MODERN FAMILY GOD’S WAY 4 - HUSBANDS
Text: Ephesians 5:22-33
1. One of the great passages on Marriage and the role of the husband is Ephesians 5:22 – 33.
2. The wisdom of God shared in this passage was like nothing ever conceived by men and women before it was delivered by God.
3. No one reading this passage in the twentieth century can fully realize how great it is.
4. Throughout the years the Christian view of marriage has come to be widely accepted. It still is recognized as the ideal by the majority even in these permissive days. Even where practice has fallen short of that ideal, it has always been in the minds and hearts of men who live in a Christian situation. Marriage is regarded as the perfect union of body, mind and spirit between a man and a woman. But things were very different when Paul wrote. In this passage Paul is setting forth an ideal which shone with a radiant purity in an immoral world.
Discussion:
I. Let us look briefly at the situation against which Paul wrote this passage.
A. The Jews had a low view of women.
1. n his morning prayer there was a sentence in which a Jewish man gave thanks that God had not made him "a Gentile, a slave or a woman."
2. In Jewish law a woman was not a person, but a thing. She had no legal rights whatsoever; she was absolutely her husband's possession to do with as he willed.
3. In theory the Jew had the highest ideal of marriage. The Rabbis had their sayings. "Every Jew must surrender his life rather than commit idolatry, murder or adultery." "The very altar sheds tears when a man divorces the wife of his youth."
4. But the fact was that by Paul's day, divorce had become tragically easy.
5. The law of divorce is summarized in
Deuteronomy 24:1 1 “When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house,
6. Deut 24:1. "When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favour
7. Obviously everything turns on the interpretation of some indecency.
8. The stricter Rabbis, headed by the famous Shammai, held that the phrase meant adultery and adultery alone, and declared that even if a wife was as mischievous as Jezebel a husband might not divorce her except for adultery.
9. The more liberal Rabbis, headed by the equally famous Hillel, interpreted the phrase in the widest possible way. They said that it meant that a man might divorce his wife if she spoiled his dinner by putting too much salt in his food, if she walked in public with her head uncovered, if she talked with men in the streets, if she spoke disrespectfully of her husband's parents in her husband's hearing, if she was a brawling woman, if she was troublesome or quarrelsome. A certain Rabbi Akiba interpreted the phrase if she finds no favour in his eyes to mean that a husband might divorce his wife if he found a woman whom he considered more attractive. It is easy to see which school of thought would predominate.
10. Two facts in Jewish law made the matter worse. First, the wife had no rights of divorce at all, unless her husband became a leper or an apostate or engaged in a disgusting trade. Broadly speaking, a husband, under Jewish law, could divorce his wife for any cause; a wife could divorce her husband for no cause.
11. Second, the process of divorce was disastrously easy. The Mosaic law said that a man who wished a divorce had to hand his wife a bill of divorcement which said, "Let this be from me thy writ of divorce and letter of dismissal and deed of liberation, that thou mayest marry whatsoever man thou wilt." All a man had to do was to hand that bill of divorcement, correctly written out by a Rabbi, to his wife in the presence of two witnesses and the divorce was complete. The only other condition was that the woman's dowry must be returned.
12. At the time of Christ's coming the marriage bond was in peril even among the Jews, so much so that the very institution of marriage was threatened since Jewish girls were refusing to marry because their position as wife was so uncertain.
B. The Greek respectable woman was brought up in such a way that companionship and fellowship in marriage was impossible.
1. Socrates said:
"Is there anyone to whom you entrust more serious matters than to your wife--and is there anyone to whom you talk less?"
2. Verus was the imperial colleague of Marcus Aurelius. He was blamed by his wife for associating with other women, and his answer was that she must remember that the name of wife was a title of dignity but not of pleasure.
3. The Greek expected his wife to run his home, to care for his legitimate children, but he found his pleasure and his companionship elsewhere.
4. To make matters worse, there was no legal procedure of divorce in Greece. As someone has put it, divorce was by nothing else than caprice. The one security that the wife had was that her dowry must be returned. Home and family life were near to being extinct and fidelity was completely nonexistent.
C. In Rome the matter was still worse; its degeneracy was tragic.
1. For the first five hundred years of the Roman Republic there had been not one single case of divorce.
2. The first recorded divorce was in 234 B.C.
3. But at the time of Paul, Roman family life was wrecked.
4. Seneca writes that women were married to be divorced and divorced to be married. I
5. n Rome the Romans did not commonly date their years by numbers; they called them by the names of the consuls; Seneca says that women dated the years by the names of their husbands.
6. Martial tells of a woman who had had ten husbands
7. Juvenal tells of one who had had eight husbands in five years
8. Jerome declares it to be true that in Rome there was a woman who was married to her twenty-third husband and she herself was his twenty-first wife.
9. Cicero, in his old age, putting away his wife Terentia that he might marry a young heiress, whose trustee he was, that he might enter into her estate in order to pay his debts.
D. It is against this background that Paul writes. When he wrote this lovely passage he was not stating the view that every man held. He was calling men and women to a new purity and a new fellowship in the married life. It is impossible to exaggerate the cleansing effect that Christianity had on home life in the ancient world and the benefits it brought to women.
II. The Text
A. Sometimes the emphasis of this passage is entirely misplaced; and it is read as if its essence was the subordination of wife to husband. The single phrase, "The husband is the head of the wife," is quoted in isolation. B
B. ut the basis of the passage is not control; it is love. Paul says certain things about the love that a husband must bear his wife.
III. It must be a sacrificial love.
A. He must love her as Christ loved the Church and gave himself for the Church.
B. It must never be a selfish love. Christ loved the Church, not that the Church might do things for him, but that he might do things for the Church.
C. Do you want your wife to respect you as the church does Christ? Do you care for her as Christ loved and cared for the church? Would you allow your back to be flayed by the scourge, your hands and feet pierced by the nails? This is the kind of love that brings the church to his feet. It’s not by threats or fear but by love and faithful service He draws us. And that is the attitude that draws a woman to submit to a husband.
D. The husband is head of the wife--true, Paul said that; but he also said that the husband must love the wife as Christ loved the Church, with a love which never exercises a tyranny of control but which is ready to make any sacrifice for her good.
IV. It must be a purifying love.
A. Christ cleansed and consecrated the Church by the washing of water on the day when each member of the Church took his confession of faith. It may well be that Paul has in mind a Greek custom. One of the Greek marriage customs was that before the bride was taken to her marriage she was bathed in the water of a stream sacred to some god or goddess. In Athens, for instance, the bride was bathed in the waters of the Callirhoe, which was sacred to the goddess Athene. It is of baptism that Paul is thinking. By the washing of baptism and by the confession of faith, Christ sought to make for himself a Church, cleansed and consecrated, until there was neither soiling spot nor disfiguring wrinkle upon it. Any love which drags a person down is false. Any love which coarsens instead of refining the character, which necessitates deceit, which weakens the moral fibre, is not love. Real love is the great purifier of life.
V. It must be a caring love.
A. A man must love his wife as he loves his own body.
Real love loves not to extract service, nor to ensure that its own physical comfort is attended to, it cherishes the one it loves. There is something far wrong when a man regards his wife, consciously or unconsciously, as simply the one who cooks his meals and washes his clothes and cleans his house and trains his children.
VI. It is an unbreakable love.
A. For the sake of this love a man leaves father and mother and cleaves to his wife. They become one flesh. He is as united to her as the members of the body are united to each other; and would no more think of separating from her than of tearing his own body apart. Here indeed was an ideal in an age when men and women changed partners with as little thought as they changed clothes.
Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT).
VII. Checklist
The following questions are designed to help men check up on ourselves as heads of families. Read each one of them carefully, and answer honestly.
1. Do I act in accord with the biblical precept that I am head of my family without giving the appearance of being an insecure tyrant?
2. Do I make it easy for my wife to believe that I love her more than any other human being?
3. Do I support and encourage my wife so that she can develop to her fullest as a wife, a mother, and a Christian?
4. Do I greet my family lovingly and eagerly when I come in from work?
5. Do I show sincere interest in the day she has had?
6. Do I give her the adult companionship and conversation she needs?
7. Do I appreciate the dignity and worth of my wife as a woman and communicate that appreciation to her?
8. Am I able to keep from poking fun at or embarrassing my wife before other people?
9. Do our children see how much I love their mother?
10. Am I the provider I ought to be for my family?
11. Do I tend to my husbandly chores around the house with a willing and cheerful spirit?
12. Do I see to it that my wife has time to relax and see her favorite TV shows or enjoy her hobbies?
13. Do I take my wife out regularly?-
14. Am I courteous to her in private as well as in public?
15. Do I help my wife to grow in spiritual things?
16. Do I compliment my wife and let her know how much I appreciate all she does for me and our children?
17. Do I contribute to a home atmosphere which promotes a sense of security and well-being for our children?
18. Am I conscious to make religion a meaningful part of our family life and not merely a church-building event?
19. Do I play with my children and let them see that I really enjoy being with them?
20. Do I look my children in the eye and really listen to what they say when they try to talk with me?
21. Am I careful not to fuss at the children for little things?
22. Do I correct and teach my children when they displease me or merely criticize and humiliate them?
23. Do I praise my children often for the good things I see in them?
24. Do my children see and hear what they should when I am present in the home?
25. Am I the kind of father my children can be proud of?
The "right" answer to each of these qustions is a Yes-response. For each No you must give, there is identified an area of your family responsibility which needs prayer and conscious effort toward a change.
Application:
If Only I Had Known
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle lived from 1795 until 1881. He was a Scot essayist and historian. During his lifetime he became one of the world's greatest writers.
On October 17, 1826, Carlyle married his secretary Jane Welsh. They had their quarrels and misunderstandings, but still loved each other dearly.
After their marriage, Jane continued to serve as his secretary. But, after several years of marriage, Jane became ill. Being a hard worker, Carlyle became so absorbed in his writings that he let Jane continue working for several weeks after she became ill. She had cancer, and though it was one of the slow growing kind, she finally became confined to her bed. Although Carlyle loved her dearly, he very seldom found time to stay with her long. He was busy with his work.
When Jane died they carried her to the cemetery for the service. The day was a miserable day. It was raining hard and the mud was deep. Following the funeral Carlyle went back to his home. He went up the stairs to Jane's room and sat down in the chair next to her bed. Noticing her diary on a table beside the bed, he picked it up and began to read it. Suddenly he seemed shocked. He saw it. There, on one page, she had written a single line. "Yesterday he spent an hour with me and it was like heaven; I love him so."
Something dawned on him that he had not noticed before. He had been too busy to notice that he meant so much to her. He thought of all the times he had gone about his work without thinking about and noticing her. Then Carlyle turned the page in the diary. There he noticed she had written some words that broke his heart. "I have listened all day to hear his steps in the hall, but now it is late and I guess he won't come today."
Carlyle read a little more in the book. Then he threw it down and ran out of the house. Some of his friends found him at the grave, his face buried in the mud. His eyes were red from weeping. His eyes rimmed with red, his tears adding to the to the rain’s downpour
He kept repeating over and over again, "If I had only known, if I had only known." But it was too late for Carlyle. She was dead.
After Jane's death, Carlyle made little attempt to write again. The historians say he lived another 15 years, "weary, bored and a partial recluse."
