Rev. Curtis Deterding, pastor of Zion Lutheran Church, Fort Myers, FL joins host Rev. Brady Finnern to study Ephesians 5:22-33.
Paul lays out a holy order for marriage. Wives submit to your husbands; husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church. It sounds so simple, right? It only takes a few verses to realize that we all need to repent and seek God’s grace in Christ. Yet, Jesus never asks us to do something that He would not do Himself. He has submitted to us by becoming nothing and going to the cross. He has loved us to the point of death. This love showers upon us to know that on this journey He will sustain strengthen, forgive, and bless our marriages as He first loved us. “Lord Jesus Christ, help us to love as You first loved us. Help husbands to have a sacrificial love for their wives and wives to submit and respect their husbands, all to Your glory and all by Your grace found in the cross. Lord have mercy. Amen”
Thy Strong Word reveals the light of our salvation in Christ through study of God’s Word, breaking our darkness with His redeeming light. Each weekday, two LCMS pastors fix our eyes on Jesus by considering Holy Scripture, verse by verse, in order to be strengthened in the Word and be equipped to faithfully serve in our daily vocations.
Thy Strong Word is hosted by Rev. Brady Finnern, pastor of Messiah Lutheran Church in Sartell, MN, and graciously underwritten by the Lutheran Heritage Foundation.
Ephesians 5:22-33
Wives and Husbands
22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.[a] 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Footnotes
- Ephesians 5:27 Or holy and blameless
English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. esv.org
