Session 4: Ephesians (Couples Conference) — Stuart Briscoe

Well, this is really quite amazing that so many of you are still here. We are due to finish at three o 'clock. At three o 'clock I will not finish, but I will stop, which is what you are really interested in.

The difference between finishing and stopping is that one is slightly more abrupt than the other, but the net result is the same. I want to talk to you from Ephesians chapter 5 in this concluding session.

Let me say what a joy it has been for us to be with you today. And I mean that very, very sincerely. What? Yeah. Alright, Ephesians chapter 5 verse 22, one of my favourite verses. Wives submit. We are going to finish this day on a high note.

The Missing Verb in Ephesians 5:22

That is what it says. Wives submit. Now, I think all the women here have probably heard a sermon on those two words. Probably heard them quite frequently. In fact, you may have heard them ad nauseam. You may be interested to know that in the original language, in many of the manuscripts, now let me explain what I mean by that.

You know the New Testament was written in Greek. You know that we have many, many, many manuscripts of the Greek available to us. There are differences in some of them because some were copied from others.

There were glosses, there were omissions, etc, etc. They are not huge differences. But one of the very interesting things about this verse that we call Ephesians 5 verse 22, although originally it was not called that, the chapters and verses were just put in so that Sunday school children could learn chapter and verse.

But in the original, in the Greek, in many of the manuscripts, what scholars say are the best manuscripts, listen carefully, the word submit is not there. Why don't we go now? Let's just leave it there.

The word submit is not there. Now I'm not kidding you, this is true. So you know as well as I do that you cannot have a sentence without a verb. So the people who were translating this knew that they needed a verb.

Now all the translators from Greek to the English were men. And they said, men we need a verb, quickly. And they said, this is a golden moment for us. And so they said, it was proposed, seconded and unanimously voted upon, within a matter of minutes, let's put in submit.

And that's how we got it. Who believes that? No, that is not how it happened. Well, but we need to ask the question, how did it happen? That this verb submit is inserted there. And the answer is, if you look at the previous verse, verse 21, it says, submit, actually it should be submitting.

Mutual Submission and the Fullness of the Spirit

Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ, wives to your husbands as to the Lord. In the Greek, it makes perfect sense not having a verb there. But in the English, you have to supply the verb which you take from the previous sentence.

So it is perfectly correct to have it there. But listen, what is not correct is to separate verse 22 from verse 21. You can't do that. Well, actually you can. Because if you look in your Bibles, you'll probably find that not only are they separated, but they have actually put them in two separate paragraphs.

And in my Bible, they've not only put them in two separate paragraphs, they've made certain that we'll see they're two separate paragraphs by putting a title in between the two. Now, does this matter?

Yes, it does. And I'll tell you why. Because if you take a text out of its context, you're left with a con. That's a good rule. If you take a text out of its context, you're left with a con. If you take wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord out of the context of submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ, you are going to say something that Paul didn't say.

What Paul talked about was what I would call triple submission here. First of all, there is the submission that is part and parcel of the Christian experience. And that is that Christians understand the Lordship of Christ and they submit to it.

Christian marriage, therefore, is between two submissive people. Both of whom are by definition submissive to Christ. But Christians also, we understand from other parts of Scripture, know what it is to submit to one another.

We are to honour each other. We are, listen, to esteem others better than ourselves. So, what is the picture? The picture is here of Christian marriage. It is a picture of Christian marriage that is recognisable by two people who are submitted to the Lord, who, because they are Christians, have a submissive attitude to each other.

And in that context, the wives submit to their husbands. Now, that gives a rather different picture, I would submit to you, than the picture that is very, very often conveyed. And that is of the man being in charge and the women submitting.

We are not talking about that. We are talking about a submissive man and a submissive woman, both submissive to Christ. We are talking about two Christians who, by definition, know what it is to submit to each other, to esteem each other highly, and to look at each other better than they look at themselves.

And in that context, then the wife submits to the husband. Now, I already pointed out to you how important context is. There is not only that theological, or if you like, grammatical context that is important, but actually this grammatical, theological context goes even further.

I pointed out to you in verse 21 that the verb submit is what we call a participle, which means that it should be translated submitting. The reason that is important is that Paul very carefully puts in here a number of participles.

So, for instance, back up to verse 19. Speaking, participle, to one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Singing and making music in your heart to the Lord. Giving thanks to God the Father.

Submitting. You see all the participles there? They are all clustered together. Now, the important thing to remember is that participles are dependent on a verb. They are like a bunch, a cluster of fruit, hanging from the branch of a verb.

What is the verb, this is the key to understanding the passage, what is the verb upon which these participles depend? And the answer is found in verse 18. Do not get drunk on wine which leads to debauchery.

Instead, be filled. There is the verb. Be filled with the Spirit. So what is the theological and grammatical context of this why do you submit to your husband? And the answer is, the context is, a context in which it is obvious that we are talking about Christians who are submitted to the Lord, Christians who understand what it is to esteem each other highly.

In that context, wives submit to their husbands and it is all dependent upon them living in the fullness of the Spirit. Healthy marriage is lived in the fullness of the Spirit. There is your grammatical and theological context.

Why Context Changes the Meaning of a Text

Now remember, you take a text out of its context, you are left with a con. Now it is a bit heavy going, so let me lighten it up a bit, seeing you are still here at the end of a long day. One of my favourite stories, I do not know anybody else who tells it, so if I want to hear it and enjoy it, I must of necessity tell it myself.

An old man and his mule and his dog were walking along a road, a pick-up truck came round the corner, lost control, knocked the old man, his mule and his dog into the ditch. Some time later, there was a court case when the old man sued the driver of the truck.

The attorney defending the driver of the truck was cross-examining the old man, the plaintiff. And he said to him, did you on the day of the alleged accident tell my client that you had never felt better in your life than you did that day?

The old man answered, me and my mule and my dog, answer the question, did you or did you not tell my client on the day of the alleged accident you had never felt better in your life? Me and my mule and my dog, he replied, your honour, he turned to the judge, would you please instruct him to answer my question?

No, let him say what he is trying to say. Thank you, your honour. Me and my mule and my dog were walking along this road, this man came round the corner of his pick-up truck, he lost control, he knocked me and my mule and my dog into the ditch.

He jumped out of the cab holding a shotgun. He went to my dog that was bleeding profusely and he shot it. He went to my mule that had broken its leg and he shot it. He stood over me with his shotgun and he said, are you alright?

And I said, I've never felt better in my life. And the moral of the story is, what? Take a text out of its context, you're left with a con. Alright. Well now then, with that in mind, by way of introduction, let me just point out to you one other thing, and I'd love to go into this in detail but we just don't have time.

Ephesus, Household Codes, and Christian Liberty

There's another context in which this needs to be interpreted and it is the specific geographical and sociological context in which Paul is operating. Paul is writing to a congregation of people in Ephesus in the first century.

In Ephesus in the first century, the prevailing culture was Greco-Roman. In Greco-Roman culture in the first century, there was one overriding concern and that was to maintain law and order. The way to maintain law and order in that culture was to maintain law and order in the smallest segments of the culture of the society and that smallest segment was called the household.

Not the nuclear family, mum and dad and two and a half children and a golden retriever and three televisions. This was the household. In the household, there would be the husband or the father, he's the head of the household, his wife, the mother, the children, the relatives and the slaves.

The household could be quite extensive but overseeing it was the head of the household. The way he maintained law and order in the area of his responsibility was by having almost absolute control. So for instance, he could pass a sentence of death on a runaway slave.

If his wife produced too many girl babies, he could instruct they be smothered at birth. Infanticide was normative. The woman was not able to choose her religion. The head of the household determined what the religion of the household was going to be.

He had the right to imprison his own children if they were unruly, etc. In other words, he was the head big time. The women were regarded basically as property. They had next to no rights at all. Into that community and into that culture comes the Apostle Paul and he starts telling people that they are all made in the image of God.

That includes women and children and slaves. And the heads of the household have a fit. Because if these women and children and slaves start believing what the Apostle Paul is telling them, they might begin to think, it's unthinkable, but they might begin to think that they are as significant and as important as the men.

If that happens, they might begin to resist and resent the authority of the men. The law and order of the household will collapse. The law and order of the society will collapse. And Christianity, believe it or not, in those days was seen as a subversive movement.

Now this is the context in which we read Ephesians. That being the case, we begin to realize that Paul has a dilemma. Because he is bringing what he loves to call his message of the glorious liberty of the sons of God to people who live under a very repressive regime.

Particularly the women, the children and the slaves. Now you will notice that it is not accidental, therefore, that at the end of Ephesians, after Paul has talked about the fullness of the Spirit, he then talks about the relationship of the head of the household to the women, the relationship of the head of the household to the children, and the relationship of the head of the household to the slaves.

It's not an accident. Because Paul is dealing with a huge problem here. He wants the people to come into the fullness of the enjoyment of the gospel, but at the same time they've got to be careful that the women and the children and the slaves don't go hog-wild and begin to bring the gospel, the name of Christ, and the infant church into disrepute.

Now this, I think, is helpful as we look at what Paul is actually saying. Our society is so utterly different from theirs. And the great task of understanding and applying the scripture is first of all to see it in its context, and then make application of it in a context that very often is quite different or even dramatically different, as is the case today.

Instructions to Wives and Delegated Authority

Well, there's much more we could say about that. Let's look at the details here in the quarter of an hour that we've got left. Specific instructions to the wives. Specific instructions to the husband.

Now please remember that the wives, up until Paul has come preaching the gospel, have had no rights. They're basically regarded as property. Nobody's bothered to address them because they don't count.

Now Paul begins to address them, and this is what he says. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. And the wives look up and say, Oh, is he talking to us? He thinks we're significant enough for us to be talked to?

Well, we're always submitting to our husbands. We didn't know you could do anything else. We're in all kinds of trouble if we don't submit to these characters. But Paul didn't say that. Paul says, submit to your husbands, which you better do, otherwise you're going to bring the whole thing into disrepute.

But what he says is, submit to your husbands, listen, as to the Lord. And that's very different. That's very different. Does it mean that they are to regard their husbands as being the Lord, and so they submit to their husbands as if he is the Lord?

I don't think any women have ever made that mistake. Many men have, but no women have made that theological and exegetical mistake. No, it is not saying that they confuse their husbands with the Lord.

I think what it is saying is this, that there is no question that Paul is teaching that the husband does have some kind of authority, but it is, like all human authority, delegated authority from the Lord.

And the way we treat delegated authority ultimately says something about our attitude to the Lord himself. So you don't confuse your husband with the Lord, but you recognise that any acknowledgement of delegated authority has something to say about your attitude to the delegator of the authority.

What does it say to the husband? What it says to the husband is this, any authority that you might have, don't get any big ideas, it is delegated authority. And if it is delegated, you are accountable to the way you exercise it.

Why submit to your husband as to the Lord? Now the question that women today ask, the women in those days never asked it, because they didn't know anything else. The women today ask is this, Why? Why should I submit to him?

Well, it's a reasonable question. And there's an answer in verse 23. For the husband is the head of the wife. That's why. The husband is the head of the wife. Which means, of course, that the husband sits on the wife's shoulders.

Well, that's what heads do, isn't it? Well, apparently not. You don't seem to think that, even though that's what it says. It's in the book. The husband is the head of the wife. Well, if we don't take it literally, how do we take it?

Metaphorically. We have here a metaphor. The husband is not a literal head, who sits on a wife. The husband is a metaphorical head, in some form, which now requires interpretation of the metaphor. Is that a problem?

Well, yes. It's all kind of a problem. You see, you can go in different cultures, and you will find that more often than not, that metaphor, head, is interpreted in the light of the culture in which the church is found.

Now, we've travelled in just, I don't know how many, more than a hundred countries. So, you name the cultures, we've probably seen a lot of them. We've seen most of them, I guess. And we have seen all kinds of interpretations of this.

But there's one thing that will limit our freedom to interpret this metaphor in all kinds of ways. And do you know what it is that will limit it? The text. It's an excellent book on the subject. If you read it.

Read it. You see what it says? The husband is the head of the wife. In what way is he the head of the wife? As Christ is the head of the church. That narrows it down considerably, doesn't it? Now the question is, okay, in what way is Christ the head of the church?

Because that is the analogy that helps us to understand the way in which the husband is the head of the wife. Now here's the problem. The Greek word, translated head, is kephale or kephale. For which we get encephalitis.

Inflammation of the brain. Kephale or kephale. The Greek word kephale, we won't bother saying both of them for the sake of time, can mean either authority figure or it can mean source of supply. The head of a river is not authority.

The head of a river is the source of the river's supply. Now here's the question. When the Bible says Christ is the head of the church, what does it mean? He is the authority figure or he is the source of supply?

Well, I'm glad you brought that up. Ephesians chapter 1. Remember, you interpret it in its context, the broader context of the whole letter. Verse 22. God placed all things under Christ's feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

So here we've got the picture of head and body. But notice that the head is the one under whom God has placed everything. In fact, the picture is very dramatic. Everything is placed under his feet. Now, this picture of Christ's headship of the church, here's a hard question for you.

Is that an authority picture or is it a source of supply picture? You tell me. All things under his feet. That sounds awfully like authority to me. Does anybody have a problem with that? Is anybody still listening?

Alright. Chapter 4. Chapter 4. Verse 15. Here again, another analogy of the church as the body. Verse 15. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the head. Which head?

That is Christ. Very specific. Listen. From him, the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work. Question. Is that a picture of authority or source of supply?

You tell me. Source. So the question now is, in Christ being, when we talk about Christ being the head of the church, and understand that Kephale can mean authority figure or source, what is Christ to the church?

Is he the authority figure or is he the source of supply and blessing and nourishment and power? And the answer is yes. Yes. So, now we've got something to go on. It does not say, Wives, submit to your husband as to the Lord, for the husband is the head honcho.

It says, Wives, submit to your husband as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church, which is his body. So what does that suggest? It suggests that the husband, under God, has received delegated authority for which he is accountable to God as far as he exercises it, and he is given that authority in order that he might insist on being the source of supply and encouragement, enriching and nurturing his wife.

So that in the same way that the Christ is the head of the body of the church, that the church might become all that she's intended to be, so the husband is the head of the wife, in order that he might be the source of supply and encouragement, so that she might be all she's intended to be.

Now, says the Apostle Paul, submit to that, you women. Encourage him. Cooperate with him. Don't go hog-wired just because you've got a bit of freedom. Use this freedom to gladly acknowledge that this poor man is a mere male, has had a lot of delegated authority dumped on him.

He is accountable for what he's doing with it. And the whole point is that he is trying desperately to be the means of you being all that God intends you to be. Don't screw it up, girls. Submit to it.

And let him do it. Well, that's the theory. Now it's a case of working it out. All right. Oh boy, we don't really have time to do the men. I don't see much submissive spirit around here. All right. Verse 25.

Husbands, Love Your Wives as Christ Loved the Church

Husbands. Now, I want you to notice, men, there's far more instructions to the men than to the women. You know why? Because in this particular situation, in this culture, it's the men who are going to have to make the major changes.

It's the men who are going to have to... I'm talking about the culture that Paul was addressing. We can only touch on it. Husbands, love your wives. That's it. What does it mean, though? Husband, love your wives.

In our premarital class, we bring young couples in and we talk to them and we listen to them, etc., etc., and we found a very helpful exercise is to ask the young couples, were you loved as a child? It's a very simple question.

Were you loved as a child? We listen very carefully for the answer. We listen very carefully for the tone of voice in which the answer comes. Because women particularly have the great ability to say something that is negated by the tone of voice in which they say it.

My wife is brilliant at this. Right? You see how she said it? Right. Were you loved as a child? The girl says, oh yeah. How do you know? That's the next question. How do you know? Well, we were always telling each other we loved each other.

We were very tactile. We were very touchy-feely. I can't remember a night gone by when I didn't hug my mum and dad goodnight. I remember before I was going on my first date, my dad took me out and talked to me about what men were like and almost decided I didn't want to go on the date.

We bought each other presents. I remember when I graduated, my dad bought me red roses. Yeah, I was loved. Turn to the young man. Were you loved as a child? Yeah. Yeah. Yes, I guess. Yeah. How do you know?

What? How do you know? How do I know? Well, my dad never said nothing. German, you know, kind of hard. Just never said nothing. Came and watched me play football. If I'd done good, he said, you've done good, son.

Slapped me on the butt. If I'd made a mistake, he'd bawled me out. Said he was doing it for my good, but it sure didn't feel like it. Never saw him kiss my mother. Never hugged me. Then he died. Heart attack.

We'd have given anything to be able to talk to him, but we never really talked. See what's going to happen here? This marriage is in trouble before the evening starts. You know why? Because, you see, she has one understanding of love, and he has an entirely different one.

What's she looking for? Hugs and kisses and red roses? And she may get an occasional slap on the butt. And if she's really great, you might say you've done good. Well, it's kind of funny, except it's tragic.

Not only for this marriage, that's not the point. But here's the problem. How in the world do we interpret love? I'll tell you how we interpret it. We usually interpret biblical love on the basis of the love we experienced as a child in our families.

What else can we do? Unless we're people of the book. Now, if you're a person of the book, of course, you won't make that mistake. Because you'll have read it. And if you've read it, you'll have read this.

Husbands love your wives. How? Just as Christ loved the church. How did he do that? Listen. And gave himself up for her. And gave himself up for her. The men in Ephesus, when they heard that, their faces went red, and purple, and puce.

The veins began to swell on their necks. And they said, what did he say? That we are to give ourselves up for our wife? That we are to love our wives? You see, the men in those days, they had three kinds of women.

There were their wives, who looked after the kids, having produced them. There were the heterai, who were rather like the Japanese geisha girls, relatively educated women, who were scintillating company down at the club.

And there were the prostitutes. So, if they wanted to have more children, and someone to look after them, that was why they had a wife. And if they wanted to have some fun, female company with their buddies, men's night out, guess what?

They had the heterai. And if they wanted sex, there were the prostitutes. Love our wives? Give ourselves up for our wives? What is this crazy man Paul talking about? The answer is Christianity. Christianity.

Husbands, love your wives. As Christ loved the church, and gave himself up for her. It's time to finish. I'm going to take another ten minutes. Is that alright? If you've got to go, you go. That's fine.

Sacrificial Love in Marriage

I was in South Africa, trying to teach this one day. The South Africans are great rugby enthusiasts. Rugby is the game from which American football developed or degenerated, depending on your point of view.

It's American football without the pads. The South Africans, for many years, have been very, very good players. The Australians, the New Zealanders, the Southern Hemisphere giants at this particular game.

While we were there, South Africa were playing Australia. This was going to be a clash of the titans. And there was great excitement. I talked to the couples about this. I said, men, if you want to show your wife that you love her sometime, one of the ways you can do it is by giving up something just for her.

Now, I said, as a matter of interest, how many of you have tickets for the big game on Saturday? There was a forest of hands went up. I said, OK, put your hands down. It's going to be a very exciting game.

I'm just sorry I don't have a ticket. I have a meeting. Shucks. I said, this is what I want to suggest you do. Just suggest this. Men, take your wives out for dinner tonight and during the course of the dinner, say, honey, I have a surprise for you.

You know I have a ticket for the international game, South Africa versus Australia on Saturday. I've given it away because I want to come shopping with you. I kid you not. I kid you not. There was a great roar of, oh, listen.

No, no, let me finish. Oh, that would be too much. Just a great chorus came from this thing. But think about it for a minute. Think about it. The attitude of most of those men was, you're not serious, are you?

That I should actually give up a ticket for the big game to do something that my wife takes pleasure in that I can't stand. And the answer to the question was, yes. Why not? Why not? I'll tell you why not.

Because, you see, there's something about men that thinks that women are carefully made by God to be sacrificial so that men don't have to be. Because that's how God made men. That's a fundamental way of looking at things.

Men think that God made women with a sacrificial attitude so that men don't have to be sacrificial. I'm sorry. I've blown your cover, guys. But they've suspected it for a long time. Just one other thing here because there's so much that we could talk about.

Making a Wife Radiant Through Unselfish Headship

One other thing. A very dear friend of ours who's a professor of the New Testament and is retired now was writing a commentary on Ephesians. And as he was writing his commentary on Ephesians he came to this passage and he was working on it.

And he noticed that well, he didn't notice it, he'd known it for a long time, that Paul begins to use the analogy of the husband and the wife as I mentioned in one of the earlier sessions. He used the analogy to describe the unique relationship between Christ and his church.

Remember? In Ephesians 5 the analogy and the example and what he's illustrating become just almost hopelessly entangled. And it's very difficult to tell what he's talking about in the end. But he's talking about the husband and the wife or Christ and the church.

And one of the things that he says is that one of the things that Christ is doing is he's giving himself up for the church that eventually he might present the church to himself as a radiant bride. And so my friend who was writing his commentary turned round from his computer and he called through to his wife Olive?

Olive! She said, yes? Do I make you radiant? And she said, what? Do I make you radiant? She said, what kind of a question is that? He said, it's a very serious question I'm working on my commentary on Ephesians.

Are you really asking me do you make me radiant? Yes! She said, well frankly, no. So he said, why? She said, do you really want to talk about it? He said, I do. He gave her permission to use this illustration.

Do you really want to talk about it? He said, I do. She said, you don't make me radiant because you are so intrinsically selfish you rarely consider me. You make all the decisions and you call it headship.

And you just assume I'll come along. She said, I'll give you an example. You are doing a lot of speaking I'm doing a lot of speaking. If, however, there's a clash and you are invited at the same time I am invited I never ever remember there being any discussion about where we would go it's always assumed we'll go where you're going and I just go along with it.

She said, I'm not complaining I've grown used to it. But she said, I have the deep down feeling I don't really count. So if the question is do you make me radiant? The answer is, no. And my friend said to me and that introduced a totally new approach to our marriage after many, many years.

Because he said, I began to see something very significant, very important that my job, among other things under God, was to be the means whereby I would be a source of supply and encouragement and nurture that my wife might be all that God intended her to be and all I'd had in mind was that my wife should be all that I wanted her to be.

And I would have to testify to a dramatic change in my life when I learnt the same lesson. Where for many years I had simply assumed that Jill who was very compliant and very, very supportive would simply go along and I would just make all the decisions because I was the head.

And my understanding of head was honcho not Christ the head kind of head. And the thing that probably clinched it for me was I was invited by Moody Monthly a wonderful magazine that recently became extinct to write an article.

The article I wrote was based on the story of the talents. Remember the master who gave his servants talents and went away and said he'd come back and see what they'd done with them? You remember what happened?

One of the guys buried them and the master was ticked. The master was ticked. And it did occur to me at that particular time that if the master was ticked at somebody burying his own talents what in the world would he think of somebody who buried somebody else's?

And I knew that that was precisely what I was doing with my wife and as a pastor it was precisely what I was in danger of doing with the incredibly gifted majority of our church called women. And men?

Accountability, Equality, and Biblical Literacy

It's something very, very simple, very straightforward for us as far as our marriage is concerned. We're certainly there. We certainly have delegated authority. We're certainly accountable for the way we use it.

But the way we're to use it as far as our wives is concerned is to make absolutely certain that we are unselfishly making sure that she has every opportunity to be all that God intended her to be. A simple fact of the matter is this.

A lot of men are so insecure in their manliness that they're threatened. And that's why they hide behind a faulty exegesis of some verses of Scripture. Don't do it, men. For as Jill has often told me a man of quality is never threatened by a woman of equality.

Man of quality is never threatened by a woman of equality. If you knew how much I have left out you would stand in line to hug me. But don't bother. It's been a joy to be with you. May I just make one suggestion?

There are a few books out there. We don't want to take them back. So if you haven't bought a book or if you haven't bought somebody else a book let me remind you of something particularly for the men.

Particularly for the men. Are you listening, men? Mark Twain said He who does not read has no advantage over he who cannot read. And we have a chronic problem in the church as far as men are concerned.

It is called chronic biblical illiteracy. Chronic biblical illiteracy. I have met so many men who said I've never read a book since I graduated from college. I think they never finished one in college either.

You see? That's not good enough. I've been writing a lot of stuff for men and the key is short chapters. Could you close this in a song?