25 October 2022
Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,
‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’
This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church.
From Ephesians 5: 21-33, NRSV
In many parts of the world, this has become a problematic passage – society has changed and the understanding of roles within marriage are very different from those of the first century AD. It is easy to miss the radical nature of what the writer is proposing here. First of all, the passage says, there should be mutual respect. Within this – and the expectations of the time – women should respect their husbands and men love their wives. This is not about a contract or a woman becoming a chattel of the man but an expression of something way beyond their life and love as a couple. In a way that cannot easily be explained – a mystery – the mutual, self-giving love of a man and woman in marriage is a way of understanding the relationship between Christ and the Church.
- How do you feel as you read this passage?
- What does it have to teach those who live in societies with different understandings of the roles of men and women?
Pray today for married couples – that their lives together may be blessed and give witness to the mutual love of Christ and the Church.
