Message to Husbands and Wives

Ephesians 5:22-33
As head of the church, Jesus embodies and empowers a new community of love: the church, his own body. Here Paul applied Christ's headship to marriage. Christ reverses the enmity that often arises between spouses as a result of the fall Ge 3:16, restoring the original creative order in which husbands and wives complement each other. Paul's understnading of marriage was strongly grounded in creation ***1 Cor. 11:8-9; 1 Ti 2:13*, and he took account of the fall's lingering effects, even among Christians (1Tim 2:14). His burden in Ephesians was to flesh out the manner in which redemtotion in Christ restores the intimate interdependence men and women were created to enjoy in marriage. He called spouses to love one another but emphasized the husband's call to sacrifical love over that of the wife. He called both to respectful submission *Eph 5:21* But emphasized the wife's call to submission more strongly than the husband's. These different emphases have been interpreted in two main ways: 1) they reflect different problems among Paul readers (i.e. husbands have a greater responsibility to love than their wives, while wives have a greater responsibility to submit.) These two trends in interpretation need not to be exclusive to one another.
-Taken from a trustworthy commentary.

Ephesians 5:22-23
What does submit mean?

-To yield, resign or surrender to the power, will or authority of another; with the reciprocal pronoun
-The man is the Head? What does that mean?
-The head - The governor, guide, and guardian of the wife. And he is the Saviour of the body - The church, from all sin and misery.

Ephesians 24-25

-Jesus loved the church. Just to this extent, (jesus loving unconditionally; husbands should love their wives) Col 3:19
-Ephesians 5:26-28 Christ did this for the church.
In These verses Paul outlined the entire process to which Christ has committed himself in his relationship with the church; CHrist has washed her form the defilement of sin and is now preparing her for a glorious destiny with himself. Husbands are called like this to care for their wives.
-How can husbands do this for their wives? Here are some suggestions from Robert Morey in his Book called –Practical Christianity

While there are many ways in which a loving husband can help his wife, the following 30 points give some practical ideas of how to do it.
A husband should:
1. Pray with his wife every day without fail and make sure she has had her private devotions.
2. Praise his wife.
3. Ecourage his wife.
4. Lovingly exhort his wife. (exhort: to give strength, urge, or give advice)
5. Show love and affection toward his wife.
6. Encourage his wife to memorize Scripture, and he should also participate in it with her.
7. Listen with interest to his wife and be willing and able to discuss Scriptures studied in devotions.
8. Allow his wife to have a part in family devotions.
9. Be the supportive role in the family in helping where help is needed.
10.Discuss and decide plans and projects together.
11. Encourage his wife to get involved in church activities and seminars for women.
12. Help his wife to overcome self-centeredness, selfishness, etc.
13. Take the primary role of disciplining the children.
14. Take the leadership in a family night.
15. Pray for each person by name in his family for protection, etc.
16. Set a good atmosphere for his family, such as playing Christian music, tapes, reading books, etc.
17. Walk in the spirit and live unto the Lord, not unto his wife or himself.
18. Find a special Scripture verse daily to give to his wife to meditate on during the day.
19. Set aside a weekly time to sit down and focus on his wife's spiritual growth.
20. Place spiritual verses around the home that could encourage his wife during the day as she labors at home or in her lunch box if she must go out to work.
21. Accept his wife's abilities and talents and accept her as she is and be supportive of her efforts.
22. Remind the wife periodically about her time during the week for her personal ministry of witnessing and sharing with others.
23. Initiate times of singing when riding in the car, working around the home, etc.
24. Help his wife out at home to give her time during the week for her personal ministry of witnessing and sharing with others.
25. Pray for his wife daily and let her know that he prays for her regularly.
26. Be sensitive to his wife's spirit (encouragement and discouragement).
27. Support his wife in her dealing with the children.
28. Encourage his wife to be faithful in church attendance.
29. Have open communication with his wife and listen to her.
30. Lovingly point out his wife's weaknesses and humbly help her deal with them.


-How can wives do this for their husbands?
A wife should:
1. Support his decisions and not listen to the children's complaints, but encourage them to obey their father.
2. Remind him to have family devotions.
3. Help her husband memorize Scripture.
4. Do all within her power to get her husband to come to church regularly.
5. Play Christian music when the husband comes home form work to quiet his Spirit.
6. Place a Scripture verse in her husband's lunch.
7. Refer to the Bible for solving problems and present these to her husband.
8. Place biblical pictures or verses on the walls in the home as a means of creating a godly atmosphere in the home.
9. Make wise suggestions for prayer or devotions.
10. Encourage her husband to be involved in discipleship programs.
11. Share with her husband the Scriptures that blessed her that day.
12. Pray for her husband and let him know she prays for him regularly.
13. Pray with her husband every day.
14. Lead a godly life before her husband.
15. Encourage her husband to attend spiritual retreats or seminars for men.
16. Have special times of worship and thanksgiving to God with her husband on special occasions of the year (such as birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, etc.)
17. Ecourage her husband to have his private devotions
18. Find Scriptural ways to come to her husband with problems
19. Search out the Scriptures and find some way to help her husband if he comes home with gripes about his job.
20. Have a good attitude toward her husband.
21. Not nag her husband.
22. Trust in her husband's judgment and leadership.
23. Be enthusiastic about building Scripture into the life of her family.
24. Be eager to have family worship and be willing to stop whatever she is doing in order to do so.
25. Be honest about her needs.
26.Share her husband's vision and support it.
27. Encourage her husband to get involved in the church leadership programs.
28. Be supportive of "family nights."
29. Lovingly point out her husband's weaknesses and humbly help him to grow in grace.
30. Be the key to her husband's enthusiasm.

Just reading these makes me want to get married so badly, I can't wait for a Husband who would treat me as Robert has suggested. Praise God.

28-32
AS their own bodies... Christ and the Church. Paul called for husbands to love their wives as their own bodies because he understood that the "one flesh" of Genesis 2:24 prefigured Christ's becoming "united to his wife" (v. 31) , the church. Husbands are to imitate Christ, who intimately united the church to himself, covenantlly bound his own identity to hers and bestowed upon her pride in her place alongside himself "in the heavenly realms" 2:6.

Eph 5:29 Nourishes and Cherishes

-Husbands are to clothe and feed their wife, just the same as they feed and clothe themselves. For his wife’s body is now his own.
-5:31=Gen 2:24,
-By mystery, here, we may understand a natural thing by which some spiritual matter is signified, which signification the Spirit of God alone can give. So, here, the creation and union of Adam and Eve, were intended, in the design of God, to point out the union of Christ and the Church: a union the most important that can be conceived; and therefore the apostle calls it a great mystery.


-Eph 5:33
-Nevertheless - Πλην· Moreover, or therefore, on the consideration of God’s design in the institution of marriage, let every one of you love his wife as himself, because she is both naturally and by a Divine ordinance a part of himself.
-That she reverence her husband - Let the wife ever consider the husband as her head, and this he is, not only by nature, but also by the ordinance of God. The apostle streeses these matters very much, because they are very important.

Thanks for reading.
If any of you have more to say on marriage *because this was only mainly from Ephesians. Feel free to type up a blog about it for me to read... or leave me a comment.