June 7, 2006

 

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 word, 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.

 

-- Ephesians 5:22-27

 

I truly believe one of the primary reasons for the breakdown of the home today is because men and women don’t understand or practice their roles and responsibilities in their marriages.

 

The verses above give us the primary roles for husbands and wives in a world in which equality is promoted as the highest ideal. But remember that equality does not mean sameness.

 

We are heirs together of the grace of God as men and women, but He has assigned specific and strategic roles and responsibility within the marriage relationship. And we are to live and to practice these standards.

 

But notice the bulk of the responsibility rests squarely on the shoulders of men! The Bible never tells men to command their wives to submit. God tells wives to submit to their husbands, but we are not called to make our wives submit.

 

Rather, men are called to love our wives as Christ has loved the church. And then, because the wife is the responder to the man’s initiation, godly wives will respond to the sacrificial and steadfast love of their husbands.

 

That’s how you practice a covenant marriage!

 

GOD HAS ASSIGNED SPECIFIC AND STRATEGIC ROLES WITHIN THE MARRIAGE RELATIONSHIP.