Mutual Submission

I honestly believe our marriage mandate is to love our spouse as Christ loved the world. We are to be subject to one another. We are to love one another. No one person has dominion, domination, or final say-so in a marriage relationship. The roles are equal. The functions (who washes and who cooks) are for each couple to decide.

The Bible is quite unclear about the roles for spouses. On first glance Ephesians 5:21-33 seems to be saying women are not as good as men. Women are unequal. They are beneath and below the role and function of men. But the Bible is written from a 98% (purely a guess) patriarchal worldview. We, post-Easter, post-Enlightenment, post-modern people must attempt to read scripture through the idioms of our generation so we can communicate the majesty and message of scripture with startling freshness of the original text.

What does this mean? It means we must take what we know about first century living and juxtapose it to our worldview and then place God in the middle of it. I am not saying pick and choose whatever passages fit you best, but what I am saying is you must take all you know into scripture with you.

So how do we read the role of spouses in Ephesians? I suggest starting with the first verse.

“Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.” (Eph. 5:21)

Both husband and wife should be subject to each other. It is mutual submission. Each lean on the other. Each focus on the other. Each subjects oneself to the needs of the other.

But there is that pesky phrase, “For the husbands are the head of the wives . . .”

What are we supposed to with this?

I submit we are to read the rest of the verse . . . “. . . as Christ is the head of the church.”

Anyone who thinks husbands have domination over their wives is not reading the scripture verse completely. Husbands play the role Christ played for the church –and that role is ultimate sacrifice. Christ who was in the form of God did not consider equality with God as something to be grasped. Instead, he humbled himself to the point of death even death on a cross. (Maybe husbands should spend more time humbling themselves before their wives.)

Never did Christ arrogantly place power and authority over humanity. Instead he came as a servant, a bondservant, to show that love is an act of submission, an act that places someone else before yourself. I argue neither should a husband or a wife arrogantly place power over the other. Together they should mutually submit to one another.

Whether you are a complementarian or an egalitarian, you have to admit Ephesians 5 is telling both husbands and wives that a Christian marriage is strongest when you put the needs of your spouse in front of your own. But what do I know. I’m a male-feminist who is still unmarried!

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