Dearly beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, we come this morning to a hard text. It’s hard because it is countercultural. It says something radical, something that our cultural elites call wicked and medieval. It says, in brief, that wives need to submit to their own husbands and that this submission is a positive command which is morally binding on all wives. That, my friends, is exactly what feminism hates. According to the feminists, the solution to the power difference between men and women is to give women more power. This is not merely a pragmatic solution, but a morally necessary one given the supreme moral precept of equality. But if you haven’t noticed, this household code is not predicated on the supreme moral precept of equality. In place of our culture’s dictum that everyone ought to be equal, Paul enshrines the Christian teaching that the supreme moral value is love, as exemplified in the self-giving of Jesus Christ. Remember, that’s how he began this chapter. The love of Christ who gave Himself roots all of his moral exhortations in Ephesians 5, while the power of the Holy Spirit makes them all work. So what does love look like for a wife? Wives, what does love look like for you as a wife? You are many other things, of course. You may be chefs, teachers, corporate lawyers, etc.-- but this command is addressed to wives as such. How do the example of Christ, who gave Himself, and the dynamic energy of the Holy Spirit, whom Christ gave, work themselves out in daily life for wives? Paul boils it down to one word: Submit. For a wife, love looks like submission!
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Caleb Nelson grew up in Ft. Collins, CO. Born into a Christian home, where he eventually became the eldest of 11 children, he has been a lifelong Presbyterian. He professed faith at the age of six, and was homeschooled through high school. He then attended Patrick Henry College...