Who Is In Charge----Christ and the Husband

You can't help but find instructions on how to do male-female relationships on every page of scripture. Every point you learn about living and loving as God intends naturally applies to how you get along with the opposite sex., whether that is someone you are just getting to know or your married partner.

Ephesians 5:22-33 gives instructions aimed specifically at Christian husbands and wives. Many people have trouble with statements like "wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.

Many Bible experts (if there is such a thing) says that we should mutually submit to one another, serving with the same attitude Jesus constantly displayed.

However, others say there is another kind of submission going on here. They point out that the word submission has military origins. Though it doesn't refer to forced submission. It does mean voluntary submission to an appointed authority. It's the same word used for Christians submitting to government figures and youth submitting to elders. Women as God intended are to voluntarily put themselves under the authority of their husbands.

While that might sound like a tough job for wives, the bulk of the passage actually focuses on the duties of the husband, requiring men to love their wives "just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her."

Any husband who makes a case that the Bible requires His wife's submission to him must accept an even bigger job. He must submit to Christ's complete authority and devote himself to loving his wife with the same kind of sacrificial love that drove the Lord to the cross.

1. Husbands are also to protect their wives physically, emotionally, spiritually, financially, and give her all the security she needs to do her job.
2. Husbands will answer to God for the kind of job they did as a husband and father.

So the wives submit so her husband can do his job. Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church. Each is necessary so that the other can function as God intended.