The Wife God Wants

Introduction

I grew up in the 1970s. It was a volatile time. With all the political unrest of the 1960s came the harvest in the 1970s. In the words of the Temptations in 1970, it was a ball of confusion — So, round and around and around we go; Where the world’s headed, nobody knows. Not much has changed and yet a lot has. There is still a lot of confusion.

Through all of that, I grew up in a very traditional home. My mom fulfilled her dream of being a wife and mother. She had other talents. Valedictorian of her high school class, she was intelligent. Musically inclined she sang at weddings and in quartets and sextets. Getting married in August 1956 and becoming parents in August 1957, mom worked up until my brother was born. The first house I remember living in was a rental. It had running water but no bathtub. Mom heated water to partially fill a galvanized tub for us to bathe in. The only heat source was an oil heater in the main bedroom. Mom has black and white photos of us boys in winter clothes inside the house because it was cold. Certainly no A/C. Dad was laid off 4 months out of each year. Too young to understand, in my teenage years hearing these stories I asked my mom if she ever thought about going back to work. No. She didn’t want to pay someone else to do what she dreamed of doing — being a mom and wife who took care of the home.

Things have changed. I tell these things so that you can understand what my experience was. What may not be appreciated is the fact that we were surrounded by women who did work. Mom was never critical of such. She didn’t think that a woman working outside of the home was doing anything wrong. I grew up watching my mom cook, clean, wash, iron, being the mom who took her turn in the school clinic, engaged at our congregation and when I got old enough to understand the principles of cooking, ironing, sewing, washing clothes, folding clothes, hanging out the laundry I was trained to do it all with the message almost every time — I do these things because I want to. You should not expect your wife to do them. She may choose to work then you will need to know how to do these things. While Barbara does all the cooking now, for 25 years, I did most of it. If a shirt needs to be ironed, I do it without asking Barbara to do it although she has and will.

Here’s the point — I want us to hear what God says about wives and try as best as we can to tune out culture for just a moment. Culture’s words and God’s words are not always the same.

Submission

There are certain words that create a bit of resistance in us. One such word is “submission.” It is a word that generates ideas of subservience and being walked on and being taken advantage of. When the word is used; it is typically used to describe something that is given for review — a paper submitted to a teacher or a book submitted to a publisher. But in relationships, we don’t like using that word. I don’t recall ever hearing “I am in submission to my employer.” Rather it is usually said “I work for…”

Let’s start with some Bible Study from Ephesians 5. Start with verse 18. Paul instructs his readers that instead of drinking wine to the point of drunkenness (as children of light we avoid the darkness — v. 10-11) they are to be filled with the Spirit. Being filled with Spirit (not like a quantity but as children of light cooperating with the Spirit to lead us rather than the works of darkness), will result in four things: speaking, singing, giving thanks, and submitting (four participles generated by the Spirit’s work in the life of the believer). The first three — speaking, singing, giving thanks are tied to corporate worship as the phrase “one another” suggests. Verse 21 also includes “one another;” however, unlike the previous three that can be verbally engaged, this one is internal. It requires each person to develop an attitude that will only be seen in relationships but it cannot be verbalized.

Paul takes this entire section (living as children of light) and now applies it to the home. How do I know that? Because verse 22 does not have a verb in it. The verb in verse 21 supplies the verb for verse 22 and that nonexistent verb is supplied by translators in verse 22 “submit.” Verse 22 simply read “wives as to your own husbands as to the Lord.” That is how we know the previous section and this new section go together. Mutual submission in the body of Christ now gives way to discussion of how that submission is revealed in the home of the believers. In this case, Paul writes that both husband and wife are believers. Paul will write about a different view in 1 Corinthians 7 and Peter will write about the home where the wife is the believer and the husband is not in 1 Peter 3. Frank will cover that in a later message. So in the home where both are believers this is what God wants for the wife.

Wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord. The words are not difficult to understand; it’s the message that gets us. The word “submit” makes us uncomfortable because our culture has attached a negative connotation. There are some who hear this and say, “well that is Paul writing a long time ago; times have changed.”

Culture

Times have changed. Our culture operates from the perspective that submission is not a good thing. Some suggest that if Paul were alive today and writing, he would write it differently. Some suggest that Paul is only parroting the culture of his day. That it was imperative that wives not take advantage of their new found freedom in Christ and exploit that in the culture that didn’t appreciate assertive women. Thus, Paul is trying to keep wives in check and bolster the husband’s role in the 1st century.

If that is true, then was Paul also espousing the cultural norms in verse 25 when he tells husbands to love their wives? And if that was not the cultural norm of his day, then why would he want wives to follow cultural norms and not husbands? Paul’s words to husbands are countercultural. Some husbands cared deeply about their wife. Paul’s words to husbands is not about warm fuzzies. It’s about submission which is what husbands didn’t do in Paul’s day. Perhaps Paul has something else in mind rather than culture.

Go back to verse 18. To be filled with the Spirit; to cooperate with God’s Spirit who lives within us means that our lives are a reflection of light not of darkness. Speaking, singing, giving thanks, and submitting are not cultural expectations, they are the result of being filled with the Spirit. Just as a wife submits to her husband as she does to the Lord; so a husband submits to his wife (loves her) as Christ loves the church. This submission is possible because we are listening to and cooperating with the Spirit of God. How it reveals itself in culture may differ according the times and circumstance, but it has to do with the believer listening to God.

Submission means to voluntarily yield my will to another. This is exactly what Paul instructs the husband to do in regards to his wife. In fact, he spends far more time there because more convincing needs to be done. Wives submitting to husbands is not new in the 1st century, but Paul’s reason goes beyond culture to one’s understanding of their relationship to God. A wife submits to her husband because she hears the voice of God and she wants to live as a wife who belongs to the light and who understands this is God’s will and who knows that she wants to promote goodness, righteousness, and truth. Yield to your husband just as you yield to Christ. A Spirit led wife understands that what is at stake is God’s light being seen in the home.

Our culture wants to turn this into a discussion about toxic masculinity and the patriarchal dominance. As believers we do not listen to culture nor do we adopt cultural norms. In our households, let us listen to the Spirit. Mutual submission in the home means we yield our will to Christ and in that submission we begin to understand the necessity of not seeking what we want but what is best for each other. Look at verse 33. This mutual submission results in the husband loving his wife and the wife respecting her husband. This mutual submission brings about a marriage that the couple is proud of and that reveals God’s light in a dark world. Invitation.

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