Take Home: For the Wives

This is the second installment of Take Home, the current preaching series at VCF.  This week's topic is on Wives and picks up from the verse in Ephesians from last week.

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.  For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. (Ephesians 5:22-24)

The word 'submit' in our modern context has some negative connotations - to yield, surrender, concede.  But during the time when Paul wrote this letter to the Ephesians, women did not have a lot of rights and were treated as property.  The biblical term that got translated as submit meant 'to arrange a troop in military fashion under the command of a leader.'  It meant that women were enjoined to take their posts, as in a battle, i.e. recognition of a specific role.  John Stott defines submission as 'humble recognition of God's divine order in society.'  It is a voluntary attitude of cooperation.

1) Submit reverently.  With full devotion, as fitting to the Lord.  From Ephesians 5:22, submission is a command and goes beyond just the husband. Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it. (Luke 11:28)

2) Submit respectfully.  ...and the wife must respect her husband (Ephesians 5:33).  Affirm and honor.

Christ modeled obedience when he submitted to the will of the Father.  For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. (John 6:38)

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