Ephesians 6:2-3 - Mr. Spock's dream come true

"Be honoring the father of you and the mother (which is first command with a promise), in order that it should come to be well to you and you will be long-lived upon the earth."

-Honor your father and mother.  Both of them.  They are partners in raising the children, in raising them up in the instruction and fear of the Lord.  But, ‘honor’.  What does it look like to honor your parents?  We honor the Father and the Son, we honor the king, we honor widows.  It means to value as precious and costly, to attach weight or value to something.  We pay attention to and esteem it highly because of its worth and prestige.  And of course there are those things - widows, parents - which may require a concerted effort on our part.  Because let’s be honest, in our flesh, when we are younger we are tempted see parents as a nuisance, cosmic killjoys, uncool.  As we get older and get on with our lives they can become an afterthought, still a nuisance, increasingly flawed, eventually breaking down as death encroaches.  But not so, says Paul.  As children, we obey our parents.  We attach weight to their words, we listen to them and do what they say - this finds favor with God.  This is how He designed it.  Children must learn to follow and love the Lord from their parents.  But as adults we still are to honor them.  We still listen to them.  They still have incredible value and worth.  And we care for them (cf Matthew 15.4-8, Leviticus 19.3, Deuteronomy 27.16, Ezekiel 22.7, Proverbs 19.26, Proverbs 23.22, Proverbs 30.17).  We see the contrast painted - honor, value, esteem, and curse, despise (Leviticus 20.9, Exodus 21.17, Proverbs 20.20, Proverbs 30.11).  Remember we have been looking at God’s design for marriage and family, and how the fall has adversely affected that.  Part of the curse is that we curse our parents.  We disobey them when we are younger (emerging from the womb thus inclined as surely as sparks fly upward), and we increasingly dismiss and disrespect them as we grow into adolescence and adulthood.

-And yet the promise stands, ...in order that you may have a good and long life.  Mr Spock’s dream come true, this.  You want to live long and prosper, in other words?  Here you go.  The verse here is actually is the second version of this, the 5th commandment.  The initial version found in Exodus 20.12 (the Mount Sinai version) does not mention life going well, only life lived long.  And I suppose that a long-yet-unpleasant life is nothing to which one would normally aspire.  But then when Moses repeats it some 40 yrs later in Deuteronomy 5.16 (the across-the-Jordan version), he adds the part about a good life, about ‘it’ going well with you.  There we find this second phrase used at the end of Moses’ recounting of their journeys and expounding of the Law which constitute the first four chapters of Deuteronomy (4.40).  Moses then repeats the phrase (that ‘it’ may go well with you) 8 more times in that book.  The context is 40 years after the people failed to trust God and did NOT do what He asked, and it did NOT go well for them, wandering in the wilderness the way they subsequently had to do.  Now Moses is addressing God’s people who are in a season where that entire older generation (of first-hand eye-witnesses) has died, and the Word and works of God will be passed down to a generation which was not there to see or hear it.  These youngers must pay close attention to their parents, learn those lessons and teachings and learn to trust and follow the Lord.  From their parents.  So that it may in fact go well for them and that they may live longer.  Generally speaking,  

-And ‘it’ is everything - survival, relationships, overall peace and well-being - all that pertains to life as God intended.  Note however that ours is no guarantee of prosperity nor of perfect health.  The only guarantee this side of heaven, with all the attendant brokenness of life, is death.  But joy is on the menu, ours for the taking.  Joy is guaranteed conditionally IF you follow this command.  And it is joy which enables my soul to declare, it is well.  It is well, come what may.  That it may go well with you?  Joy is what you want.  Tired?  Sick?  Stressed?  Bothered?  Hurt?  Angry?  Unhappy?  Dissatisfied?  Joy is what you want.  And so start here: obey and honor your parents - that sets you on the right path.

Ephesians 6:1 - A Divine Slice of Heavenly Goodness

"The children, you be obeying the parents of you [in Lord].  For this is right.’

-Yes, children are included in these instructions from Paul, because they are included in the family (generally speaking they are precisely what God had in mind with that whole be-fruitful-and-multiply thing - Genesis 1.28, 9.1, 9.7).  Offspring.  Progeny.  They are entrusted to the parents, a divine slice of heavenly goodness, God's richest blessing in a soft, squirmy, crying mass of flesh that grows up all too quickly.  Born for trouble as sparks fly upward (Job 5.7), children must be taught to obey, and thus they are to obey their parents, their begeting-ones, these ones who bring them into being and who are tasked with teaching their children not only right from wrong but also to choose what is right (Deuteronomy 4.9-10, 6.7, 11.19 - more on this in verse 4).  Obey literally means ‘to listen under’.  In other words, the words go into the ears and register in the brain such that the wills are engaged to rank under the emanator, to submit to and comply with their words, to carry out whatever instructions or requests or commands were conveyed to them, in this case by their parents.  This is the first relationship, the most fundamental, the first line of authority for every child and that which lays the foundation for life and for every other relationship.  The child who fails learn to submit to the authority of their parents will most likely fail at life - growing up to be disrespectful and rebellious and self-serving in other relationships.  They will turn out like an unkempt, unpruned bush, an eyesore - wild, unsightly, coming up short of their God-given splendor.  So children, pay attention!  Listen to and do what your parents say.  Obey them because it’s a good idea certainly (next two verses), but also because this is right, it’s the right thing to do.  It is clearly how God wants it.  

-Paul doesn’t download this thought-train anywhere else in his writings.  What he has in mind is a passage from the torah, one of the ten commandments, one which we will unpack in the next two verses, but suffice it to say, he is not merely pulling some instruction out of left field.  He is not making this up.  This notion of obeying your parents is grounded in one of the most fundamental teachings of the mosaic covenant.  There is ancient wisdom in this teaching, and not only that, we are talking about God’s great plan and purpose for creation - men and women everywhere who are celebrating and spreading the knowledge of God’s breathtaking goodness because they have learned to do so from their parents, God’s blessings and ultimately His glory being spread throughout the world by families who know and fear and love Him.

Ephesians 5:33 - A Thus, a Phobia, and the Rocky Shores of Cape Self

"Nevertheless, you also, the [ones] according to [the] individual, each their own woman thus be loving as himself, but the woman in order that she may be fearing the man.’

-Even tho the union between Christ and His church is somewhat difficult to understand, that between a man and a woman is rather straightforward, so Paul restates and summarizes his main two points here.

-The man is to thus love his wife as himself.  It is a relatively easy task to love oneself.  But to show the same kind of care and preferential treatment to another human being?  The key word here is 'thus'.  Thus, as in the way Christ loved and continues to love and will always love us.  He humbled Himself, made it all not about Him, and took the nails, dying to self, serving His bride till His very last breath.  And then He rose up out of the grave to continue to do the very same thing.  THUS is the man to love his wife.  Rise up out of that chair, off of that couch, away from that screen.  Love and cherish and nourish her.  Unconditionally.  Everlastingly.  Amazingly.  Without strings or pre-conditions, without tiring, without end.  Husband-love is not merely get the woman to the altar, wed her and bed her and then just go to work all day to provide her with a certain standard of living.  It is giving away yourself, all that you are, giving all that you have to nourish and cherish and protect your wife, every day of every year until death do you part.  Whether or not she deserves it.  Yes, it is humanly impossible.  Yes, you and I and all God's married-male-people are gonna fall short of that again and again.  But that’s no excuse, husband.  Man up and look to the Savior, the One Who lives inside you and is at the ready to supply all the power you and I need to love with His love.

-And the woman, the woman is actually to fear her husband.  I know that is not ‘PC’, that is not what women and even many men want to hear, but that is the verb in the Greek - phobeo, where we get our English word, phobia.  The verb appears 96 times in the NT, and always, every single time it is rendered fear, afraid, terrify, frighten, put to flight.  Every single instance but one - this verse, where the translators decided they needed to translate phobeo as ‘respect’.  Linguists actually do create a secondary meaning for this verb, classifying it to mean to revere, venerate, treat with utmost deference and reverential obedience.  This is precisely how people are to relate to the God of heaven.  But you relate to a god or a king or a master with circumspect and reverential fear not merely because you are supposed to or because they deserve that but also because they can take you out.  There is fear in that mix.  You may be convinced of their love for you, that they care about you and would never do anything to harm or unjustly punish you, thus you have the whole love-casting-out-fear thing, but the fact remains by virtue of their position and/or power, they should instill fear in you at a certain level.  And yet we have the translators carving out a diluted lower level of reverence for how the wives should relate to their husbands.  Mere respect.  A "feeling of admiration".  Regard for the man’s feelings or wishes.  Realizing that they are important and should be treated in an appropriate way.  But it is not quite the same as fear or reverence.  Even the word ‘revere’ comes from the Latin and is an intensified form of ‘to fear’.  This dumbing down of this word by the translators, is this a nod to modern-day cultural pressure?  Is it because the wives are unable to fear/reverence their husbands, or because they somehow don’t have to?  Because I don’t see a separate dumbed-down level for how husbands should love their wives.  Yes, it is impossible, but that in no way lowers the bar.  Now obviously the fear in this case does not derive from a position of supreme power or ownership of the man over the woman.  The fear and reverence in this case is ultimately of the Lord Himself.  It derives from the opportunity given to the woman to display how the church should relate to Christ.  It is not at all about the man or what he does or whether or not he has earned the right to be deeply and fearfully respected.  Wives, you must consider well how to relate to your husband with reverence, with fear, as to Christ...!

-I'm afraid what we have, however, in too many a home is would-be wedded bliss being dashed by a vicious unending cycle of un-selfless tired husbands being un-reverenced and disrespected by their wives.  So he sacrifices less and less and she respects less and less and the cycle continues unbroken, marriages breaking apart on the rocky shores of Cape Self.  That's where the problem begins, when you bring two imperfect instinctively-selfish people into such close proximity to one another.  And on top of that, life is hard.  There are no guarantees.  Wealth is certainly no guarantee.  For-better-or-worse can (and eventually does) take a turn for the worse.  Health invariably becomes sickness.  But the stakes are high, as high as the heavens above, and the world is dying for a glimpse of something (and Someone) better.  Take a good long hard look at how you fit (or don't) into this verse, and then take a better longer harder look at Jesus and ask Him, beg Him, trust Him to transform your marriage, the way you live and relate to the spouse HE GAVE YOU, into a clearer picture of His design for how Biblical marriage between a man and a woman can and should show off the glorious relationship between Him and His bride, the Church.

Ephesians 5:32 - Lather, rinse, repeat, gag...

"This mystery is great.  But I myself am speaking unto Christ and unto the assembly.’

-Paul acknowledges that the way in which Christ and the body of believers become one flesh is difficult to understand, much less explain - a great mystery.  That the union between a man and a woman is magical, more than merely a temporary physical act is intuitively obvious, but how are we to understand the nature of this mystical union between Christ and the church?  Well, since it is a great mystery, that clearly presents some difficulty.  But a few thoughts for your consideration...

-This union is certainly eternal.  The convenant of human marriage is in force only while the couple lives, death being one thing (the only thing?) which for all intensive purposes would appear to potentially nullify the marital union (cf Matthew 22.30, Romans 7.3).  Indeed, it is the only divinely-appointed out.  But in Christ, death has been defeated.  To be absent from the body is truly to be present with the Lord.  Death does nothing to do away with the new covenant, thus there is nothing which can nullify the union.  There is no out, nothing - not even death - can ever separate us from Christ and His love (Romans 8.38-39)!

-There is also divine communion, a glorious intimacy to be found in a relationship with Christ, something which truly suprasses knowledge (Ephesians 3.19) and which surely transcends (and sadly eludes) the experience of your average pew-sitter.  Go to a meeting, sit, stand, hear a message, hear a prayer, put a little money in a plate, sing a song, shake a hand, go home, do it again a week later.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  A little dab’ll do ya.  Out of sight, out of mind, ad nauseum, a lukewarm devotion which actually is nauseating (Revelation 3.16).  But no, Christ is better.  He is so much better than this!  Paul knew this very well (Philippians 1.23, 3.8), as did the other heroes of the faith who now cheer us on to glory (Hebrews 12.1-2).  There is joy unspeakable, glories divine, pleasures forever to be found in Him (1Peter 3.18, Psalm 16.11).  Yet for too many, we neither know this to be true (not in our experience at least), nor do we even know how to find it were we to even be aware of its existence.  And so much of the miss here is rather unintended.  We are blissfully content making mudpies in the slum because we have no notion that there is a beach, much less how to find it.  Fixing our eyes on Jesus!  In the words of Count Zinzendorf, it is He, it is He, it is He...!

Ephesians 5:31 - A many-splendored thing

"For this a man will leave father and mother and he will be joined to his woman, and the two will be unto one flesh."

-They will become one flesh.  They.  Will be.  One flesh.  Actually, the man will be joined - BY GOD - to the woman, and God will make the two into one.  Let us not dillute the power of this truth nor the significance of its meaning.  One life, one heart, one body even, a divine and mystical union with an obvious physical element - yet deep and ancient spiritual truth as old as creation itself.  This unity, this divine oneness then becomes critical to strength and health and growth of the family, which of course is the basic building block of society.  To be sure, the procreative act (where the physical joining is anatomically obvious) is quite impossible apart from the specific coming together of the seed of the man and the woman, but more than this the man and the woman do indeed come together to complete one another in a very holistic way.  There is a higher purpose to their union than just convenient (and the ONLY) safe sex and companionship.  They are designed to complement each other.  They work together to manage and provide for the household and to train up any children God may bring along.  Together they are enabled to pursue and uniquely display the breathtaking goodness of almighty God in a way not achievable in isolation.  It is not good for the man to be alone, is it (Genesis 2.18)?  Two are better than one, are they not (Ecclesiastes 4.9)?  God knew what He was doing when He designed marriage - His ways are always best.   

-Sigh.  Much devalued and diluted and disrepected in our day, this.  Sadly, the beautiful majesty of marriage is rarely manifested, rarely ascending to the divine glories for which it was designed.  What we see so often today is a poor caricature, having been badly marred by generations of neglect, abuse and misuse, unfaithfulness, and divorce, not to mention degraded as men with men and women with women try to make themselves one (cf Romans 1.26-27).  When you remove the Designer from the mix, you get something which increasingly fails to follow the design.  And so now that whole let-no-man-separate-till-death-do-you-part part is all-too-optional (cf Matthew 19.6).  Forsaking all others, to love and honor and cherish and respect, for better or worse - that all sounds dreamy until it one day gets worse and I get a seemingly better offer.  Truth is, this lifelong covenant really takes not just two people but three, that third being the One Who set the whole thing up and Who brings the two together in first place.  A tall order it is indeed for two broken people to navigate the minefields of life together for a lifetime.  Forgiving each other.  Believing the best.  Long-suffering.  Bearing with one another and bearing each other’s burdens.  Loving and giving and serving unconditionally.  Honesty and trust and respect.  Open communication and sharing interests.  These things which contribute to a healthy lasting relationship are all Divinely-sourced.  Absent His power and guidance and divine provision - into which my spouse and I must tap daily - this whole one-flesh thing becomes an iffy proposition, progressively so in a culture which increasingly rejects God and what He wants.  But with His help, with God in the mix, love can blossom in full flower, it can truly become all it was designed to be, a many-splendored thing...!

Ephesians 5:29-30 - On cherishing what you cherish...

"For no one ever hated his own body, but rather he is nourishing and cherishing it, just as also Christ [nourishes and cherishes] the assembly, because members we are of His body.’

-To hate your body would be to harm or otherwise neglect it.  But no one of sound mind ever intentionally does anything to hurt their body.  Our body is our life, the vessel in which we journey through life and interact with the world around us.  No, Paul says, instead, we nourish and cherish our bodies, every last one of us.  To nourish is to do what you can and must in order to help something grow and develop and reach its full potential.  Parents do that (or good ones do at least) with their children (cf Ephesians 6.4), and of course people (most of them anyways) do that with their bodies.  I feed my body, I exercise my body, I clothe my body, I keep it warm in the winter and cool in the summer, I keep it hydrated, I give it medicine or take it to the doctor when it is sick.  I give it rest and sleep when it is tired, I give it entertainment and recreation to keep it happy - I do all these things for my body because as it goes, so do I.  And because I really do cherish my body.  I cherish it, don’t I?  This is particularly what a nursing mother does with her little children, protecting and caring for them lovingly, holding them dear and keeping them warm and fed and safe.  It is both a feeling and an action.  When I feel a fond affection for something (or someone), I tenderly take care of it.  I cherish (care FOR) what I cherish (care ABOUT).  We all care about our bodies, don’t we?  That’s why we care for them.

-Similarly, Christ cherishes, He cares for the church, the assembly of believers He has called and gathered out of the world.  He cares about them, and thus He cares for them, for us.  He loves us, and shows us His love every day as He has been doing since the day He burst out of that borrowed tomb, since that day He went to and endured that cruel roman Cross, since He humbled Himself and left His Father’s throne in heaven and was born in that humble stable in Bethlehem, since He created the universe and long before that when He foreknew us in eternity.  He protects His bride, keeps her and leads and guides her and washes and feeds her, giving her rest and shelter, all that she requires, just as He would His own body, because in fact that is what we are.  Somehow, in a spiritual way which we can only really see by faith, we are body parts, members of His body.  We learn about this only in the pages of Scripture (cf 1Corinthians 6.15, 1Corinthians 12.27).  When He cares for us - and in truth He cannot not care for those who are His - it is as if He is taking care of His own body.

-By extension then, husbands have been similarly positioned within the covenant of Biblical marriage to be protecting and keeping and leading and guiding and washing and feeding and sheltering and providing for and nourishing their wives.  Not because she can't do much of this for herself - no, it is to convey a picture of what Christ does for the church and to cherish her as the beautiful treasure that she is.  Just like Christ does for His bride, His body.  Just like husbands do for their own bodies.  Because in essence, having been joined to our wife (by almighty God Himself!) and having become one flesh with her, she is in a metaphysical sense my own flesh and blood, my own body.  Next verse...!

Ephesians 5:28 - On Body Building...

"Thus they are obligated also [the men] to be loving their own women as their own bodies.  The [one] loving his own woman is loving himself.’

-The things which I can do to love and serve my wife and to help her make progress towards greater holiness, these I certainly ought to do because I do love her, but if for no other reason I can at least do them because I care about how I look.  Why would any sane clear-thinking man want to engage in or otherwise contribute to anything that would somehow make him look bad?  Is there a self-respecting guy among us who neglects his appearance, in so far as he is able?  We care about ourselves for hours at the gym and in front of the mirror, lifting and shaping and posing and fixing and admiring (at least when we’re younger and singler).  To love and take care of my own woman/wife is to care about myself.  I neglect her to my own detriment.  When she lives in a way or manifests that which is less-than-holy, when she shows up all spotty and wrinkly in her spirit, it looks bad on me as well.  But surely God has endued and blessed my wife with unspeakable, breathtaking beauty and gentleness.  He has worked into her soul a wondrously beautiful holiness.  Surely she is my better half, the fairer sex, the pinnacle of God’s creation.  She was made to show off the blindingly glorious goodness of almighty God - my job (what I GET to do) as husband, self-serving tho it may be (at least on a certain level), is to do all that I can to help make her shine!  Building up my wife not only builds up the body of Christ, it also looks good on me...  :)

Ephesians 5:27 - All Stainless

"...in order that He Himself should present to Himself the glorified assembly, not having stain or wrinkle or any such of these, but rather in order that she should be holy and blameless.

-Jesus laid it all down and gave Himself up in order to cleanse His bride, but do you know why He did that?  Apparently He did it for Himself.  Because in His wedding registry, He wanted all stainless.  That’s right.  He wanted (and no doubt deserved) a bride who would be without any stain, no spot or wrinkle or blemish, undefiled, blameless and pure and holy.  A glorious bride, breathtakingly good and beautiful and perfect - this is who He and all of creation sees walking down the aisle - a bride for the ages of ages, to take your breath away.  And He went to extreme lengths - the ultimate sacrifice - in order to procure this for His bride, to insure that she would in fact be glorious.

-Incidentally, Christ-follower, that is what you and I are.  All stainless, we are (not just a preference for modern kitchen appliances!).  Breathtakingly good and beautiful and perfect.  That, in spite of my warts and wrinkles and weaknesses.  But no, in God’s eyes, we are completely forgiven and washed-whiter-than by His grace through the blood of Christ.  Remember He lavished His grace on us, slathered us all up in it, so much so that all that remains is completely holy and blameless (Eph 1.4-8).  We are both adopted sons- and daughters-in-law.  Don’t ask me how it works, but the salient point is that we are so clean, so precious, so treasured, that we are family.  The thrice-holy King of kings has brought us into His forever family.  To the praise of His glory (Eph 1.12-14).  That is the theme of this letter, and it informs the way that husbands then should be relating to our wives.  Husbands have this incredible example of how to love their wives, sacrificially, with additional built-in incentive in that as a husband, an all-stain-less breathtakingly beautiful bride looks good on me...!  Next verse...

Ephesians 5:26 - Sponge, bubble and Bible baths (not necessarily in that order)...

"...in order that her He should sanctify having cleansed by washing of the water in [the] Word..."

-So why does the husband lay it all down and give himself up for his wife?  Why did Christ do this for His bride?  To make her holy.  Sanctification, set apart for and more like Jesus - that is the end.  That is the desired outcome.  It is not merely to make her happy, altho for many a husband the saying is true: "happy wife, happy life".  But the higher (Biblical) goal is not short-term happiness, neither hers nor my own.  It is that my wife should become more like the One Who has said, ‘be holy, for I am holy’ (1Peter 1.16), increasingly holy, set apart in her life and her heart to God.  Wholly other.  This is why Christ gave up His life and sent His Spirit and now intercedes for His bride at the right hand of almighty God.  To make her holy.  This then must be my laser focus, my commitment renewed daily, to do whatever and all that I can to help my wife progress in her faith, towards increasingly greater Christ-likeness, to be more like Him, radiating more and more of what He is like to the world, His grace and truth and goodness and gentleness and mercy and love.  Yes, I will want to make her happy, but more than that I must give myself, my all to help make her holy.

-The primary means for accomplishing that?  The Word.  My wife needs to take a bath.  No, she doesn’t stink - this is not a physical condition, rather it the buildup of spiritual and moral filth from the world and the flesh.  She (along with me and all the rest of God's children) needs a regular (daily?) deep down spiritual clean.  Cleansing comes by washing.  And the cleansing agent in this case is the Word of God.  There are certainly precedents for this.  Jesus Himself gave us one example when He humbled Himself and washed the disciples' feet, explaining that washed feet were all that was needed, but adding that His disciples should wash one another's feet (John 13.10-14).  And yes, the mere fact of coming to Christ in our hearts is more than sufficient to secure our eternal sanctification (1Corinthians 6.11, Titus 3.5, Hebrews 10.22), His shed blood being that which forever cleanses us from our sin (Revelation 7.14).  But there is also a journey towards this ultimate spiritual reality on which we all embark and continue for as long as we tarry on planet earth.  In the heavenlies, all those who have trusted in Christ's shed blood for spiritual cleansing and forgiveness are washed completely clean, yes, but our current reality is that we still live in a flthy fallen world in a dying body of flesh which is still prone to choose self and sin over Christ and what He wants.  This then is where we must bathe ourselves regularly with God's Word, myself first and foremost of course, as well as each of us who would follow Christ and become more like Him, including my wife.  My charge as a husband however includes helping her take regular Bible baths (bubble baths and the occasional sponge baths are of course optional), to have a steady diet of life-changing transformational truth from the Word of God.  If she is not getting in the Word, that is on me (at least in part - one can lead a proverbial horse to water but cannot make him or her drink)(and the point of using that metaphor here is in no way to suggest any equine similarity on the part of any woman).  But husbands, you and I must by God's grace do our best and give it our all to lead her there, faithfully, consistently - not as a finger-pointing condescending know-it-all, but humbly, showing her honor as a fellow heir of God's grace (1Peter 3.7).  (and here we have all the more reason for the wife to be submitting to and respecting her husband, receiving the Word from him with a humble and teachable heart...)

Ephesians 5:25 - All about her, 'cuz it's all about Him...

"The men, be loving the women, as also Christ loved the assembly and gave Himself on behalf of her...’

-The bar for the men in marriage is even higher than it is for the women, as husbands are called to reflect the heart and love and example of Christ Himself.  Christ took on the form and role and attitude of a slave.  He came not to be served but rather to serve, and to lay down His life for His bride.  In this is no greater love, than to lay down your life for another.  This is exactly what Christ did, and what every husband is called to do for his bride.

-Sadly, the men also find themselves under a curse, their fallen nature not only channeling the silence and passivity of the first husband but also instinctively wanting to abuse the authority and responsibility entrusted to them by the Lord.  They confuse partnership with dictatorship.  They want to be served.  They come home from work and plop down in front of the tv, assuming their work is done, expecting the wife to wait on them like a servant, meals and the chores and the kids all taken care of, with nary a thought for how they might serve their wife.  Is this not how it too often is when a man is put in charge?  Lazy and/or overbearing (or even worse).  All too easy to have someone else do the dirty work. 

-But so how exactly did Christ love the church?  Unto death.  He laid it all down, laid down His very life, and gave up everything for His bride.  Willingly.  Gladly!  But He took the nails.  He took the punishment His bride deserved.  He did the heavy lifting.  He went way out of His way to serve and protect and rescue His wife.  He made it all about her, even though it was actually all about Him.  The long range goal of course was always the increase of God's glory, but the means to that end was to serve His bride.  From a certain standpoint it would be almost understandable if perhaps the bride were to somehow wind up thinking that it is all about her.  But no, it was always all about Christ.  The heavenly Groom made it all about His bride so that she could make it all about Him.  Whereas each earthly groom makes it all about his wife so as to simply present a profound picture of this heavenly Example.  I make it all about her, knowing that it is not ever all about me.  My earthly bride is not to make it all about me, because in fact it is always all about Christ.  But His is the Perfect Example for how husbands are to love their wives.

-So, husband.  How am I doing?  How am I doing at giving myself up for my bride, at loving and cherishing her?  Am I serving her, protecting her, going out of my way even to do so?  Am I at the ready to take a nail (or a bullet) for her?  Or has even the thought of doing so become a chore?  Has serving her become a drag, a daily grind, a distant afterthought at best?  Am I weary and tired of laying it all down for her?  When was the last time I gladly laid anything down for her?  Clearly the template Christ provided is one of faithful, willing service and sacrifice - for this I need His heart and mindset and fresh power thru the filling of His Spirit every day.  And He did go all the way.  His was the ultimate sacrifice.  I am to sacrifice my rights and wants for the sake of my bride.  Today, and tomorrow, and the following day, and the day after that, and the next.  Every day I wake up and must say no to self and lay my life down for my bride.  Herein is joy, as I am thus no more like Christ, the One Who joyfully endured the Cross, than when I am laying my all down for her.  And let's be honest, what woman would not be able to trust and follow and rank herself under and give herself with abandon to a husband like that?  The caveat here is that we're not talking about wanton acts of service in answer to every beck and call.  There is a higher goal within this service which should and must inform how and why I give myself up for my bride.  Next verse...

Ephesians 5:24 - A Beautiful Picture

"But rather as the assembly is being subjected to Christ, thus also the women to the men in everything."

-Everything.  The wife is to be ranking herself under her husband in everything.  She is again not by any means any less vital or valuable to the functioning of the whole - without the body or the head there is not a thing, not a living organism at all, but the head is (to be) in charge.  Always.  In everything.  The wife needs to do whatever she can in every instance to help her husband call the ball.  That doesn’t mean run on ahead of him or pester him like a leaky faucet until I get my way, what I want.  Easier by far to badger and bully and boss him around, or run on ahead or perhaps go behind his back, or simply to stand back and do nothing at all.  No, God’s way will likely be more inconvenient, more inefficient, more humbling.  Yes, it requires massive doses of divinely-sourced humility.  It might involve gentle, respectful nudging.  Or it might look like beautiful long-suffering, patiently trusting the Head of the man to work in and through this imperfect spouse who is all-too-prone to either to harsh dictatorial rule or to silence and passivity.  No, this is not an easy ask.  It is likely to feel unnatural, counter-intuitive, contrary to my natural instincts.  As a woman, my (fallen) desire is to dominate within marriage, to dominate (and thus disrespect) my husband.  But it should not be this way.

-Everything.  Not one thing is excepted.  Practically speaking this winds up being more of a lofty-yet-totally-attainable goal, a beacon, a destination on the horizon towards which the wife is constantly aiming and redirecting herself by the grace and power of God.  The goal is a constant and growing attitude of deference and respect, a beautiful gentleness towards this one whom God designed and assigned to me as my pefect life partner.  Yes, the husband has a part to play as well - next section.  But that is not the wife’s responsibility - she is only responsible for how she conducts herself, and as she lives into this life, as she embraces this role and attitude which God uniquely designed for her, she helps give the world a beautiful picture of how the Church, the Bride of Christ, should relate to her glorious Groom. 

Ephesians 5:23 - The peril of decapitation

"...since a man is head of the woman as also Christ [is] head of the Assembly, Himself [being] Savior of the body."

-One of the most despised passages in the Bible, this - a place where many modern women decide that they don’t like Paul at all.  His ideas are too old fashioned, too restrictive.  He’s just one of the more prominent early examples of a long succession of male chauvinists.  And then the baby gets thrown out with the bath water.  The Word of God gets parsed and spliced according to taste and personal preference, or neglected altogether.  But there’s not even anything wrong with the bath water, much less the baby.  The problem starts with the baggage we all bring to God’s Word to begin with, millenia of brokenness played out in relationships between man and God and between men and women.  It begins with our lack of humility to rank ourselves under our Creator and His commands, our unwillingness to embrace His design and plan and purposes for our lives, what He wants for the people whom He designed to know Him and reflect what He is like in every facet of their lives.

-Which is why in this verse Paul zooms out and unpacks the broader rationale behind why the wife specifically must be ranking herself under her husband.  Again, it is not about comparative value, who is better or more important.  Marriage at its very best and as it was originally designed is to reflect the relationship between God the Son and His Bride, that beautiful Assembly of the redeemed.  That Christ is the Head of the Church is not a new idea here (Ephesians 1.22, 4.13; Colossians 1.18; 1Corinthians 11.3) - but in this metaphor the head is placed among the members of the body in the position of authority.  It is where choices and options are weighed and where decisions are best finalized.  Other parts of the body are no less important, and certainly contribute to the decision making process.  The stomach, the heart, the loins all play vital roles in the life of the body, but it is usually best for them not to be in charge.  Christ is in charge.  He stops the buck.  Part of this includes the glorious truth that He is Savior.  He took the proverbial bullet of God’s wrath on behalf of His bride.  And because of this He is the Boss.  The gathered global throng of those who are truly His, they look to Him and defer to Him.  Thus God has designed it such that every wife has the opportunity within the covenant of biblical marriage to display this same deference and respect to her God-given husband.

-It is imperative to note that removing the head, however it is done, results in the destruction of the life God put therein, designed to issue forth in blessing and fruitful abundance.  The entire body ceases to function properly (or at all).  Proper functioning of head-and-body metaphorically within the covenant of marriage is just as important as it is when applied in a literal context.  when the wife seeks to dominate the marriage relationship and casts off her husband as head, the marriage ceases to function in the way in which God designed, and the intended blessing which God designed to be experienced within and through that relationship fails to fully materialize (if at all).

Ephesians 5:22 - The Perfect Partner

"...the women to their own men as to the Lord..."

-Given that all believers are to be ranking themselves under each other, Paul now provides some specific application to the marriage relationship.  The men will get theirs as well, but addressing the women first, Paul specifically highlights the need for wives to be subjecting themselves to their husbands, just as they would to Christ.  We will see that he does not repeat the same imperative for the men, so we must ask, why does Paul see the need to direct this at the women?

-We find the answer in the fall, in the pervasive brokenness which was introduced into the husband-wife relationship as consequences for doing the one and the only thing which God told the first couple not to do.  After eating that forbidden fruit, the first woman was informed by God specifically that her desire would be for her husband (Genesis 3.16).  Most commentators agree that this meant her default desire now would be to dominate the relationship with her husband.  No longer naturally disposed to help and be the perfectly-suited partner, she would want to take the lead, take control.  Be the boss.  And yes, the seeds of the man’s silence and passivity and abdication would make this seem at times almost necessary, but no, this is not how God designed marriage to work (Genesis 2.18, 1Peter 3.1-6).  It is not about value or ability (neither hers nor his), nor inferiority - as we will see it is about reflecting the relationship between Christ and His bride, the Church.

-But the template for the way wives are to rank themselves under their husbands is to be the same manner in which they rank themselves under the Lord Jesus Christ.  At no point would a God-fearing woman ever have the audacity to boss around the risen King of kings.  That same respect she has for the almighty Creator of the universe must penetrate and permeate the entirety of how a wife relates to her husband.  It is not based on the qualities or behavior of said husband - no, it is based entirely on the nature of her relationship with Christ.

-There are boundaries here - their OWN husband, for one.  No universal gender thing in play here.  Paul is not here suggesting that all wives or women need to be subjecting themselves to all men.  He is thinking about how this plays out within an individual marriage relationship.  Additionally, he is not talking about unconditional submission.  As we read in Peter, while the wife’s submission and respect does/should not depend on the behavior/obedience of her husband, neither is Paul saying that a woman’s submission encompasses any way in which she might be asked by her husband to do something which the Lord would NOT want.  Her ranking of herself under her husband AS to the Lord falls under the pervue of her higher submission TO the Lord.

-One may ask, how does this play out in situations of extreme brokenness where the man is abusing the woman physically or emotionally?  Truly, such despicable depravity will no doubt be thoroughly punished in eternity, and deserves dire consequences in this life as well.  When the man’s behavior puts the safety of the wife (or children) at risk, the woman must find a way (and a place) to protect herself (and any children), even as she looks for a way to help her husband.  Most likely she will need to enlist the help of others.  But she must find a way to continue to respect him, as to the Lord.  Obviously, no easy feat, this - darn well impossible humanly speaking.  But there is no ultimate escape clause.  As far as is possible with her, and until such a time as the Lord might possibly release her from her obligation to her husband, the wife who would follow Christ must constantly trust Him and depend on His Spirit for the strength and wisdom to relate to her husband in this manner, as his God-ordained perfect helping partner.

Ephesians 5:21 - Drink Dr. Lesser

"...subjecting to one another in fear of Christ."

-One last sure sign of the Spirit-filled life, another aspect of the command to be thus filled, this one also played out in relationships.  God’s people when filled with His Spirit, His power, His love, when they are consumed with Him - they will be (must be) living in subjection to one another.  The word means, to rank under.  It is not absence of positions of authority, it is the absence of attitudes of superiority.  Whether I am senior pastor or part-time custodian or newby lay volunteer, I am not ever better than any fellow Christ-follower, certainly not because of my position, but also not because of my age or looks or education or training or experience or economic status - or theirs.  And in fact, my mindset is that I am lower, precisely that of Christ - He-Who-was-eternal-God lowered Himself and took the form of a servant (Philippians 2.5-7).  I am lesser.  You are lesser.  He's a lesser, she's a lesser (Wouldn't you like to be a lesser too?  Be a lesser.  Drink Dr. Lesser).  Yes, all God's people are lesser, subordinate.  Or should be as we relate to one another.  Others first, others better (Philippians 2.3-5) - we rank others as more important.  Ours is the mindset of John the Baptizer: I must decrease (John 3.30), all must decrease - so that Christ may increase.  It’s not that nothing ever gets decided or done because everybody is falling over themselves trying to please everyone else.  No, it is a beautiful dance of humility and mutual respect and deference, it is affirming the Christ-in-you and the gifts and the member-role which we all bring to the Body, it is brothers and sisters living together as one family under their heavenly Father’s roof.  But no sibling rivalry here - ours is born of the realization that we are all orphans, every last one of us spiritual beggars adopted into God’s great family thru the underserved gift of His favor kindness and love.

-What if every member of our local assembly lived into this, actually related to every other member as their servant, putting that other person’s needs and wants before their own, affirming the worth of another not because of how they look or sound or because of their title or how much they might tithe or serve, but because they are truly a beloved child of the King of heaven, the apple of His eye, a divine treasure?  Who would not want to be a part of a community like that?

-Herein we find our stronger motivation - the fear of Christ.  He is not only our Prime Example, He is our Supreme Master.  We all belong to Him, and are each accountable to Him (Romans 14.8, 2Corinthians 5.10).  He it is Who will judge the living and the dead, to whom every knee will bow and every tongue give praise (Romans 14.10-12).  These others, these little ones all around us whom we ignore or blow off or brush by, who we criticize and complain about and flat out cannot tolerate (or so we let ourselves think) - they belong to Christ.  They are His.  He died for them.  He loves them.  He lowered Himself to serve them.  And when we fail to love and serve and respect one of His, we are disrespecting Him (Matthew 25.45).  We are failing Him.  and we may need to ask whether the love of Christ is even in our hearts to begin with (1John 4.20).  Brethren, we take such liberty (and license) in our relationships with one another.  The body of Christ should not look this way - shame on us.

Ephesians 5:20 - Thank You, Sir! (may I have another?)

"...giving thanks always for all things in [the] name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God and Father."

-Always giving thanks.  Always.  Giving thanks.  Always.  For all things.  24-7 gratitude, feeling AND expressing appreciation for demonstrated kindness, ours is a heart full of faith and trust which affirms that God is so good, He is always in control, He knows what He’s doing, we always get it good.  And so we give thanks - that’s what we do.  Those thus filled with His Spirit and consumed with this One Who is consummately good cannot help but live in that place of perfect awareness of His manifold perfections, and that God is, He is here, He’s got this, and He’s working it out for good (Romans 8.28).  Christian - do you believe this?  You and I need to double down and live into this truth, offering up sacrifices of praise (cuz life doesn’t always feel good), learning to affirm our heavenly Father’s sovereign goodness in all that which concerns us, in all our ways.  Truth is, only those who are filled with God’s Holy Spirit, only those who have relinquished control and tapped into His power can fully live into this reality.

-And another thing - Paul says, giving thanks FOR all things.  Yes, elsewhere he says IN all things (1Thessalonians 5.18), which many have concluded is a green light to lower the gratitude bar a bit (to a more reasonable 'natural' height) for all those (many) things in life which don't feel so good.  Sure, we can still be thankful IN the midst of hardship (i.e. for other things, for the Lord Himself), but this circumstance or thing (thorn-in-the-flesh?) does not make me feel good and so I do not have to be thankful FOR it.  That would be disingenuous.  And we don't want that.  But here is the question: who is ultimately responsible for the thorn in my flesh?  Is it just bad luck?  Random happenstance?  Or is it not true in fact that God is in control?  Is He not able to and does He not indeed use hardship and trials and brokenness to further His ultimate purposes in my life, for His glory, to increase the knowledge and celebration of His breathtaking goodness and greatness in and through my life?  Actually that's five questions, but just one answer - God.  The Lord knows exactly what He is doing, and there is not a single circumstance which comes into our lives which He is not ultimately working for the greater good.  Is it not precisely through this kind of unnatural (supernatural!) gratitude in hard times that our faith (that which brings Him great pleasure - Hebrews 11.6), our resolute trust in the Lord and Who He is, shines most brightly in the darkness?  This pain in my derrière (real or simply proverbial) is most certainly from the Lord, and He has a very good reason and plan behind it.  If it is FROM Him, can I not thank Him FOR it?  an we not with Kevin Bacon in Animal House, declare, "Thank you, Sir, may I have another?"  No, not in some masochistic stick-your-head-in-the-ground state of denial - may it never be!  No, we can thank the Lord FOR the thorn, because it is from Him, He is our good good Father, and this is somehow part of His good good plan for us.  Let's raise that gratitude bar back up where it belongs...

-But how are our lives fitting into this ‘always giving thanks for all things...’?  Surely the bar is too low.  Where is the gratitude?  So much malcontent it seems, God’s people grumbling, complaining, discontented, disrespecting - one is forced to conclude either that Christianity doesn’t work, or that God’s people (too many of us) have failed to fully appropriate the life of Christ.  This is what Paul is getting at here in this section.  Overflowing, unrestricted, unrestrained, uncontainable gratitude is another sure hallmark of the Spirit-filled heart.

Ephesians 5:19 - Dessert first!

"...speaking to each [ones] in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and psalming in your heart to the Lord..."

-What would it look like if a person was actually filled with the Holy Spirit of God, controlled and empowered and consumed by Him?  For one, it follows naturally that their conversation would be about Him.  So we have Paul describing the ones thus filled as speaking to one another - in songs about God.  They are also singing in their hearts to God.  In other words, when they are filled with Him in their hearts, God's people are singing.  They have a song in their heart, and it is about the Lord.  Not merely listening to music, they are actually making music, in their hearts.

-Singing and music is rooted in the very core of the human psyche.  It expresses the entire breadth of emotion - joy and celebration, mourning and sadness.  Songs memorialize significant moments and relationships - creating cultural icons like the rocket’s red glare, highway run, ba-barbara ann.  And they are sure to erupt spontaneously from deliriously happy hearts.  Songs and celebrations go hand in hand - do we not have songs for most every major event in our lives?  Birthdays, graduation, death, Christmas, New Years, 4th of July, most every major sporting event (including the 7th inning stretch), as well as for our most cherished teams.  Fight songs, anthems, jingles, choruses - song is a part of who we are.  It just naturally follows that when we are filled up with the Lord that our hearts, our songs, our conversations will be centered around and directed towards Him.

-In Scripture, songs of praise and thanksgiving always had a dedicated place in the life of God’s people (1Chr 6.31-32; Neh 12.8; Ps 5.11, 33.1-3).  Songs even led to victory in battle (2Chr 20.22).  And when God almighty shows up in a person’s life, He puts an entirely new song in their heart (Ps 40.3), one of joy and gladness.  Singing also appears to be one of the primary preoccupations of Heaven (Rev 5.9, 14.3, 15.3), which makes perfect sense, because surely there is no more deliriously happy place in the entire universe.  To be in His presence, to be entirely focused on and filled with Him, to be caught up in the reality of His awe-inspiriing perfection and beauty, His breathtaking goodness, His amazing grace and everlasting love (for even me!) - this is the heritage and the destiny of the people of God.  THIS is cause for singing even in the here and now when we glimpse such goodness only dimly!

-But that reality invades our world (and longs to invade our lives) here and now.  We are given glimpses of this breathtaking goodness every day throughout the entirety of creation, and we ourselves are (meant to be) receiving and being transformed into the image of our glorious God each and every day as we walk in the fulness of His Spirit (2Cor 3.18).  This is precisely what Paul is talking about!  Breathtaking goodness should in fact be oozing out of our pores for all to see.  AND smell.  Granted, for some, those who are dying, it smells like death warmed over, but these foretastes of divine glory are further cause for spontaneous singing.

-One might ask, if the music has gone out of my heart, what happened?  Where is the Spirit?  So many people in the civilized west who claim to follow the Lord, professing to have Christ in their life, and yet where is the singing?  Where is the joy unspeakable, the irrepressible songs of praise and thanksgiving?  So many profess-ers who amble in to services after (they know) the appointed time of singing has concluded.  The singing is (or darn-well should be) the best part, people!  Folks coming in for the meat, the quote-unquote main course, and they’re missing out on the dessert, which is often served first!  Who doesn’t want dessert first?  Has the joy and spontaneous singing been choked out of my life by the worries and the cares of the world?  By the love of riches and the longing for temporary things?  Has the new song of God ever even entered my heart and issued forth from my mouth?  Time, perhaps, to “turn you eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face - and the things of earth will grow strangely dim...in the light of His glory and grace.” (Helen Lemmel)