Submission, is it really as dirty a word as we think it is? Or is there more to it? I’m Joel Fieri. This is, What You’ve Been Searching For. Stay tuned. In looking further at the divide, the major divide in Christianity these days as highlighted by our podcast a few weeks ago on the documentary American Gospel: Christ Crucified, which featured the heavy hitters of the progressive side of Christianity and also of the more conservative traditional side. I wanted to continue and piggyback off last week’s podcast where I looked at the Bible’s definitions or the Bible’s prescriptions for the qualifications of elders and pastors and deacons in the church. And if you caught that podcast you know that I talked about how Paul lays out the characteristics and the character qualities of men who aspire to be elders and deacons and pastors. And that word aspire was key, if you caught that podcast. We’ll put a link down below for you if you didn’t.

I talked about how if those who aspire to be leaders have those qualities then the men who follow them will also aspire to have those qualities. That’s how men are wired. We need to aspire to something better than ourselves and if we can see it in other men we’ll follow them, especially if they turn around and disciple those qualities into us. If they pour their life into us, we’ll follow that and we’ll aspire to have those qualities as well. And if we do that, it’s not at the expense of women in leadership at our church, but it will also elevate the women in our church and the church will be a mighty force in society. Well, I wanted to piggyback off of that and talk about the family as well, because as most people know, the Bible has some things to say about male and female roles within the family, marriage in particular, but also within the family. And there’s no place more significant in talking about that then Ephesians 5:22 to 33 where Paul lays down to the Ephesian Church this is what a husband and wife relationship should look like.

And I’m going to take the same tact that I took last week, because we typically look at these verses as how this relates to women and their roles, and a lot of women don’t like it. They tend to think this is keeping women down. But again, I want to do what I did last week and instead of doing that focus on why it’s there in terms of how it relates to men, what is it telling men? So I want to read starting in verse 22. It says, “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body of which he is the savior. Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” Now, that’s usually where we stop and a lot of women take offense to that or don’t like that or wish it wasn’t there. Whenever that happens in a conversation, I always tell them, “Keep reading,” and I’m going to keep reading starting in verse 25.

“Husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. To make her holy, cleansing her by washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but they feed and care for their body just as Christ does the church, for we are members of his body. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery, but I’m talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you must also love his wife as he loves himself and the wife must respect her husband.” Now,