Ephesians 5:21-33

Pray for God to show you something to use from the passage Read the Passage at least twice Who is in the passage? What action verbs do you see? What other words stick out in your mind

vs 21- Starts a new section looking at the relationships they dealt with everyday and how a Christian should live in them. Key point in all relationships is for each to submit to the other.

Wife role

• Submit in everything

• Respect

• seek to be one flesh

Husband role

• Give himself up for his wife as Christ did for us

• love as yourself

• seek to be one flesh

• Husband head of wife as Christ head of the church

Paul's statements are radical for their day. Everyone in the culture would have agreed with wife submitting to the man but for the man "to give himself up" to care for the wife "just as himself" was radical. No question a husband was to be a provider but to stay she was an equal to himself was unheard of whether Jewish or Greek.

vs 23 Paul still says the man is the head of the wife but not in a way that is out for his best interest but rather is out for her best interest. (two are one vs 31) She is thought of first before him. (Isn't that what Christ did for us? Was willing to die for us?) The man is responsible for the decisions of marriage being made. There is an accountability between God and the man. But never was this accountability meant to be used to the man's advantage. The key is for the for the two becoming one. Just as the goal of Christ is for the good of us so the the goal of the man is for the good of the couple. This doesn't mean the man has to decide everything but rather he is responsible for making sure the issues of marriage are dealt with.

vs 27 Paul gets carried away with what Jesus did for us. He uses the example of the pre wedding activities to show what Jesus did for us. Normally a bride would have a premarriage bath to be presented to her bridegroom as clean as possible. Paul takes this idea and tells how Jesus makes the church (his bride so to speak) as clean and pure as possible. The bride (ie the church) would be made perfect not by her doing but by His. (2:8-9 also see Ezek 16:6-14 where God tells how He prepared Israel) The mystery of this is what Paul talks about in vs 32

vs 31 Paul goes back to Gen 2:22-25 to sum it all up. Woman to the man is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. Two shall become one. That is the goal of marriage. Both willingly submitting to the other so they can become one.