society. It is a hot topic in our world. How about in the ancient Roman world? Here is how they perceived marriage according to Demosthenes from the 4^th century B.C.

“We have harlots for our pleasure, concubines for daily physical use, wives to bring up legitimate children and to be faithful stewards in household matters.”

We all find this kind of statement totally unacceptable. But let me tell you that our media generally views marriage as a problematic boring relationship. Fun? What fun? Fun seems to occur in new relationships out of marriage; let us call them affairs, if you please. That’s the way the world teaches us.

According to the Bible, marriage is founded by God. God made us man and woman. God created marriage, and God blessed it. (Read Genesis)

When Paul wrote about marriage, he compared the union of man and woman with union of Christ and His Church. This is a very important foundation for our topic today. We need to understand these verses based on this foundation; otherwise, we often misunderstand this passage.

Verse 21 is the link to this section. Last Sunday we were talking about Walking filled with Spirit of God. People who are filled with the Spirit can learn to submit to each other. As a church, we have the learn to submit to God, so God can shape our lives. How about submission in marriage?

The Role of the Woman in Marriage: (5:22-24; 33b)

“Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 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. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

…and the wife must respect her husband.”

These verses have often been misunderstood and misquoted. Men have misused these verses to dominate and dictate over women. Headship does not mean dictatorship; it means a servant-leader husband who should love and submit to his wife also, as we will see later. Headship does not mean that wives are less and not of equal value as husbands. Each person has a role in marriage and when are filled with Spirit, each learns the place of their role in this partnership. In Genesis, we read that God created the woman as a “helper”. That means something was missing in the man, so the woman was created to complete the picture. Together they represent unity, oneness, wholeness.

What is submission in the Christian understanding?

Let me put it this way. “Can I be a blessing for you? Can I think about you before myself? I am going to give up my rights to make sure that you can fulfill the calling and plan that God has for your life.”

Women, please be an encourager for your husbands. Men are doers. They like to archive things. They like to “build” things. Wives, you have a major role to respect the man that you married, to stand behind that man, to encourage and build him up. Be a “Barnabas” an encourager.

We will continue in English.