Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Ephesians 5:22-33 | Date: June 28, 2015 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

It’s good to be back with you. I was away last Sunday preaching in Minnesota, and then spent a few days visiting with my mother. It was good to see her again. But it’s good to be back with you. This morning, we have many who are away, and many have come in, straggled in a little later, and that’s good. But earlier, it was pretty empty in here, and I leaned over to Pastor Boyd and Pastor Greg and said, “It looks like word got out as to who’s preaching today.” And Boyd looks out and says, “Well, not everybody heard.” And then it continued. And he said, “I heard, but I came anyway.” And then Pastor Greg said, “I had to miss Sunday school. I couldn’t miss both services.” So I am very encouraged this morning.

As Pastor Boyd said, we will probably come to the congregation with more recommendations regarding policy, perhaps constitutional amendments and things in regard to things that have happened this week. So you can stay tuned for that. I’m glad to see the unanimous vote this morning. Anytime we have a unanimous vote, that’s an encouraging thing, but an issue this important, we certainly would want to see that, and we thank you for that.

If I told you that I’d seen an animal—short, furry, gray, long, bushy tail, scampers up and down the tree, eats nuts, and lives in a nest up in the tree—and then told you that that animal I saw was a horse, would that make it a horse? No, it doesn’t make it a horse. Neither does calling two men or two women entering into a relationship together “marriage” make it marriage. You’ve heard me say a hundred times that we should not be surprised when we see the world act like the world, and this is just another case of that. I think part of what makes it a difficult thing for many of us is that we tend to be conservative folks, and we love the history of America, we love the biblical ideals that our founding fathers honored, and when we see them more and more trashed and trampled on in our society, it becomes not just disappointing; I think it becomes shocking, and we tend to think of it as betrayal.

And I guess what I want to say is that’s really naive because America is not a Christian country. And we should not be surprised when the world acts like the world. Disappointed, yes. Surprised, no. And I guess the other thing I want to emphasize at a time like this is that, just to remind you, the church has been here before. Don’t panic. The church was born in a pagan society where this kind of stuff was going on quite often. And so the church has been here before. We have nothing to fear. The gospel has not been muzzled. Jesus has not been put back in the tomb, dethroned, or anything like that. We have nothing to fear and we should not panic.

And yet at the same time, this week’s decision by the Supreme Court does say something about where our society has come. This is a new low. And if you didn’t know it before, you certainly know it now that we no longer live in Christendom. It used to be in our society that we—that is, Christians—owned the public square to some degree. Cultural influences, intellectual influences… more and more over the decades and over the centuries that’s been eroding, but it used to be that those of the cultural elite would never dare to say some of the things that they’re saying now because there was more of a Christian consensus in society. We lived in Christendom and even though the world was the world, and the world would act like the world, we owned the marketplace in a sense. But that certainly is not the case today.

The church has been increasingly marginalized in our society and that’s what’s meant by when people will say we live in a post-Christian society. We’re not saying the gospel is losing. It won’t lose. We don’t fear that at all. But as a society, there’s less and less agreement with regard to the things that the Bible teaches and to the ethics and the moral norms that it imposes on us. So we no longer live in Christendom. It’s not surprising to see the world act like the world. We should not panic.

But at the same time, it does say something about what is to come. I’m not a prophet, I’m not the son of a prophet, and in fact, I work for a non-profit organization. So I’m not going to try to say what will happen when, but it does portend of horrible things for our country. And that, I think, is part of what our emotional response to this week’s decision is, too. We know that this doesn’t bode well for America, and I’m going to be talking more about that next week in the message. We’ll be looking at the minor prophets to see what the word of God has to say about those kinds of things.

But I think the situation was captured well—I didn’t read the blog, but I saw the title of Al Mohler’s blog this week: “Everything has changed and nothing has changed.” In a sense, everything has changed; this is a new low, now it’s official. In that sense, everything’s changed. But in another sense, nothing has changed. The world is still the world. They still need the gospel. We still have the message to give them. It’s going to have fallout. Almost certainly, this is going to shake out in some unpleasant ways, in various ways. It’s not going to be only those who make wedding cakes. It’s not hard to see in the future that it’s going to be very difficult for Christians to be appointed as judges. It’s going to be very difficult for—for example, I’m sorry Frank—it’s going to be very difficult for public school teachers. They’re going to be given a curriculum that will affirm things that they can’t affirm. It’s going to shake out with churches, perhaps in terms of tax exemption and religious institutions that are not tied directly to churches. That’s going to have ramifications there. Well, we’ll see. But as I say, they haven’t put Jesus back in the tomb. He’s still king, and the gospel is still the power of God unto salvation, and the church has been here before, and our responsibility is still the same.

In the Lord’s providence, we have been working our way through Ephesians, and in the recent weeks, we’ve been looking at Ephesians chapter 5, verses 22 and following, dealing with the subject of husbands and wives. And as a backdrop to that, we’ve been looking at the larger biblical teaching with regard to husbands and wives, male and female, men and women, and that in light of the cultural moment that we have as well. We’re going to continue that this morning. Today, finally, we get to the substance of verse 22 and wives submitting to your own husbands. You can imagine the kind of conversation that I had with my wife this morning when she told me how disappointed she was that she had to keep the nursery this morning. She wasn’t going to be here to hear my sermon on submission. There are very many times that I’ve questioned the Lord’s providence.

Ephesians 5, beginning with verse 22:

Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the words, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself for no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church because we are members of his body. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Let’s bow for prayer. Our Father, we’re grateful for the clear and sure and reliable guidance that we have from your word. In a world that is so confused, we have the light of your word to show us how to live in a way that is both honoring to you and fulfilling and satisfying and joyful for us. We pray that you would use your word this morning to that end. Honor yourself in our lives. Give us the joy that we are intended to have in Christ and as we walk in obedience to your word. We pray that you will open our hearts to it and we pray that you will bless the homes, the marriages of RBC. In Christ’s name we ask, amen.

The Larger Biblical Context

On the setting, as you recall, we are working our way through Ephesians. Paul in the first three chapters has expounded at length some wonderful doctrinal truths regarding our salvation, how God has brought us to faith in Jesus Christ, and then in chapter 4, particularly beginning in chapter 4 and verse 1, he begins to unpack that in the ways that it should impact our lives and how the salvation in Christ should show itself in the way that we live.

And Paul has dealt with that on a number of levels. He’s told us about how it affects church life, how it affects unity in the church, and how it affects service for one another, how it affects individual living and morals and ethics and things like that. And now, having reminded us in chapter 5, verse 18 and following, that we’ve been given this wonderful provision of the Spirit of God to empower us to do what God has commanded us to do, now he begins to apply it to the home. And his purpose here is to restore us as fallen creatures, restore us to the image of Christ in every way—here with regard to the home, husbands and wives; chapter six, children; and then even in the workplace as well.

As I say, my attempt has been to, first of all, present the larger biblical teaching with regard to male and female. I’ve wanted to do that because when we get to verse 22, it is certainly in the atmosphere of the scriptures, and because it is not in our contemporary atmosphere, I felt it would be helpful to rehash for us this larger biblical teaching with regard to men and women, so that when we come now to verse 22, that we finally get to today, this command—”Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord”—can be heard in this larger biblical context.

I’ve also thought it’s important to look at it in the light of our cultural moment today. As I’ve mentioned in previous weeks, there’s been an equivocation in public discourse with the word “equality.” The Bible affirms equality, but in our public discourse today, equality has come to mean sameness. Today, distinctions between male and female are played down and even denied, and so there’s been complete confusion with regard to the role of men and women. If gender is a matter of the will—”I want to be a woman, and so now I’m a woman, and you’re supposed to say, ‘Oh, okay'”—in a society like that, where we don’t even know the difference between male and female, we just don’t have any category at all for order and structure in the home in which husband and wife are equal and yet structured in authority. There’s just no category for that at all.

But as I say, the Bible affirms the equality of men and women. We are men and women both created in God’s image, both share in the dominion over the world that God has given. He created us in His image and told us to exercise His dominion and represent Him all over the earth. And men and women equally share that image and share that responsibility of dominion over the earth. And in fact, genuine companionship in marriage depends on a union of equals. The Bible affirms all of that, but it also affirms that there are differences between men and women.

It’s just amazing what you have to affirm today, what you have to stress and point out. The Bible affirms the obvious, and that is that there are important differences between men and women. Most obviously, there are physical differences and physiological differences. They are complementary. They’re equal. But for example, most obviously, she is made to bear children; he is not, and so on. Also in the Genesis narrative, as we saw, she is called his helper, his helpmeet. That is something that is not said of him in respect to her. It is said that she was made to be his helper.

And then as we saw some New Testament reflections on the creation account, Paul reflects on it and draws some theological conclusions as well. For example, he tells us in 1 Timothy 2 that Adam was made first. That’s not just a historical accident. Somebody had to be made first. No. Man was made first, Paul says, as God’s declaration of his leadership in the relationship in the home. Something like the law of the firstborn that we see often in the Old Testament and the privilege given there. So first Paul tells us Adam was made first as an indication of his leadership in the home.

He also reflects in 1 Corinthians 11 that Eve was made from Adam, not Adam from Eve. And again, this was God’s declaration of her, in some sense, dependence upon him. Now there’s a sense in which men are dependent on women as well, and Paul goes on with that in the passage as well, but Paul makes the point that this was God’s declaration from the beginning of that structure in the home. Also, Paul says Eve was made for Adam and not Adam for Eve. And again, this is the structure declared at the beginning; she is to be his helper, and this was a declaration of God’s intent with regard to the home from the very beginning.

We saw also that even in the name that God gives to humanity, he declares this structure and order in the home. He called them Adam and Eve. He called them Adam. He called them Adam. He called them “man,” which of course has been the convention that we’ve had in our language as well up until very recent years. And then we saw the exercise of that authority of Adam in the garden. He named Eve. She didn’t name herself. Naming someone is an exercise, a function of authority, and leadership, and headship.

So we find in the creation narrative itself, and as it’s commented for us in the New Testament, that the Bible affirms the equality of male and female, partnership in the home, and yet with distinction, structure, and order in the home. Both are in the image of God, both exercise dominion over the earth, but he to lead, to protect, to provide, to guard, to work the garden. And it was her role assigned to help him in fulfilling his calling before God. Headship, but headship among equals. Submission, but not the abject subjugation of an inferior. And that I think in a nutshell is what we’ve seen in the last couple of weeks.

Now what’s important also to notice—and somebody mentioned this to me last time afterwards—is that all of this that we’ve established biblically is pre-fall. This arrangement of leadership in the home is not the result of sin. This was pre-fall. It’s not even Mosaic legislation. It’s pre-fall. This is the created order. This is the way God made us so that we would relate in the home in these ways. This is the creation order.

And in fact, as we saw, all of this also reflects not only something of the created order, but it reflects something of God himself. We saw in Genesis chapter 1, verse 27, he created man and women in his image in large part to be in relationship with one another. God created humanity not as androgynous, but some as male, some as female to relate to one another in that way, and in some way, that aspect of God’s image reflects God himself. God himself, who is a community of love—of Father, Son, and Spirit—is reflected in the way he created humanity for us to relate in the home as husband and wife, sharing in his image, and reflecting the image of God as male and female. And we saw in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, the illustration Paul gives is the triune Godhead: the head of every woman is the man, the head of man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God. And this from the same apostle who affirms the equality of Father, Son, and Spirit in the Godhead. And yet there’s a structure and an order in it.

I’ve been belaboring the point and I wanted to review it again quickly this morning because today we’ve lost all recognition of the differences between male and female and we’ve lost all recognition of the distinctiveness of roles and we have no structure for that left at all. And so when we come to Ephesians 5, verse 22, in our society it just comes out of nowhere and it can’t be heard rightly unless we back up and see it in this larger biblical context. So we’ve established, I think, I hope, that manhood and womanhood are presented in the Bible as in complementary harmony—complementary harmony. Remember that’s “complementary” spelled with an “e” in the middle, not an “i.” Husband and wife complement one another. It’s not that they’re saying nice things about one another, “complimenting,” although that’s nice too. “Complementing”—completing one another—is the idea, a complementary harmony. Men and women are equal in value, equal in dignity, but different in their God-given roles in marriage and in the church. That is not anti-woman. It is not men grasping for power. It is simply seeking the fulfillment that is found only in the created order for men and women in the home. We saw that that was very important because one, it reflects the created order; two, it images God; and three, it displays the gospel. And we’ll be seeing more of that as we go along through the passage.

Wives, Submit to Your Own Husbands

So again, Paul’s theme here is what it’s been in this section of the epistle: to restore us to the image of Christ now with regard to the home. The first thing to notice then as we come to verse 22 more closely, the first thing to notice about Paul’s command is that it is addressed to wives with respect to their husbands. Okay, I want you to hear that. This command is addressed to wives with respect to their husbands. Now “submit” still means submit. We’ll see a little bit more of that as we go along. But it does not say, “Women, subject yourselves to men.” It says, “Wives, subject yourselves to your husbands.” So the first thing to notice is that Paul gives this command not to women generally, but to wives with respect to their husbands. So the question is not as simple as what can a woman do or what cannot a woman do. The question has to do specifically with wives and the relationship with their husbands. Now that structure, as we find, also is carried over into the church as well. Paul deals with that in other places. Here the focus is on the home.

It would be nice—we don’t have the time, perhaps another time it would be helpful—I think at this point to go back to Proverbs chapter 31 and see that ideal woman that is presented there, the ideal wife. She’s amazingly industrious, self-employed, has her own business, “wonder woman.” A model I think that any contemporary woman would find very difficult to keep up with. The issue here then is the woman’s role with respect to her husband and how she relates to him.

Now before I go any further, I want to read something to you and I really hesitated doing this because I know it’s boring to hear someone read to you. But this is so good and I think you’re going to give me a pass on this one. This is by John Piper. I think it’s something that any number of us could have written if we just thought to do it this way. I think it’ll reflect a lot of your own experience in your home. But I think you’re going to enjoy this. And I think it puts this all in perspective very, very well.

When I was a boy growing up in Greenville, South Carolina, my father was away from home about two-thirds of every year. And while he preached across the country, we prayed—my mother and my older sister and I. What I learned in those days was that my mother was omnicompetent. She handled the finances, paying all the bills and dealing with the bank and the creditors. She once ran a little laundry business on the side. She was active on the park board, served as the superintendent of the intermediate Sunday school department of our Southern Baptist Church, managed some real estate holdings. She taught me how to cut the grass and splice electric cord and pull Bermuda grass by the roots and paint the eaves and shine the dining room table with a chamois and drive a car and keep French fries from getting soggy in the cooking oil. She helped me with the maps and geography, showed me how to do a bibliography, worked up a science project on static electricity, and believed that Algebra II was possible. She dealt with the contractors when we added a basement, and more than once, put her hand to the shovel. It never occurred to me that there was anything she couldn’t do. I heard one time that women don’t sweat, they glow. Not true. My mother sweated. It would drip off the end of her long, sharp nose. Sometimes she would blow it off when her hands were pushing the wheelbarrow full of peat moss. Or she would wipe it with her sleeve between the strokes of a swing blade. Mother was strong. I can remember her arms even today, 30 years later. They were big. And in the summertime, they were bronze.

But it never occurred to me to think of my mother and my father in the same category. Both were strong. Both were bright. Both were kind. Both would kiss me. Both would spank me. Both were good with words. Both prayed with fervor and loved the Bible. But unmistakably, my father was a man and my mother was a woman. They knew it and I knew it. And it was not mainly a biological fact. It was mainly a matter of personhood and relational dynamics. When my father came home, he was clearly the head of the house. He led in prayer at the table. He called the family together for devotions. He got us to Sunday school and worship. He drove the car. He guided the family to where we would sit. He made the decision to go to Howard Johnson’s for lunch. He led us to the table. He called the waitress. He paid the check. He was the one we knew we would reckon with if we broke a family rule or were disrespectful to mother. These were the happiest of times for my mother. Oh, how she rejoiced to have daddy home. She loved his leadership. Later, I learned that the Bible calls this submission. But since my father was gone most of the time, mother used to do most of those leadership things too. So it never occurred to me that leadership and submission had anything to do with superiority and inferiority. And it didn’t have to do with muscles and skills either. It was not a matter of capabilities or competencies. It had to do with something I could never have explained as a child. And I have been a long time in coming to understand it as part of God’s great goodness in creating us male and female. It had to do with something very deep. I know that the specific rhythm of life that was in our home is not the only good one, but there were dimensions of reality and goodness in it that ought to be there in every home. Indeed, they ought to be there in varying ways in all mature relationships between men and women. I say ought to be there because I now see that they were rooted in God. Over the years, I’ve come to see from scripture and from life that manhood and womanhood are the beautiful handiwork of a good and loving God. He designed our differences, and they are profound. They are not mere physiological prerequisites for sexual union. They go to the root of our personhood.

Well, I think that helps put this in perspective well: that this matter of complementarity and of headship and submission in the home is a good and ought to be a good and not an oppressive thing.

All right. Finally, as I’ve been promising, let’s work our way through verses 22 through 24. “Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.” Submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. And then verse 23 and 24, he adds an explanation: “For”—there is “because”—”the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself the savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.” And then notice the additional phrase that he puts in there: not just “submit to their husbands,” but “submit to their husbands in everything.”

All right, the meaning of “submit” I think is easy enough. It speaks of order and structure of authority. It has to do with willingly stepping into rank. It’s actually a word that’s used in military context as well. It does not imply inferiority, only subordination in roles. There’s no excuse for wife abuse, no excuse for tyranny. But submission entails a determination on your part, wives, to show the respect due your husband as your husband. A determination on your part to show the respect to your husband that is due him as your husband. To show deference to him because he is your husband. To show deference to him because of his leadership role in the home. It means you’ll seek to honor God by seeking to live out your role faithfully as a Christian wife. And then he adds in verse 33, “see that she respects her husband.” To show him the deference and the respect due him as the leader in the home.

Back to verse 22: “Wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.” As you can imagine, that’s received a lot of discussion. Some have suggested what this means—”wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord”—it means that this is how the wife shows her loyalty to Christ: by showing respect and submission to her husband. That is, as part of your honoring Christ, submit to your husband. I’m sure that some of that is involved here. But I think more specifically what’s going on here is just the way it reads in our version: “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands.” How? “As to the Lord.”

That is, there is a sense—now don’t take this wrong—but there is a sense in which he is to represent Christ. There’s a sense in which he is to represent the rule of Christ in the home, and she is to submit to him as to the Lord, as she would submit to the Lord. Now, if there’s any question as to what that means, notice how Paul explains it in verse 23: “Because”—that is, submit to your husband as to the Lord because—”the husband is the head of the wife, just as Christ is the head of the church, his body.” And so he explains in verse 24, “as the church submits to Christ, so also wives submit in everything to their husbands.” So out of devotion to Christ, yes, but the model of submission is the submission of the church to Christ. So also the wife to submit to her husband.

The explanatory conjunction at the beginning of verse 23 is very important: “for” or “because” the husband is the head of the wife. He grounds this in a created order. Headship and submission in the home, an ordered structure of leadership. More than that, verses 23 and 24, your marriage is to portray in microcosm the relationship of the church to Christ. “As the church submits to Christ, so also the wives should submit in everything to their husbands.” Well, it’s a given, if you’ve read the New Testament at all, if you’re a professing Christian of any kind, it’s a given that the church is to submit to Christ. He’s the head. He’s redeemed us with his blood. He has bought us to himself. We now are his. He owns us. And we are obliged to follow and to obey. Now that analogy breaks down and we’ll see some more of that in a minute, but that is the model that Paul holds up and says, “Wives, just as the church is to submit to Christ, so also wives submit to your husbands.” That is your role in displaying the gospel in your home to your children, to people on the outside who see you, who see you as you relate to your husband. They are to see you displaying the gospel in this way. So they see in your relationship to your husband a picture of how the church relates to Christ. This is a wonderful opportunity for ladies, particularly in our society when this command is so decried. It’s a wonderful opportunity for you to demonstrate, especially to unbelievers looking in: “This is what we believe. Watch us.”

And then verse 24, as I mentioned, that little phrase that he adds, that little prepositional phrase: “in everything.” “So also wives who submit to their husbands in everything.” Well, no, of course not. If he asks you to help him rob a bank, you’re not obliged to do that. Of course there are exceptions. Of course he’s not Christ. And of course he’s not infallible. And yeah, we get all that. But this surely means something: “submit to your husbands in everything.” And the church submitting to Christ is the model. At the very least, at the very least, it points to his role as the final decision maker in the home. Doesn’t mean you can’t talk to him. Doesn’t mean you can’t say, “Hey, I think maybe that’s wrong,” and discuss your disagreements. Doesn’t mean any of that. But it at least means that in the last analysis, he’s the final decision maker in the home. “Submit to your husbands in everything.”

Okay, I can hear it: “But what if I disagree with him?” And of course, the answer is obvious: throw a fit. Have a good knock-down-drag-out fight. Make your stand. At least have a good argument over this thing. No. He is not Christ; he’s not infallible. And you are welcome to talk. And you are welcome to express the opinion. But always in a way that is appropriate of wife to husband. Never in a way that steps out of order and presumes to be in his role of leadership. As unto Christ, in everything. And in this way display the gospel.

I can hear another objection: “You don’t know my husband.” And I have to say, I have real sympathy with that. I have known some homes, some Christian homes, where the husband has a remarkable capacity for making stupid decisions. And not just stupid decisions generally, but stupid decisions that affect the home and affect the family, affect the wife—where we live, where we’re going to work. And sometimes the decisions have just been, I have to say, they’re just stupid. So what do you do? Well, that can be difficult. And of course, none of this is to imply that the woman is in abject subjugation where she doesn’t have any voice in any decision. She is welcome to talk, and he ought—in part of loving his wife, as we’ll see—ought to be that she feels free to talk and to voice her opinion. But never is it appropriate for her to position herself as the leader in the home.

Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands as to the Lord in everything, just as the church does to Christ. Now, there’s nothing particularly difficult about understanding that command. The difficulty comes because of poor leadership on his part, and because of, of course, pride and sin on her part as well, where “it just rubs me wrong.” And that spirit of independence comes up. We saw that that is an entailment of the curse: she will desire to rule him, but he will rule over her and make her grovel. The beginning of the battle of the sexes.

Fitting in the Lord

Now let’s look at just a couple of other verses that speak to this issue, just to round it out with some more New Testament teaching. Go forward just a few pages to Colossians 3, verse 18. This is, of course, a parallel passage to Ephesians 5 that we’re looking at. If you start in verse 16, you’ll see that rather than “be filled with the Spirit,” it’s “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly,” teaching, admonishing one another in psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, and so on. Verse 18: “Wives, submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord.” As is fitting. Or, if you’d like, as is appropriate in the Lord. There’s something about this relationship that strikes you as appropriate. And, in fact, when you see a woman who’s always bucking her husband and arguing and fighting, something strikes everybody about that that’s very inappropriate, not fitting. So Paul, referring, I suppose, to the created order, referring to the fact that we’re created in God’s image, that we reflect the headship of God and Christ and all of that: wives, submit to your husbands as is appropriate in the Lord.

We’ve all seen how ugly—I think I can use that word, can’t I?—how ugly an insubordinate wife can be. It’s just not fitting. Remember when Gina was in high school, she—a couple of different places where she would go to teach piano lessons or to visit a friend—and in two that I’m thinking of in particular, there was a wife and a mother in the home who just was not this. And always bellaring, bellaring at the husband, barking to do this, yelling to do that. And inevitably, when she would be over to that house, either of those places, and she’d come home, she’d go right to Kim, give her a big hug and say, “I love you, Mom.” There’s something about this model, the biblical model, that is appropriate and fitting and attractive, and there’s something about the other that’s just not.

Move forward a little bit more: Titus chapter two. Titus chapter two. Again, Paul is dealing with ethical instruction and relational issues in the home and in the church. Titus chapter two, verse three:

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They’re to teach what is good and so train the younger women to love their husbands and children.

I suspect that means something like teach them how practically to love their husbands and their children.

To be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands…

Now notice the purpose clause:

…so that the word of God will not be blasphemed.

Isn’t that something? If we do not—insofar as we do not—follow this order, it reflects very poorly on the scriptures. It blasphemes; it reviles the scriptures.

And then one more: 1 Peter. 1 Peter chapter 3, a passage I’m sure you’re all familiar with, where Peter gives the illustration of Sarah and Abraham. I’ll begin with verse 1, 1 Peter 3:

Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives.

Here’s, first of all, the apostolic instruction as to how a Christian wife is to evangelize her unbelieving husband. Be subject to your husbands so that even if they do not obey the word, they’ll be won by your conduct. Verse two:

When they see your respectful and pure conduct, do not let your adorning be external…

And I think that means, obviously, “merely” external.

…the braiding of hair, the wearing of gold, putting on of clothing, but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious…

…and to all the rest of us is very beautiful as well. Then he gives the illustration:

This is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves by submitting to their husbands.

Illustration:

…as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord.

Now I suspect “Lord” there is in the sense of “my lord,” you know, “sir.” You don’t have to attribute deity to your husbands. I know one Reformed Baptist pastor who said that his wife one day called him a meathead. And he responded, “Sarah called Abraham ‘Lord.'” And she responded, “Okay, Lord meathead.” Well, you see the teaching here is this relationship that really is a very beautiful thing.

Now we still have to finish this out so that all of this on her part is made easy by the way he does his part. We’ll get to that when we get to the following verses in Ephesians chapter 5. But again, submission entails a determination then on your part to show the respect to your husband that is due him as your husband, to show deference to him because he is your husband, to check your tongue, check your demeanor, to refuse that spirit of independence that rises up, to honor God by seeking to live out in your role as a Christian wife what he’s called you to be.

So ladies, then, here’s what God prescribes for you. Pursue this for your happiness, for your husband’s happiness, for your children’s happiness, for the advance of the gospel, and for the glory of God. This is our created role. It’s only made difficult by the curse, and we’ve got to put our minds to doing this for our good and for God’s glory. Amen.

Let’s pray. Our Father, we need your help in these things. The ladies of the church, the wives, need your spirit to enable them. Husbands need your spirit to enable them to love as they ought. Lord, we recognize that passages like this make us see our fallenness and how difficult this otherwise beautiful and attractive role can be. Lord, we pray that you would bring about in us to be all that you’ve called us to be. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.