Background Passage: Ephesians 5:22-33
Lesson Passage: Ephesians 5:22-33

LESSON PASSAGE OUTLINE
1. Wives: Submit as Service (Eph. 5:22-24)
2. Husbands: Love as Christ Does (Eph. 5:25-30)
3. Both: Express a Complete Unity (Eph. 5:31-33)

BIBLICAL TRUTH
Christians are to relate to their spouses on the basis of their own relationship with Jesus Christ.

LIFE GOAL
To help adults promote biblical ideals of being married

Background Passage: 1 Corinthians 7:1-40
Lesson Passages: 1 Corinthians 7:10-16,32-39

LESSON PASSAGES OUTLINE
1. Where to Begin (1 Cor. 7:10-11)
2. When to Stay Married (1 Cor. 7:12-16)
3. When Not to Marry (1 Cor. 7:32-35)
4. When to Marry (1 Cor. 7:36-39)

BIBLICAL TRUTH
Most people should get married, and ideally people who are married should not divorce.

LIFE GOAL
To help adults follow God’s plan for their lives with regard to marriage

Focal Passage Outline and Scripture Passages:
Confess and Repent (Ps. 51:6-10)
Catch the Little Foxes (Song of Sg. 2:15)
Connect Spiritually (Acts 18:24-26; Rom. 16:3-5a)

Background Passages:
Psalm 51:1-19; Song of Songs 2:15; Acts 18:1-28; Romans 16:3-5a

Focal Passages:
Psalm 51:6-10; Song of Songs 2:15; Acts 18:24-26; Romans 16:3-5a

What This Lesson Is About:
This lesson is about ways husbands and wives can build a foundation for a growing marital relationship.

How This Lesson Can Impact Your Life:
This lesson can help adults build a foundation for a satisfying, growing marital relationship.

Focal Passage Outline and Scripture Passages:
Avoid Mental Adultery (Matt. 5:27-30)
Find Fulfillment in Your Spouse (Prov. 5:15-21)
Recognize What Is At Stake (Prov. 6:25-32)

Background Passages:
Matthew 5:27-30; Proverbs 5:15-23; 6:20–7:27

Focal Passages:
Matthew 5:27-30; Proverbs 5:15-21; 6:25-32

What This Lesson Is About:
This lesson is about God’s requirement of marital faithfulness.

How This Lesson Can Impact Your Life:
This lesson can help adults recognize that marital unfaithfulness can take several forms. Husbands and wives will be encouraged to fulfill their marital vows of faithfulness.

Focal Passage Outline and Scripture Passages:
Understanding Submission (Eph. 5:21-24)
Understanding Love (Eph. 5:25-30)
Understanding Respect and Honor (Eph. 5:31-33; 1 Pet. 3:7)

Background Passages:
Ephesians 5:21-33; 1 Peter 3:1-7

Focal Passages:
Ephesians 5:21-33; 1 Peter 3:7

What This Lesson Is About:
This lesson presents the Christian ideal for the husband-wife relationship.

How This Lesson Can Impact Your Life:
This lesson can help husbands and wives strengthen their marriage relationship by fulfilling their God-given responsibilities to one another.

Focal Passage Outline and Scripture Passages:
When 1 + 1 = 1 (Gen. 2:23-25)
Covenant Connection (Mal. 2:13-15)
Lifelong Commitment (Matt. 19:3-12)

Background Passages:
Genesis 2:15-25; Malachi 2:10-16; Matthew 19:1-12

Focal Passages:
Genesis 2:23-25; Malachi 2:13-15; Matthew 19:3-12

What This Lesson Is About:
This lesson is about understanding that God’s intention for marriage is lifetime commitment and our need for the security such a commitment fosters.

How This Lesson Can Impact Your Life:
This lesson will strengthen your commitment to the biblical ideal of marriage as a lifelong covenant.

Focal Passage Outline and Scripture Passages:
Male and Female (Gen. 1:26-28a)
Something’s Missing in Paradise (Gen. 2:7,15-20)
While He Was Sleeping (Gen. 2:21-22)

Background Passage:
Genesis 1:1–2:25

Focal Passages:
Genesis 1:26-28a; 2:7,15-22

What This Lesson Is About:
This lesson is about God’s creating man and woman and establishing the marriage relationship.

How This Lesson Can Impact Your Life:
This lesson can help you understand and commit to God’s design of marriage as a sacred relationship between one man and one woman.

Statistically, most people will become married in their lifetime. Being married is how we pass on the family name and traditions, and leave a legacy behind us. Before a person gets married though, it takes getting to know that special person to share in your lifestyle. Maybe you are reading this and in a relationship, that’s a place to start.

The main purpose behind this writing today is for those who are not in a relationship, not dating anybody, and maybe have no clue about whether there is even anybody out there for you. No prospects at all, or know how to even get started in that direction.

You know who you are. You’re not married? Not even dating, or in a relationship? But you want to be? No garantees but here’s some tips and questions to ask yourself to help you focus.

Read More…

Ephesians 5:33. Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
–NKJ

To be in a marriage is a matter of mutual love and respect. All through the preceding passage, from verse 21 through33, it talks to the husband more than the wife. Both are told to basically love and respect each other. It is one thing to have an attraction, or a passionate emotional love for another person. That love soon fades, and real love has to be worked toward.

For people who have ever had a broken marriage, you know that the initial romance fades. For people who are currently in a marriage that has lasted for a long time, you know that as well, and that it does take work to continuously grow together in love. For married people who are in the first years, or months, growing love takes a lot of forgiveness, respect, and submitting to the other. Try to see things from the other person’s side as well. Say and do things just for them, even the things that you may not like. Submitting is one place for that true love to grow.

Take time to notice and acknowledge when your mate does things as they submit. It shows respect. Seek out ways to respect your mate. Can’t think of any? I’ll bet your significant other can. Without bringing in complaints of the things that you think should be done that aren’t, sit down and make lists together of the things that you perceive as your way of doing a submissive act. Count them as blessings and use them to be a demonstration of respect for the other. Use it as an excersize to think of more ways to be submissive.

With those little steps of forgiving, over looking the faults, or the perceived faults of the other goes a long way. Being submissive to each others needs makes it more than a one way relationship and starts a trend for a perpetual motion of giving to each other. That perpetual motion of giving and receiving is completed when we acknowledge it by showing respect towards the other.

For people who are not married, or in a relationship with another, one question that God put before me years ago was, “What would you do with a girlfriend if you had one?” When your life is absent of a significant other, you may spend time in those romantic thoughts and day dreams of having someone to walk hand in hand with, or to be with at social events, or to just spend time talking to and getting to know. All are things that should never be neglected at any point in a relationship. The long a relationship lasts, with inhabiting together with close contact, the new wears off, then how will you deal with this person?

Before any lines are crossed into marriage, which should always be considered a permanent thing and the only place for any sexual relationship, Understand that love is more than a happy feeling. Get used to practicing foregivness, submission, and respect. The love will grow from there.

Ephesians 5:31. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
5:32. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
–NKJ

It’s a mystery, but it happens every day. It’s so natural, yet so strange. Some where today, right now, a man and a woman are meeting, becoming attracted to each other, leaving the security of their families and coming together to be on their own. It’s the natural order, and design by God.

For this reason. Read the preceding verses to see how this natural act fits in with the model asChrist with his church, the head with the body, and a husband and a wife. Verse 32 sums up the whole concept there in that one short phrase. It takes two distinctly different items, with distinctly different functions to make up this unit. Each part doing their job that they were designed for.

One natural feature of living, growing cells, is that they reproduce, knit together, and produce more. The smallest living unit that reproduces more humans is a unit of one man and one woman. It’s simple, natural, and Gods design. Through various situations, people have modified that arrangement. The Bible records families that had more than one wife. I’m not sure it ever describes situations of a wife with more than one husband. People are recorded as being divorced. Today those arrangements still exist, along with the issue of homosexual marriages. A true marriage can honestly only be defined in its most basic terms as a single unit of a man and a woman. It’s the only way to naturally reproduce more humans.

I know that my statement that limits a marriage to man and a woman is unpopular to certain groups in our world today, but to have it any other way is simply not the natural order. I know, with modern technology, a woman doesn’t need a husband to reproduce. Just have a medical professional artificially insemenate her. It still requires a man in the process, whether he is ever seen by her or not. A homosexual couple might adopt, or in some way hire a serogate to give birth. It still involves the interaction of a man and woman, outside their desired relationship to give the impression of being a family.

A living arrangement between two people of the same sex can indeed carry a strong bond, and emotional connection. The Bible records the close relationship between Ruth and Naomi, between David and Jonathan, but even in those they were never married to each other in any sense of what that intimate relationship entails.

A marriage relationship is a complex thing, but its beginnings are the simple matter of attraction to a member of the opposite sex, and the desire to be a function unit. In doing so, we can strike out on our own, leave behind old support systems of family, and make our own, new family.

Ephesians 5:30. For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.
–NKJ

In the big picture of God’s kingdom, and spiritual matters, where do we fit in? As Christians, we are his very own body. His own flesh and blood. In Revelation there is a mention of Christ returning on a white horse. In it we have a snapshot of his head, on top of a body that is clothed in garments drenched in blood. We are that body that is paid for, clothed, and drenched in his blood. The bride that he is coming for is the remnant of faithful ones of the body of Israel.

As christians, we make up the body of Jesus, and in this context we are still talking about the relationship of marriage. Using this image of Jesus as our head. Husbands, you are told in no uncertain terms that you are the head of the marriage unit. Wives are the very body of it. Think of how the roles of your own head plays in relation to the members of your body. The body does all the physical work. It walks you around. It carries you along. It hides under layers of clothing as its internal structure provides much needed blood and oxygen. It converts the raw ingredients of food into the nutrient rich blood that we need to survive. Just what exactly does the head do for the body anyway? I’m sure there are married women out there asking that question right now.

Jesus is the head of his body, the church. Men are to be the head of the body, his wife. Think of all the ways this image of body and head, of Christ and Christians, of husband and wife all relate. It can boggle the mind, and open up so many truths.

The head holds the highest position on the body. It is the part that we look at and recognize one person from another. When we do any kind of work, it isn’t the head that bends down to pick up a tool. It isn’t the head that swings a hammer, or carries the load. It does carry the brain, where all the thoughts and ideas begin. It holds all the most important sensory input, sight, sound, taste, and smell. When the body works, the head also sweats. When the body is sore and tired, the head also aches.

Husbands, in what ways does that image fit what you bring to the marriage? It should sound very familiar.

The body makes up the largest part of the complete body. It may not contain the brain, but it has the central nervous system, and the most diverse number and types of parts. The body itself can’t see, smell, hear, or taste, but it has all the life support systems to process such input as food, water, and air. It has the internal works to send life to even the most extreme and remote body parts. When the head says, “hey, let’s walk across the room.” It’s the body that gets up and walks while the head rides on top to orchestrate the event.

It takes the two distinct items, body and head to have a complete functioning body. They aren’t equal and opposite parts, but two different sized and shaped items. It takes the features of both to be a single unit.

Within the body there many things that come in matched sets, hands, feet, ears,fingers. There are some things that are unique. Only one belly button, one nose. It takes a diverse number of body parts of various sizes, shapes, and importance. As a member of the church, body of Christ, find the place that God made you for, and do his work.

Ephesians 5:29. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church.
–NKJ

Nobody ever hates his own body. Sure, we are some times depressed, or certain people have thoughts of suicide. More often though, people will go to great lengths to preserve their own life. People endure hardships at the hand of extreme situations. Surviving a plane crash, or a shipwreck, or some other crisis of life and death. The desire to keep living is strong. Even Christians with the assurance of being in heaven have that natural desire to remain alive. As much as we punish our bodies, we still love them enough to take care of them.

When those trials arise, we can survive them because we have taken care of our bodies. Once those situations are over, you know that you will again take care of your body, and restore it after such abuses. Battle scars may appear, but to serve as reminders of overcoming adversity.

Nourish and cherish. The word for ‘nourish’ is one that more fully means to grow or raise up to maturity. The word ‘cherish’ is more accurately said to be ‘fondly warm’. Doesn’t that describe how we think of our bodies. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been atached to mine for quite a long time now. I’ve seen it grow from childhood to adulthood. I’ts not a perfect body. In fact it’s beginning to show signs of falling apart, but it’s the only one I have, and I’m still fond of it. Without it, where would I be?

That’s the exact same way Jesus is with his church. Christians are his body. He has seen us grow up from our infancy and on to later stages of development and maturity. We are only human, and not perfect. He is warmly fond of us.

Now consider this in the context of where this passage was taken. It deals with the roles in a marriage. Men and women are not equal and opposite halves of a complete unit. We fit together in special ways. Each with our own special traits that we bring to the table. The model is exactly as that of Christ and his church. A head, and a body. You can’t have one without the other and have a functioning, living organism.

A marriage is the smallest single cell that perfectly models who Jesus is. Spiritually, men can’t be floating heads without a body. It doesn’t work. Women can’t be bodies without a head. Chickens with their heads cut off eventually do stop running around. And let’s not even go to the issue of a situation of pretending that two heads, or two bodies represent a true picture of who Jesus is and how he works, or even what a true marriage is.

The more you examine the marriage and family unit, the more you can see it represents God’s order of things and even secrets about his kingdom, who he is, what he is like, his nature, and how he expects us to be.

Marriages sometimes don’t work. When they don’t it can surely be traced to individuals who never saw the big picture. Self centeredness, not nourishing the other and being fondly warm to that person. Chopping off the head from the body to pursue selfish desire. Not appreciating, or being pleased and wanting to do the job of the other.

In marriage there are many daily chores and duties. How those details are split, andperformed can go in many different ways. Still the model of marriage is of a head and a body. How can you make your relationship better? If you are the body, how can you be the best body possible and stay attached to the head? If you are the head, what are you doing to pamper, nourish, and take care of your body?

Just as and the lord to the church. The perfect model is how Jesus relates to his church. As one human to another, the situation isn’t so perfect, but we should strive to live according to that example. It takes both parts working together. It can’t be all the work of only one.

Ephesians 5:27.  that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish.
 5:28.  So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself.

The recurring theme of the passage from Ephesians 5:21-33 is that we need to model the marriage relationship after Christ.  There is a direct comparason with Jesus as the head, and the body of Christians as his body. The husband is the head, with the wife as the body. Jesus holds the position of respect and honor while the body submits to doing as the head orders. The wife is the body that responds as the husband orders. Jesus loves the body, cares for it, cleans it, and provides to keep it healthy. The husband also needs to tend to the needs of his wife to keep her cared for, cleansed and healthy.

Now for the big question. Why?

It’s simple, to show off and be proud of it. Jesus wants his church, or body of believers, to be a thing that makes him proud to present. Literally ‘present’ means to ‘stand next to’. Jesus wants his body to be stain free, wrinkle free, freshly washed, fluffed and buffed. A finely tuned instrument that is well maintained and taken care of.

Husbands, can you say that about your own wife? Why not? Guess whose fault that is. Here’s a hint, look in the mirror. Your body is busy each day being the life support system for you, the head. When was the last time you took care of your body, that means your wife. If you love yourself, start by taking care of her first. Throttle back, pull off at the next off ramp of life, and do whatever it takes to tune up, maintain and restore your wife.

It’s time to show your wife the same attention that Jesus gives to his body, the church. He wants to be proud to stand by his church. Make that the exact same goal that you have for your wife.

Ephesians 5:25.  Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for it,
 5:26.  that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
–NKJ

Feminist groups often get bent out of shape by that one little verse that preceeds this passage about wives submitting to husbands. Check this out though. After that little verse about the duties of a wife, we get verses 23 through28 concerning all the responsibilities and expectations of husbands.

Wives are simply told to submit. Men are told that we need to look to Jesus as our model as the head of the body. We have to be reminded in this passage that as a head, we should love our body, that means our wife. What does that mean exactly? Verse 26 has an interesting word picture.

By the word, Jesus sanctified, cleansed, and washed his body.

Can you imagine spending the afternoon playing hard at your favorite sports event, getting all hot and sweaty, and just skipping the part about hitting the showers? Our body served us well. We had a great work out. We had fun in our competition and in honing our skills. Now it’s time to show some love to our bodies. Please, hit the shower.

Sanctify your body. With your wife as your body, take time to set apart to give her attention. Mark out some time devoted to uninterrupted care.

Cleanse. Remove the sweat and dirt that life splashes on your marriage. Get back to basics and renew the things that inspired you to choose to be married to each other. Do this daily, not just every once in a while, or for an anniversary, or the even rarer event of a ceremony to renew marriage vows.

Washing in water. Litterally bathe in water. Don’t just stand at the sink and splash on a little water and deodorant on the parts that are particularly stinky. Just as you would in taking a bath, make elaborate plans to wash, renew, your relationship with your wife. Soak in the tub. Splurge on the Mr. Bubble, toss in the scented bath beads. Forget about time and enjoy the hot water and let it relax all those tensions. Live a little. Make your wife, your body, forget that part about having to submit. It’s time to minister to her and make it worth her while.

By the word. The word here is one where we get our word ‘rhetoric’. Not logos, which might mean to give a deliberate speech or saying. Rhetoric is idle chatter in general. Say those sweet nothings. Cleanse and wash by talking about things in general, about nothing in particular, about whatever may come up to give each other those much needed strokes.

Wives may need to be reminded to submit, but guys need specific instructions. Arm yourself with the ideas in these verses and get busy out there husbands.

Ephesians 5:23.  For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body.
 5:24.  Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.
In the verses that come before this passage, we learn that we are to submit to each other, that a wife is to submit to her own husband. With all this submitting going on, we find out today that the buck stops here, with the husband. The husband is the fall guy who has to take responsibility before Jesus.

In the New King James the first word is ‘For’, it is actually a word that literally translates ‘so that’. What this means is that we really need to take into consideration what has just been said. That wives are to submit. Because the wife has submitted, the man can do his intended function. When the wife submits, which means that she is just sticking to her man, filling in all the details and defining who they are together, the man becomes the head. It is a model of Jesus himself and how the body of Christians fit together.

As Christians, we should be modeling the submissive nature of the duties of the wife. Stick to Jesus. Support and define who we are in that relationship, while he is allowed to be the head, and represent us before God.

The husband has the big role of being the head, the part of the body to represent the marriage of his union with his wife before the face of Jesus.

Jesus is the savior of the body. Husbands pay attention. Are we saving our wives? Are we rescuing them, revitalizing them? Or are we trampling and abusing them? Jesus is our model. Being the head doesn’t mean we are nnot to give anything back. If the body is sick, the head is sick. If the head chops off the body, neither will survive. If you are the head, and you’re sick, first look how to make your body well.

Verse 24 is simply a call for the model of Jesus and his relationship with the church to be reflected in the marriage relationship. Jesus is the head. Collectively we all, men and women,  are his body. We are to submit to him as he returns favor and takes care of us. Jesus the head is the source of strength and honor. Men, be strong and honorable. Make your body as healthy as you can take care of it. Women, you are that body, the life support structure for the head. Both need to work together and act as a functioning unit.

The institution of marriage is a microcosm of the picture of Jesus, and what his kingdom is like. It is a single, self sustaining cell that requires a wife and a husband. Notice the lack of pairing two husbands, or two wifes. A wife has special characteristics that a husband does not have, cannot have, and will never have. Likewise for husbands having traits that a wife does not have. It takes a complete set of those elements to be a self sustaining, reproducing, and healthy unit.

A woman is not lesser, or greater than a man. Both need each other as two parts to make up a complete unit. They both have their own ways of submitting and nurturing the other.

Ephesians 5:22.  Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
–NKJ

This verse is not a popular idea among those who are in the civil rights for women movement. On the surface it seems to place women in a lesser value than men, but if you think that way, you’re not reading it in context.

The verse before says to submit *one to another*. This is all inclusive of both sexes, all races, all nationalities, for everybody who claims to be a Christian. Not for women alone. Submit to each other.

The word ‘submit’ is actually a word that means to be ‘subordinate’. For me, when I think of subordinate, I think of numbers, structure, order, smaller pieces fitting together to make a bigger unit.

In school, when you have to write an essay, there is a definite outline structure to follow. The title, the Introduction, the Main points, and the conclusion. Each main point is broken down into usually three ‘subordinate’ points. . Those points are not the entire essay. Even the higher level points are not the entire essay. Each part does its job to fully define the topic.

If a wife is subordinate to her husband, she does her part to define her husband. To build up themselves as a married couple and define their part in the big picture. The man was never meant to go it alone. He is there to offer the main structure, to be the umbrella that the wife fills in with the detail.

A woman does not have to submit to just any man. In fact she should never be forced to subject herself to anybody. Only her own husband.

In doing so, she honors the Lord. It is the way he wants it to be. It is a matter of commitment to the marriage. It is a matter of respect for the one and only husband who the wife is teamed with. It’s a matter of love for herself, for her husband, and for the Lord to practice these things.

Men aren’t off the hook with a free hand to do as they please. Take time to read the verses surrounding this passage. In fact, stay tuned and read more about it tomorrow.

Focal Passage Outline and Scripture Passages:
A Beauty and a Beast (1 Sam. 25:2-3)
Wit, Wisdom, and Discernment (1 Sam. 25:18-19,23-31)
Leave the Future with God (1 Sam. 25:36-38,39b)

Background Passage:
1 Samuel 25:1-42

Focal Passages:
1 Samuel 25:2-3,18-19,23-31,36-38,39b

What This Lesson Is About:
Abigail was married to a harsh and difficult man. She used her wit, wisdom, and discernment to navigate her family through troubles while remaining faithful to her husband and content to leave her future in God’s hands.

How This Lesson Can Impact Your Life:
By examining how Abigail coped with a difficult husband, this lesson will help you discover ways you can deal with difficult situations between you and your spouse.