Daily Dose of Hope

April 2, 2026

Scripture: Ephesians 5

Prayer: Almighty God, We give you glory and praise. Thank you for the ways you care for us. Thank you for the ways you care for our church. Lord Jesus, help us set aside our scattered thoughts. Help us push away distractions and truly focus on you. In these next few moments of silence, Lord, hear our prayers...Holy Spirit, guide our reading and devotional time today. May we hear a word from you. In Your Name, Amen.

Welcome back to the Daily Dose of Hope, the devotional and podcast that complements the New Hope daily Bible reading plan. We are journeying through Paul's epistles, his letters, which we find in the New Testament. We have now completed the first six and we are on our seventh letter, the book of Ephesians.

Today's reading is Ephesians 5. Paul is imploring the Ephesians to live as God's holy people. Jesus has fulfilled the Old Covenant. The law is no longer what makes people holy. Those to whom Paul is writing would be Christians, with the Spirit of the Living God within them. They are being sanctified by God's grace. It's only through the Holy Spirit in them that this is possible and they can even seek holiness. This standard is actually harder – it's a circumcision of the heart. Paul is asking the Ephesians to seek this high standard because of who they represent. I love verses 8-10, For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord.

But I don't want to neglect the second half of this chapter because I think it's incredibly important. It's here that Paul speaks of mutual submission, Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Mutual submission - it's what marriage is all about. Of course, if you grew up in Christian circles, you know how badly the whole of Ephesians 5 has been distorted. The focus has been on wives submitting to husbands. But before Paul talks specifics, he says this: submit to one another out of reverence to Christ. Then, he talks about wives submitting and husbands loving.

We should note that this discussion would have been revolutionary at the time. To say women had a low social and legal status in the Roman Empire is quite the understatement. And here is the Apostle Paul telling the Ephesians that marriage is a covenant and that there needs to be mutual submission between the parties. That means women submitting to men (which would have been the norm at the time in that culture) but also that men should submit to their wives. Husbands submitting to wives? That would have been unheard of!

To make it even more earth-shattering, Paul says that husbands should love their wives in the same way that Christ loved the church. How much did Christ love the church? He died for the church! He is telling these guys to love their wives sacrificially. Wow! We read these words through our twenty-first century eyes and we may think something like, "How outdated and sexist." But the truth was anything but the sort. Paul's words elevated the status of wives in significant ways. They were to be loved and valued. There should also be unity and fidelity in the marriage relationship, which means only one wife and no affairs. Paul wants Christian men to understand that holiness within their marriage is also important. It demonstrates that those who are "in Christ" do life differently. They are new people in Jesus and the church, as the body of Christ, is drastically different than the culture at large.

We could probably stop there and that would be enough. But wait, there's more. Paul is using the marriage relationship as an analogy. The relationship of the husband and wife in marriage points to the beautiful relationship between Christ and the church. Just as there needs to be unity between husband and wife, there needs to be unity between Christ and the church. So let's be real, the universal church has messed this up a bit. Sometimes, the church demonstrates unity with Jesus and sometimes it doesn't. I'll stop here today but I ask you to reflect on this question: Does New Hope demonstrate unity between Christ and his church? What do we do well? How do we struggle with this? And how do we do better?

We'll chat again tomorrow.

Blessings,

Pastor Vicki