SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/8/2019 11:21 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “The
Matter of Submission”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ephesians
5:22a
Message of the verse: “Wives, be subject to your own husband.”
When we look at the word “wives” it is not qualified and so it means all Christian wives, not just those who have a higher social standing, higher education, higher intelligence, spiritual maturity or giftedness, age, experience, or any other consideration. It is not qualified by the intelligence of her husband, or his character, attitude, spiritual condition, or any other consideration. Paul is saying categorically to all believing wives: “be subject to you own husband.”
John MacArthur writes “As indicated by italics in most translations,
‘be subject’ is not in the original text, but the meaning is carried over from
verse 21. The idea is: ‘Be subject to one another in the fear of
Christ [and, as first example,] ‘wives,…to you own husbands.’ As explained in the previous chapter [of his
commentary] hupotasso means to
relinquish one’s rights, and the Greek middle voice is used in v. 21 and
carried over by implication into v. 22)emphasizes the willing submitting of oneself.
God’s command is to those who are to submit. That is, the submission is to be voluntary
response to God’s will in giving up one’s independent rights to other believers
in general and to ordained authority in particular—in this case the wife’s own
‘husband.’”
There is a difference between the wife and the children
as the children are to obey their parents and slaves their masters as seen in
6:1, and 5. The difference is that the
wife is not commanded to obey (hupakouo).
I suppose that we will get into this latter, but I have learned that
marriage is a picture of the Godhead.
God the Father chose a bride for His Son in eternity past as seen in the
second Psalm, and then the Son submitted to the Fathers will by coming to earth
to purchase His bride by dying on the cross to pay for “her” sins. The Holy Spirit is also in submission to the
Son and to the Father. This is the
picture of marriage. Now a husband is
not to treat his wife as a servant or even as a child, but as an equal for whom
God has given him care and responsibility for provision and protection, to be
exercised in love. I think from that
last statement that you can see a picture of the Godhead. MacArthur adds “As Paul proceeds to explain
in considerable detail (vv. 25-33), the husband’s primary responsibility as
head of the household is to love, provide, protect and serve his wife and
family—not to lord it over them according to his personal whims and desires.”
I have to say that this subject we are looking at now is
going to take a fairly long time to go over, and I certainly am not the best at
helping others understand what wives or husbands are to do as seen in the
passages we will be looking at, and so you will probably continue to see a
number of quotes from MacArthur to help all of us understand this very
important subject.
The verse that goes along
with the quotation from Billy Graham comes from James 1:5 “If any of you lacks
wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach,
and it will be given to Him.”
8/8/2019 11:43 AM
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