As we continue our journey through Ephesians we come to a passage that has been misunderstood, misused and abused over the years. It can be very easy to make the Bible say what you want it to say - sometimes this is deliberate, other times it is unintentional. [This is why we have been working through our 'Using the Bible' course - to help us understand and apply the Bible better].
Ephesians 5:22-24 have been used to justify various kinds of abuse against women: physical, emotional, spiritual, psychological... At other times they have been used to encourage an attitude of silence towards such abuses - whereas the verses we read last week could have been used to encourage the exposing of such sin. Instead the prevailing attitude was that what goes on in the home should stay in the home.
But a reading of these verses that allows any room for any kind of abuse against anyone is quite wrong. Although these verses talk about a woman submitting to her husband in everything because he is the head of the wife we must read the immediate and wider context.
The immediate context (building again on the 'theory' of chapters 1-3) is that we are to submit to one another. This is mutual submission. Everyone to everyone else - whether male or female, Jew or Gentile, black or white, slave or free, rich or poor, in work or out of work...
And the command to the husband is to love his wife with the love that Jesus had for the church - that is the love that took Jesus to the cross even while we were still enemies of God. This is a totally self-sacrificial love that will put the interests of a wife ahead of its own.
So what does it mean for the husband to be the head of the wife? I believe that we are submit to each other. We are commanded to love each other. But God has given the husband the responsibility for his family - and he will be accountable to God for this. Decisions generally will be made through discussion and agreement - but when a stalemate is reached the husband makes the final decision - having lovingly put the interests of his wife before his own. When there has been an argument and bed time is approaching it is the husband's responsibility to make the first move to put things right (as instructed in 4:26).
A final word to overbearing parents. Verse 31 reminds us that when your children get married they enter into a new relationship and a new chapter in their lives. It is not your place to interfere. Some parents just can't help themselves and without trying they come between their son/daughter and their new wife/husband. They expect that they'll be around every Sunday for lunch and every year on Christmas day - just as before. They expect to be consulted about every decision. When your children get married, you have to let go. This doesn't mean you don't love them or they don't love you or that you won't be there when they need you. It just means that things are different now - because they are.
