I hope you’ve picked up as we’ve gone through this letter over the last few weeks that Paul isn’t just giving us lessons in Godly behaviour. He isn’t just telling us how to live lives that will please God. Rather, he’s telling us how to live lives that’ll recommend the gospel to those around us. God wants us to show the world how great is his wisdom and glory.
So how can we do that? So far we’ve seen that we can learn to speak the truth in love. We can learn to put away falsehood, wrath, anger and malice. We can earn a living so we can give money away. We can tame our tongues so that everything we say is gracious, uplifting, life giving. We can live lives that are counter-cultural, in that they shun immorality, obscenity and greed. Instead we can seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit so that others are blessed by our presence among them. And today we discover how we can do our part in the context of our household and work settings.
Now there’s an issue here that might cause us some trouble. It’s to do with one of the words that we find here. That’s the word ‘head’. You see, in our world the head is most often the one we look to for instruction or leadership. So we have headmasters or occasionally headmistresses. We have heads of government. We have head office. “head” has to do with ruling over someone. As a result I think in the Christian world we’ve accepted, probably unthinkingly, that headship has to do with leadership and rule. But let’s have a quick look at how head is used in Ephesians.
In Eph 1:22-23 we read “22[God] has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” At first glance that sounds like Christ is our head in the sense of the one in charge. That’s true, except that God has made him head over all things for the church. Christ is over everything else for our sake. Why over everything else and not us? Because we’re his body, his fullness. We’re part of him. Now you need to hold that idea for the moment.
In 4:15-16 we get a better idea of what this idea of headship entails: “But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love.” Can you see how Christ as head has more to do with resourcing and enabling growth than it does with direction or instruction? Christ as head enables the body to do what it’s made for, to grow and build itself up as each part works properly. In fact the growth doesn’t even come from Christ; growth comes naturally as the body does its thing. That’s how a body works. You lift weights and your muscles grow. You train and your stamina increases. You use your mind and your thinking improves.
Again, hold on to that idea as we think about how to live in our household settings?
He begins by telling us to “21Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”
Submission is one of those things we don’t like in our modern, liberated world, isn’t it? But we need to realise that there’s no sense here that our submission to one another is out of inferiority; there’s no sense of subordination in what he’s saying. In fact you could argue that you can only submit yourself to another if you’re free to do so. That is, if in fact you’re an equal. If you’re not free, if you’re not acting as an equal, then it isn’t submission, it’s oppression.
Submission here means giving up the rights you have in order to serve others. This is an instruction for wives, for husbands, for parents, for children, for employers and employees. And it’s a very confronting, a very counter-cultural instruction in a culture where rights are so important.
But notice this is not an arbitrary rule. Rather, it’s an instruction to give up your rights for the greater good of God’s kingdom.
He begins by talking to wives. Now at this point I could suggest that husbands get out the news sheet and read the notices for a while, because this isn’t written to you. Your turn’ll come in a couple of minutes.
These instructions are for wives. He says “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.”
In case you hadn’t noticed this, the result of the fall is that men rule over women and women desire to have it the other way around. Rather than to love and to cherish, our inner desire is to dominate. Our natural inclination isn’t to submit to one another but to rule one another. So that makes it doubly difficult for us to deal with a verse like this. Wives find it hard because they don't want to submit to the rule of another. Husbands find it hard because it gives them a perfect excuse to exercise their sinful urge to dominate. But neither response is a Christian one.
Paul’s been telling us about how God has renewed us in his image through Jesus’ death and resurrection, and part of that renewing of us in the image of God is the ending of the contest between men and women. No longer are women to vie with men for supremacy. God wants women and men to work together in harmony the way he intended it in Genesis 2; i.e. to build one another up. In the marriage relationship this will mean women submitting to their husbands. For example that might mean letting your husband make the decisions from time to time. I know that’s a radical idea for some people. But as we’ll see in a moment, the result should be that wives are in turn helped to grow in their Christian maturity. As we’ll see in the next bit if the husband does his part correctly wives should be empowered to use all the gifts they have to the greatest degree so their partnership, their family, grows from strength to strength. If the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is head of the church then the wife will be enabled to use her gifts to both grow herself and to grow the church.
But that brings us to husbands. You can put the news sheet down now. This is your turn.
I want you to notice something important here. Husbands are not instructed here to be the leaders of the family. You’re not told to be the decision maker or the bread winner or the disciplinarian. Here’s what you’re told to do: “25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” I’ll give you a few seconds to take that in. You’re to love your wife by doing what Jesus did: by giving up your life for her. Now I’m sure everyone one of you would willingly step in front of a bullet to save your wife - if the situation ever arose. Fortunately though that sort of heroic action is not often required of us, is it? But then he isn’t talking about heroic action. He’s talking about everyday life. He’s talking about giving up our rights for the sake of our wife. He’s talking about doing all we can to nurture and care for her, to love her the way we love ourselves. It saddens me when I see men using a passage like this to put down their wives, to stop them from exercising the gifts that God has given them, to lessen their value in their own eyes and in the eyes of others in the church. I don’t see that as nourishing and tenderly caring for them at all.
But let’s think for a moment about what it means for the husband to be the head of the wife the way Christ is the head of the church. I’ve already commented that there’s no mention here of husbands making all the decisions (the big ones at least) or being the bread winner or the disciplinarian of the family. We’re just given this metaphor of a head. So what does it mean?
Think about what we just discovered about the role of the head. Is it to make decisions? No. Is it to lead the body on the right path? No. So what is it? It’s to be the unifying force within the body, the focus of the body’s life. Notice that the head doesn’t make the body grow. The body has been supplied with everything it needs for that already. It’s equipped with ligaments to tie it together, it has a variety of parts that all do their bit in building it up.
The role of the head is to help the various parts of the body work together to promote bodily growth for itself. What it does is to set the parts in the correct alignment. So the husband’s role in the family is to give up some of his own freedom in order free up the others to do the best they can to bring unity and harmony to the whole.
Which brings us to parents and children.
If children are to grow to maturity and contribute to the harmony and well-being of the family they need to learn to obey their parents. Notice that the instruction here is stronger than it was for husbands or wives. Children are not equals with parents. They’re to obey their parents in the Lord.
And notice that he gives two reasons why children need to obey their parents.
The first is simply that this is right. That is, it’s part of the natural order of the world. Children are not yet able to understand all there is to know about the world we live in and so they need to follow the instruction of their parents. It always worries me when I see parents who don’t seem to be able or even willing to discipline their children. Especially I get worried when I see parents who seem to be dependent on their children, looking for approval from their children. When I do, I feel like asking them who are the parents in that relationship? Who’s making the decisions, you or your kids? Your kids will have plenty of time to make their own decisions, and their own mistakes, once they’re grown up. In the meantime give them clear directions how to live their lives and don’t be swayed by their claim to be old enough to decide for themselves.
Second, he points out that this is God’s command and the first commandment with a promise. In other words the motivation that God gives for obedience on the part of children is a positive one. Obedience to parents will result in blessing for children just as obedience to God will result in blessing to adults. For children the parents stand in the place of God.
But having said that, notice the instruction to fathers to make sure they don’t go beyond the authority that God has given them. “do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” Be careful how you discipline your kids, what constraints you place on them, how you speak to them about what you’re telling them to do. If all you do is provoke them to anger you’ll just make it harder for both you and them. Rather make it clear that you’re seeking to raise them in a way that will help them live lives that are pleasing to God. [And as your children get older the way you deal with them has to change. You can’t treat a 15 year old the way you treat a 7 year old. You need to take into account their growing maturity. You need to spend more time explaining why you put boundaries on their behaviour. You need to care for them the way God cares for you.]
The model for our parenting is our heavenly father isn’t it? We need to treat our children the way our heavenly father treats us. Just as a husband is called to lay down his life for his wife, so parents are called to treat their children with the sort of love and patience and forgiveness that God shows us over and over and over again. [Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son is an important lesson for all parents to study.]
Finally slaves, or in our context, employees, are to work with enthusiasm, even when no-one is watching, as though they’re working for the Lord. And again he promises that God will reward those who work like that. Similarly masters are to treat their slaves, or their employees, as though they were fellow workers for Christ. Simply “do unto others what you would have them do to you.” If you want respect, show it to your employees. If you want to receive service, give it, just as Christ did. Don’t threaten. That is, they’re not to misuse the power they have over their servants - and in some cases that’s quite considerable. And remember that God, who shows no partiality, is watching. The reason that people in power get away with abuse of power is that too often there’s no impartial judge to check their actions. Abuse becomes OK if you’re on top. Dishonesty is OK if you get away with it. But Paul says there is an impartial judge, your Master in heaven, and he’s watching how you behave.
Before we finish I’d like you to notice that all this is dependent on each person doing their part. If any one of the parties fails to submit to the other the system will break down. But having said that remember that our model is still Jesus Christ who taught us to turn the other cheek, walk the extra mile and who when abused did not return abuse but entrusted himself to the one who judges. He gave himself up to death for us even when we were the ones who were going to kill him. The call to submit to one another is a call to take up our cross and follow Jesus. Remember submission means giving up the rights you have in order to serve others.
If we’re truly united with Christ then our basic approach to our relationships will be one of mutual submission, working together to do Christ’s work. For wives that means working together with a partner, not toiling for a master, nor acting as a rival. For a husband it will mean not dominating his wife but sacrificing himself in order to serve the one who is joined to him in a unity that reflects the unity between Christ and the Church. For the child it’ll mean obeying parents because God has placed them in families. For parents it’ll mean providing a loving environment where children will grow to independence loving and serving Christ. For employees it’ll mean serving our employers with enthusiasm and commitment, while for employers it’ll mean treating employees the way we’d like to be treated ourselves.
The key to all this is in vs 18 & 21: “Be filled with the Spirit” and “21Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Let’s pray that Christ’s Spirit living within us would help us to change so we can be more Christ-like.
