Pastor Barry's  "Chapter & Verse"  Day 117

April 27;   Ephesians 5:25;   173/260(I);   ‘Marriage in a Verse’

Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her,

All too often married couples look everywhere except to the Bible to help them have a strong marriage.  In these times we live in, those who are not Christians, take verses from Ephesians 5 out of context and wrongly believe the Lord is trying to make the wife subservient to her husband.  Let me, in this short commentary, try to help you see what the Lord is saying.  First of all God created men and women equal.  However they are different and have different needs. Ephesians 5:22 is the verse most misunderstood, “Wives submit to your own husband as to the Lord.”  ‘Submit’ means to adapt.  A woman, when she becomes a Christian, must adapt herself to the Lord, changing her lifestyle in many ways.  It is the same with her husband.  He is different than she is in many ways and she musts adapt herself to him as they share their life together.  In the same way the husband must adapt himself to his wife. Verse 21 exhorts both the husband and the wife to submit, adapt to each other.  Verse 25 commands the husband to love his wife as Jesus loves His Church.  Jesus’ love for His Church is sacrificial.  Husbands, you are commanded to prefer your wife to yourself, putting her needs before yours and loving her in such a way that she sees and knows you love her in this special, Christlike sacrificial way.  Verse 33 sums it up.  A wife more than anything wants her husband to love her with the love of Jesus and a husband wants the respect of his wife.  In a few verses the Lord gives us a spiritual ‘recipe’ for a strong marriage.  God’s Word never changes.  If couples do the Word the will be blessed.