Respecting Marriage (Eph. 5)

I’ve been thinking a lot about respect lately as I ponder the scriptures, as I speak to women, as I think about teaching young women of marriageable age. I am not speaking of the R-E-S-P-E-C-T as Aretha’s catchy '60's song speaks of it but rather the respect that the Bible says husbands are due inside the covenant of marriage. I promise they are two completely different things.

In Ephesians 5 Paul speaks of marriage in the context of subjection to one another in Christ, a very unpopular concept I've written of before. When Paul tells women to be subject to their own husbands in marriage, he has already laid a foundation of God’s work in their lives through His sending of the Christ and Christ’s sacrificial work that redeems. He has already told men and women to imitate God (v. 1), to spend time trying to learn what pleases Him (v. 10), to be careful how they walk because the time is short and the days are evil (v. 15), to keep the joy of a song in their hearts at all times (v. 19), and to speak to one another out of the overflow of the Spirit (v. 18). He didn’t just throw out some distorted concept of male domination to push down the rights and persons of the women in the world, yet isn’t that how we sometimes view that verse? No one ever said the concept is easy. 

After telling a woman to be subject to her own husband, Paul offers a rather lengthy passage explaining very beautifully the why. Honestly, I want the why, and God through Paul is generous enough to offer what I don’t need but rather want. It is not mansplaining as some might say who have a skewed view of God’s word. The why is beautiful, tying our roles inside marriage to Christ and the church for whom He laid down His life to cleanse and sanctify in order to “present to Himself the church in all her glory having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that she should be holy and blameless” (Eph. 5:27, NASB). The metaphorical mystery is clear. I as a wife represent the church and my husband Christ. What woman doesn’t want a man who will lay down his life for her? What Christian woman doesn’t want a man who will lead her in Christ and do his all to love her (even die for her) in order to present her pure and blameless to God one day?

That kind of love no woman will ever deny if she is in her right mind. But am I in my right mind? Are we in our right minds today? Or have we spent a lifetime believing the lies of the world:

1. soaking up the idea that we too should make our own way; 

2. having our own separate lives while simultaneously having the whirlwind-romantic-kind-of-love-that-sweeps-us-off-our-feet while still being in complete control of everything; 

3. deserving the world’s best accolades while having a well-kept house and respectful, godly children; 

4. working on a leveled playing field where everyone likes me; 

5. reaping more of the benefits that come through hard work and advancement out there at the cost of my family without losing them; 

6. dictating the terms inside marriage and having a husband who isn’t resentful of me while I am doing so; 

7. splitting all the work inside the home 50/50 (or maybe an even more skewed proportion) but spending all the money; 

8. collecting even more of the world’s goods yet having no debt, believing appearance matters more than anything. 

And the list could go on, but I will stop there. 

I think of the '70’s Jean Nate commercial that speaks to career women of bringing home the bacon AND frying it up in a pan. What was marketed as freedom was really more work and stress and division. Now women not only had to manage home and family and all the requirements there, but they also had to work outside the home for men who were not their own husbands in a field that would never truly be level. Don’t believe me? Look at the news. Women are still struggling to attain the level men have achieved. They are often still paid less wages, promoted less often, regarded by those beneath them as inferior which leads to struggles even for those who attain the top positions they desire. But today’s culture has that covered to: “You can be anything you want to be. Just do it. Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t. If you can dream it, you can do it.” Many women find themselves living their dreams alone because the external pull of the world was too much for a marriage that began with a covenant. The world fractures and divides and distracts us from trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord (v. 10). We cannot serve two masters (Matt. 6:24). Serving another man has often led to work-place affairs that fracture marriages, which is another price women have paid in order to get out of the home and into the world.

Webster’s 1828 has a lengthy definition of respect, and understanding the word and its connotations is essential to understanding Paul’s writings to women. Webster’s first entry offers insight into the verb as Paul uses it and mentions respect in relation to regarding or having regard for something’s design or purpose. We should consider the roles God placed women in upon His creation of them (Gen. 2:18-25). Webter moves on to the really relevant entry in our context, which is “to view or consider with some degree of reverence, as possessed of real worth.” I as a wife am to look upon my husband and view his true value in Christ, see what he is worth to Him, look through eyes that truly comprehend his task is the harder one of the two roles given in marriage. He is the one who has to keep all the balls spinning in the air while helping me also to grow in holiness and purity.My task is to come alongside him in our oneness, to support him in whatever way I can. If that is working outside the home, I do so, but I must do so with a different purpose than ambition for myself, for self-promotion. I am one with him. There is no room for self-promotion in covenant marriage.

The way my husband is to love me is costly: love at the price of his life, his wants, his needs—to love me as he loves himself. My part of this marriage covenant is quickly explained but hard to apply: “Let the wife see to it that she respect her husband” (v. 33b). Pretty sure Paul added that “let the wife see to it” part because truly seeing a husband's worth takes ongoing work. Life here is a struggle against my own flesh, and subduing it and disciplining it requires constant attention. Living with my other half is a struggle in the flesh even at the best of times, much less when his own struggle is real and bleeds over onto me in our walk together. This takes me back to where Paul started in v. 1-2: imitate God; I am to walk in love like Christ loved me, giving Himself up for me. This is how I am to love my husband even when he is not very lovely or is being “grumbly,” as my husband puts it often. 

Don't mishear me. I am not in any form or fashion saying I have this figured out or that marriage as designed by God is truly easy. It is not. Marriage is hard; old (as in years spent together) doesn’t necessarily equal easy; and seeking my husband’s well being instead of or above my own often seems nigh to impossible (1 Cor. 10:24), especially if he isn’t living up to my skewed (or unskewed) expectations. Proverbs 4:12 reminds me that my marriage walk isn’t walking alone. When Greg struggles, if I am holding fast to Christ, he has help in me. When I struggle, if he is doing the same, I have help in him: "A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart” (NASB). The braiding together of covenant marriage binds us, but it is Christ who holds us fast.

So, I shut out the world’s voice sung to an Enjoli commercial (“You can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never, never let him forget he’s a man,’cause you’re a woman”), beat down the world’s message about the respect I deserve as a woman (“All I am asking for is a little respect when you come home ‘cause I am working just as hard as you are”), confess my sins before the Lord (“Lord, I need You because I have this all messed up and it isn’t working when I try to do things my way”), read His truth (“Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided to you”), and then trust Him to work it all out. He will.