Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Saviour. Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendour, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind—yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, because we are members of his body. ‘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. Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband.
Reflection
A few years ago, I had the privilege of visiting a partner church overseas. I found myself talking with some ministers’ wives and, as both a wife and a minister, I asked what they understood their role to be.
“To soothe my husband,” one replied.
I have pondered that answer ever since.
For some, Paul’s words about husbands and wives belong firmly to a patriarchal world we would rather leave behind. For others, they offer a picture of Christian marriage. But perhaps we miss something if we begin with wives submitting to husbands, because Paul begins somewhere else: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”
Mutual submission is the frame within which everything else is said.
Indeed, the Greek we translate ‘submit’ in relation to wives is carried over from that previous sentence and means voluntarily assuming a posture of co-operation or support…Paul is not speaking about inferiority, coercion or blind obedience. He is speaking about voluntarily putting another before ourselves.
And, interestingly, most of what follows is addressed not to wives but to husbands. Their calling is to love as Christ loved the Church. That is hardly permission to dominate. Christ’s love is self-giving, costly and sacrificial. It is love which relinquishes power rather than grasps it.
In the first-century world, where a husband’s authority over his household was largely taken for granted, that was more radical than we sometimes recognise. Paul takes a familiar household structure and places Christ at its centre. Suddenly the question is not, “Who is in charge?” but, “How do I love this person as Christ loves?”
Perhaps that is the question for all our relationships, not simply marriage.
Christian relationships are not ultimately about knowing our place. They are about making room for another person, laying aside our insistence on having things our own way, and discovering in mutual love and service something of Christ.
I am still not sure about “soothing my husband”.
But loving him sacrificially? That is a calling for us both.
Prayer
God of love,
you call us not to grasp at power,
but to follow the way of Christ,
who gave himself in love for others.
Teach us to submit to one another
with grace, generosity and humility.
Where we seek to control, help us to listen.
Where we insist on our own way,
help us to make room for another.
Where relationships have become unequal or burdensome,
bring freedom, dignity and healing.
May our love be more than words:
patient, costly, forgiving and kind.
And in our homes, our churches and all our relationships,
may others glimpse something of the self-giving love of Christ.
Amen.
