However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Summary: In this passage Paul makes a statement that is impossible to get around. We either accept it, or we don’t. What we choose to do says more about us and our faith than anything else.
I know this topic probably seems a bit old by now. Paul has been going on and on about wives and husbands for several verses. However, there is something in this last verse about wives and husbands we haven’t discussed yet.
Paul opens his statement with an admonition to husbands: Love your wife as you love yourself. The kind of love Paul refers to is agapaō, meaning to care for one another with affection.
Then Paul writes that the wife “must respect her husband.” The Greek word for “respect” suggests that she should look up to her husband with the same fear and awe her husband shows God.
Back in the early days of my faith, I am ashamed to admit that I would have seen this passage as a kind of ‘club’ a husband could use to force his wife into submission. After all, this is the Bible we are talking about, and Paul’s letter doesn’t suggest a wife should consider respecting her husband or maybe should respect him once in a while. The Bible says a wife must respect her husband. “Must” is an unequivocal word! There is no doubt about Paul’s intent here.
For the record, if I ever thought that way, I was wrong.
So what happens if a wife doesn’t respect her husband? Do lightning bolts fly out of the sky? Does God put her under a curse and cause her abdomen to swell or her womb to miscarry, as the priest declared in Numbers 5: 11-31?
What do we do with statements like these? What about husbands who don’t care for their wives very well, or for themselves, for that matter? What about wives who don’t respect their husbands? Paul doesn’t put any threats or curses behind his statement about respect. He simply puts it out there for the Ephesians, and now all Christians, to consider.
As we consider how we love others and especially how we love our spouses, it is valuable to look at ourselves through the lens of our Creator’s Words. The Bible is either God’s Word or it isn’t. If it isn’t God’s Word, then we get to “pick and choose” what we want to believe. If it is God’s Word, then the whole Bible stands as a testament to God’s will.
When we look at passages like this verse from Paul on how Christian households should function, we have to ask ourselves what we believe about God’s Word. In a sense, it is a test. If we believe it is true, then we have to decide how we are going to respond to our Maker. In the end, it is not a test between husband and wife, but a test between us and our God.
Application: Consider how God’s instructions through Paul affect our lives.
Food for Thought: What do you think is the reason behind Paul’s admonition to love our spouses, as Paul describes in this passage?
I believe it speaks to putting God first in our lives. When we love God first, and love others as ourselves, it enables love to grow in our own hearts, and that love thrives beyond anything that happens in life. Pauls words are less of a “law” or “rule” and more of telling us how we can know true love.
Nicely said, Chris!
I especially like your point about this being less of a “law” and more about love.
Good devotion. Good comments CH.
Since we are commended to love others as ourselves, it seems most appropriate to do this first and foremost with our own spouses. God instituted and loves marriage. He wants to protect marriage and His goal is oneness (Genesis 2: 24) that demonstrates the oneness seen in the relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Deuteronomy 6: 4). Love is required for His will to be achieved.
Thank you, Rich!
“Love is required for His will to be achieved.” — Absolutely!
09-23-2023, What do you think is the reason behind Paul’s admonition to love our spouses, as Paul describes in this passage?
The Godly Love between a husband and wife will provide a great peace in their Christian marriage where the two have been made one by God. And they will be a light with double the brightness of either one if them were alone.
1 John 4:7-12, Love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God. Those who do not love do not know God, because God is love. God has made His love known among us, as He sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him, the propitiation for our sins. We also ought to love one another. As we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, So that He might sanctify her, that church would be seen in glorious splendor, without spot or wrinkle. He who loves his own wife loves himself, he nourishes, carefully protects and cherishes it, as Christ does the church.
Ephesians 5:25-29
A man shall leave his father and his mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. However, let each man of you love his wife as his very own self; and let the wife see that she respects and reverences her husband ************that she notices him, regards him, honors him, prefers him, venerates, and esteems him; and that she defers to him, praises him, and loves and admires him exceedingly.
*******Ephesians 5:30-33 Webster’s New International Dictionary offers this as a list of English words with the same (or nearly the same) essential meaning as “respect” and “reverence.” The latter (“reverence”) includes the concept of “adore” in the sense not applied to deity.
Thank you, Ron!
You touch on many important aspects of this question: The peace of God that comes through obedience, the light that shines through a couple’s obedience to God, and sanctification — by itself sanctification is worthy of a library of books! 🙂