Together … In Power!

Sermon Summary:

In this powerful exploration of Ephesians, we’re reminded of the grand cosmic plan God has for His church. The letter paints a panoramic view of how heaven and earth are collapsing together in Christ, with the church as the new temple where this convergence occurs. We’re challenged to elevate our understanding of Christ (our ‘Christology’) and the church (our ‘ecclesiology’). As believers, we’re called to be the display of God’s wisdom and glory to the world and even to heavenly powers. This high calling requires us to be filled with the Holy Spirit daily, empowering us to live out our faith in every aspect of life. We’re encouraged to see the church not as a mere organization, but as the miraculous merging of heaven and earth, where God’s presence dwells among His people.

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Sermon Points:

• EPHESIANS: This letter was written by Paul from prison in Rome to the church in Ephesus and was intended to be a circular letter for all of the churches in the region. It offers a panoramic view of God’s plan to “bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ” (1:10). The letter is filled with praise for the Messiah and revelation (mystery) about God’s miraculous work through Him. Thus, Ephesians is known for its High Christology.
• Ephesians is also marked by its High Ecclesiology. Paul points his readers to the truths about the identity and realities of the Church that God intended. This new creation (the Church) is the new Temple where heaven and earth converge and the new humanity, comprised of both Jews and Gentiles reside. God is now present in this new creation and on display through this new humanity. He will display His wisdom to the heavenly powers and blanket the earth with His glory and knowledge through the Church (Ephesians 2-3).
• The Church is uniquely equipped for this grand task to live circumspect lives amidst their neighbors as testimonies to what God is doing. He will equip the Church through the presence and power of His Spirit to fulfill this role to His glory (Ephesians 5-6).
• Satan will not take all of this lying down! He will oppose the work of God on every hand. Consequently, we must be clothed with power from on High to live as the Messiah’s people in every arena of our lives!
• Remarkably, the union of heaven and earth, the miracle of the new humanity is to actually be on display in our homes! We are to reflect the glory of God in and through our marriages. God created the institution of marriage (Genesis 1-2). He uses the imagery of marriage to convey His relationship with Israel in the Old Testament. Every Christian marriage is intended to be a reflection of the relationship that Christ has with His Church. “Tinker with it at your own peril” (N.T. Wright).
• Christians are to be marked by mutual submission as one sign of being filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18-21).
• A Christian home is characterized by an appropriate level of order and clarity. Marriage is a heaven/earth partnership between a man and a woman, each participating in the partnership willingly and lovingly as unto Christ. Men and women are different, uniquely designed by God (Genesis 1:26-28) and both created in His image. Marriage is not just a partnership intended for mutual fulfillment (though this does happen), it is intended to be a reflection of the mystery of the union of Christ and His Church! Non-Christians should gaze at Christian marriages with wonder, curiosity, and amazement!

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Key Takeaways:

• Ephesians presents a panoramic view of God’s plan to unite all things in Christ
• The church is the new creation where heaven and earth converge
• Christian marriages should reflect the relationship between Christ and the church
• Marriage roles should be understood in light of mutual submission and Christ-like love
• Cultural, theological, and linguistic considerations are important in interpreting Ephesians 5-6
• Christian marriages should stand out as subversive and provocative in a pagan world

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Scripture References:

• Ephesians 5:15-21, 6:11-13 (primary focus)
• Ephesians 5:21-33 (discussion on marriage)

Stories:

• The pastor’s experience in West Africa, where he challenged cultural norms about marital relationships among the Fulani people
• Illustration of Florence Joyner’s Olympic performance to highlight differences between men and women
• Anecdote about early Christian gatherings raising suspicion in the Roman world due to their inclusive nature

Transcript

Well, good morning church. It’s good to see you here this morning. Thank you, Michael, team, for leading us in worship today. We are, as you know, for the year 2024, our theme is together. And as I said to you already, we have been exploring various facets of what it means to be together throughout this year. But our theme for August is actually just together, and that’s simply because it’s rooted in this study of Ephesians.

And so today, together, in partnership with Christ, we’re going to look at Ephesians 5 and 6. So if you have your copy of the New Testament, I’d invite you to turn to page 5 of Ephesians. We’ll get to it here in just a minute. And here’s what I want to do this morning. If I may, I’ve been asking you to read the entire letter of Ephesians each week this summer at our church. The reason for that is because I want you to have this panoramic view of Ephesians. I want you to understand the big picture. So here’s what I want to do this morning. I want us to spend a little bit of time on the big picture of Ephesians, bringing it to a conclusion. And then I want to take it down to a very intimate conversation, which is exactly what Paul does. So I want you to stay with me through the big picture part, and I promise you we’re going to get it down to where you can take it home with you. Is that okay? So let’s get started. Because we have a lot of work to do this morning to finish all this up. So Ephesians. This letter was written by Paul from prison in Rome to the church in Ephesus. It was intended to be a circular letter for all the churches in the region. It offers what I would consider a panoramic view of God’s plan to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. That’s what Paul says in Ephesians 1.10. The letter is filled with praise for the Messiah. And the revelation, Paul will call it mystery, about God’s miraculous work through him. Thus, Ephesians is known for its high Christology. You may remember in the very first message I shared with y’all from Ephesians, I asked you, how high is your Christology? Paul is going to challenge us to truly have a deeper understanding of who Christ is. So let me just remind us all of what we’ve already learned about Ephesians.

As I said, Paul was in Rome about A.D. 60. And he sent out a sermon. And he sent out a series of letters from his imprisonment in Rome, Colossians, Philemon, Philippians, and Ephesians. And we’ve already talked about how Paul was an apostle, he’s a church planter, he’s a prophet, but he’s also a pastor. And so, on the one hand, Paul had an eternal perspective that was shaped by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Obviously, he is writing scripture. But he also had a deep understanding of the gospel. But Paul had a street-level perspective that was shaped by his role as a pastor. But He wasn’t just a theologian, he was a pastor. He spent time in people’s homes, he listened to their problems, he counseled them in their faith, and he prayed for them in their crises. All of that affects his writing. Further, A.D. 60, Christianity was still in its infancy, and he’s concerned about the growth of the churches. He’s concerned about the general understanding of the people of God. He’s also concerned about the integrity of the gospel. And so, most of Paul’s letters, 13 of them in the New Testament, are categorized by scholars as what we call occasional epistolary literature. What that means is, these were letters written for a specific occasion. Almost all of Paul’s letters are occasional epistles. In other words, there’s a situation happening, Paul addresses it with his letters. However, Ephesians is different. It is the only one of Paul’s letters that doesn’t address a specific occasion. It is a more general letter. It is a grand, sweeping letter where Paul lays out the panoramic view and the panoramic plan of God to bring all of the cosmos together in the Messiah, in Christ. Paul teaches us that heaven and earth are collapsing together in this new creation of God’s creative genius and in the culmination of God’s grand plan of redemption. Now, this letter was intended for the church at Ephesus. But it was also intended to be a circular letter to be sent to various churches established in the cities and the villages in that region. Tychicus, Paul names him, was the one who delivered the letter. Presumably, Tychicus would have been the one who read the letter to the churches and presumably answered questions that they may have had. For the Apostle Paul. Now, let me just remind you about the churches in the first century. They were not like this. There were no churches like this when Paul wrote these letters. They didn’t gather in these huge buildings like we do. They gathered in small groups.

So, these Christians that would have received this letter and others, they would have been small bands of people. They were meeting in groups of six or eight or ten, maybe as many as twenty people at a time. They’re meeting in people’s homes, in apartments, tenement apartments. Perhaps someone might have a room behind one of their shop. Wherever they could gather. But they had to gather without inviting too much suspicion from the Romans. Because the Romans did not allow gatherings of large people, particularly if they didn’t understand the purpose of the gathering. And so, the last thing the Romans would have allowed throughout the empire would have been a gathering like this because they were so fearful of insurrection. And civil war. So, with that said, just imagine a handful of people, six, eight, ten at a time, getting these letters, reading them, having questions about them, and then trying to figure out how to live that out in a pagan society. And so, Paul, evidently, when he writes letters like this, he must have felt led to make sure these early Christians understood who the Messiah is. Now, I’m grateful that Paul wrote this because I think you and I need the same lesson. Because as Western Christians, sometimes we don’t pause and give enough thought to who Christ really is. Western Christians face the temptation of creating Jesus in our own image. And we make Jesus out to be who we want him to be. And he champions our particular cause. That has been a temptation in the West. It’s the luxury of affluence, if you will. Paul is going to boldly declare who the Messiah really is.

Ephesians is not about an ideal church. It’s about the church that God intended. That’s why we spend so much time in Ephesians, those of us who lead churches. So, Paul boldly declares in Ephesians 1, verse 10, when the time is fulfilled, God is going to bring all things together in Christ. Consequently, high Christology. Things in heaven, things on earth. Also, in the letter of Ephesians, Paul displays the Lordship of Christ. He calls both Jews and Gentiles together in a new family known as the church. And through the miracle of his atoning work, his death, burial, and resurrection, he’s made eternal salvation possible for everybody who believes. And he’s established his church, the Lord has. And he’s gifted it for mission. As a matter of fact, he has the authority to do that because in Ephesians 1, verse 22, Paul says God’s placed everything underneath the feet of the Messiah. So, with that said, high Christology. Also, Ephesians is also marked by its high ecclesiology. Paul points his readers to the truths about the identity and the realities of the church that God intended. This new creation, the church, is the new temple where heaven and earth converge and the new humanity comprised of both Jews and Gentiles now reside. God is now present in this new creation. He’s on display through this new humanity. And he will display his wisdom to the heavenly powers and blanket the earth with his glory and his knowledge through the church. Ephesians 2 and 3. We’ve talked about this already. But let me just remind you. Don’t poor mouth the church. And we do it all the time. If somebody asks you, so what’s going on down at the church? Typical Christian in the West, poor mouth the church, and consequently so does society.

What is the church? Well, it’s just a group that I belong to. Yeah, I’ve heard about it. I think they do some good things down there at the church. I think, you know, they might occasionally, I don’t know, maybe feed the poor. I think they do that. Maybe they help some widows along the way. Yeah, I’ve heard about them. And we buy into that. As if it’s just some organization on earth that we can kind of just pick and choose whether or not we want to be a part of it, whether or not it’s really doing anything relevant. And we can also critique it and sit in judgment over it. And many of us believe it exists to fulfill our own whims anyway. And so it can be quite challenging to read Ephesians because that’s not what Paul says about the church. So let me remind you what Paul says about the church. So when somebody asks you about First Baptist Arlington, I want to make sure you can answer the question. So what’s going on down at First Baptist Arlington? You ain’t going to believe it. You ain’t going to believe it. So let me just tell you. Do you know the Bible is divided into Old Testament and New Testament? You know, in the Old Testament the Bible says that God is going to blanket the earth with His glory. Psalm 72. The Bible says in the book of Habakkuk in the Old Testament that His glory is going to spread all over the earth. And the Bible says, in the New Testament, He’s going to do that through the church because heaven and earth actually merge together in this incredible cosmic reality at the church because the people at the church are following the Messiah. And in Him, all things are coming together, heaven and earth. So here’s the thing. You’re not going to believe it, but down there at our church, heaven and earth have actually come together in a miraculous cosmic way. It’s incredible. You don’t want to miss it. I can promise you. You want to be in on it. You don’t want to just live your whole life, do you, without knowing why you were here on planet earth, right? You don’t want to miss out on your very reason for existence. You don’t want to show up at the end of your life and have nothing to show for it except for a couple of good things you did here and there that you thought might have been good and you’ve totally missed out on the very purpose for your existence. And that is that heaven and earth can merge together in you through the presence of Christ in the form of His Holy Spirit so that you are doing the things that are the endeavors that God had intended for you from day one.

That’s what’s going on down at our church. Now, are we perfect? No. You know why? Look around. You know why? Because we’re in it. So, we’re not perfect, but that’s what we’re doing, y’all. So, come on, church. Let’s live into it. Now, you may say, how can we do it? Just imagine you get this letter and there’s about five or six of us, seven or eight of us, and we’re the church in Ephesus, and we’re meeting upstairs in a little apartment, and Tychicus said, let me tell y’all who you are. The wisdom of God is going to be on display through you to the heavenlies. The glory of God is going to be on display and God’s going to blanket the whole earth through y’all. The knowledge of God is going to be revealed even to the heavenlies and through the whole earth through y’all. And us, five, six, seven, eight, ten of us look at each other and say, you’re talking Tychicus. Hold on. You’re talking about us? Have you met him? I mean, seriously? Yes, I’m talking about y’all. Yes, this is what’s supposed to happen through y’all. So, how in the world is that going to happen? Well, obviously, we need help. Here’s the good news. The church is uniquely equipped for this grand task to live circumspect lives amidst their neighbors as testimonies of what God is doing. He will equip the church through His presence and the power of His Spirit to fulfill this role to His glory. Ephesians 4, 5, and 6 is what it should say. So, where do we do this, y’all? Well, we do it in the everyday, just in the everyday of our lives. Paul says in Ephesians 4, walk according to your calling. You’ve been given a diverse set of gifts. Your lives should stand out in this world. Your behavior should be on display. You should live moral lives in the face of an immoral age. You don’t walk in darkness, but you are Christians. You’re filled with the Spirit of God, and He is present, and He is powerful. And so, come on, church. We’ve been empowered, we’ve been gifted, and we have the presence of the Spirit of God. Now, here’s the challenge. There are a lot of challenges to it, but Satan will not take all this lying down. In fact, he will oppose the work of God on every hand. Consequently, we must be clothed with power from on high to live as the Messiah’s people in every arena of our lives because we need help, because we can too easily be distracted. We can be detoured to where we think life is all about us. We can place ourselves at the center of the universe, and we can actually think that God only exists to champion what we need and what we want. We’re so easily distracted. We need help, and Satan loves to distract the church. The last thing he wants is for the church to flourish on this earth and truly live into its calling. So, we need help. Here’s the good news. We have help. So, if you have your Bibles open, look at Ephesians. Let’s look at page 5.

Verse 15. Paul says, Be very careful then how you live, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God, the Father for everything. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Look at chapter 6, verse 11. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God so when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground and after you’ve done everything, to stand. Paul says be careful and be filled with the Spirit. Let the Holy Spirit guide you in your everyday life. Let the Holy Spirit guide your actions.

You’re a Christian. You can be filled with the Spirit of God every day. You can ask God for His help and let Him be a part of your everyday life. I’m talking about your run of the mountain, your run of the mill, everyday old life. Let the Spirit of God be a part of it. Let Him guide you in your actions. Let Him guide you in your relationships. Let Him guide you in your words. Let Him guide you in your social media posts. Would to God, would to God that every Christian on planet Earth before they hit whatever it is you hit to make it a post, would ask the Spirit of God. Is this from you? Is this how you would have me say this? And then stand strong against Satan and his forces as they attack. Put on the Holy Spirit’s armor, truth and peace and faith and righteousness and the work of God. It’s amazing, y’all. I mean, it’s cosmic in proportion what the Lord is offering us. The glory of God, the knowledge of God blanketing the Earth through the people of God. Now, from the cosmic to the intimate, can I see, let you see how Paul takes this grand conversation and then invites you to take it home into your own house. Can we do that? Here’s what I would say and it’s remarkable to me the way this plays out in this epistle. Remarkably, the union of Heaven and Earth, the miracle of the new humanity, is to actually be on display in our homes, me and you. We’re to reflect the glory of God in and through our marriages. God created the institution of marriage, Genesis 1 and 2. He uses the imagery of marriage to convey His relationship with Israel in the Old Testament. And every Christian marriage is intended to be a reflection of the relationship that Christ has with His church. So when I was in Houston, N.T. Wright, teaching us Ephesians, said this about marriage, tinker with it at your own peril.

I would say, amen. Wow. Think about it. Paul is talking about this cosmic grand endeavor, Heaven and Earth merging together in Christ, being filled with the very Spirit of God. And then he takes it all the way down to where you now can take it to your house. And he talks about one of the most common experiences across all of humanity, and all cultures, marriage. It’s as old as humanity itself. And God Himself has chosen marriage as the image to explain His relationship with His people. When you read your Old Testament, God will portray Himself as the groom, and Israel as the bride. You read Ezekiel 16, where God describes the children of Israel becoming His bride.

Also, whenever the children of Israel were unfaithful to God, God used that image, and He referred to them as an adulteress. Read the book of Hosea. That’s a very intimate relationship that God uses for us to understand His relationship with His people. And then guess what? You get to the New Testament, and that very image is used to explain the relationship that Jesus has with the church. Jesus is portrayed in the New Testament as the groom, and the church is portrayed as the bride. Jesus performed His very first sign in the Gospel of John. You remember where? At a wedding. Jesus will quote Genesis 1 about marriage. Genesis 2, rather, about marriage. As a matter of fact, when you read the end of the Bible, the book of Revelation, how does it all end? It ends at a great wedding where the Bible portrays the church like a bride being prepared for her husband, and Jesus is the groom. And there’s this giant, great, massive wedding feast, the wedding of the Lamb. It’s an incredibly important image. In fact, Paul picks up on it here in this text, so look at it with me if you still have your Bibles open. Look at Ephesians 5, verse 21. Paul says, Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband’s 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. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the 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 their 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 him. The wife must respect her husband. So you heard that imagery in this text of Christ and the church. It’s a powerful image. So think about this. From the very beginning, God created humanity, and he gave humanity a unique assignment not given to anyone or anything else in his creation, and that is to bear his image in this world. And when God created humanity, he created humanity male and female, Genesis 1. Genesis 2 tells an intimate story of Adam and Eve. But God created both male and female to express the fullness of his image, both created in his image. And when they come together in marriage, male and female, they join their lives together.

There’s unity in flesh. There’s unity in the spirit. There’s unity in heart. There’s unity in mind. And to that couple, male and female in marriage, God gave a beautiful capacity, and that is to create life. In fact, the very first command in the Bible in Genesis 1, be fruitful. It’s what God said to man and woman. This is God’s plan for flourishing humanity. Now, that does not mean that you have to be married to flourish as a human. You do not. There is a great life available for any of us in Christ. The New Testament bears that out. But if you choose to get married, then I would remind you that it is a sacred act. And you are participating now in the full expression of God’s image. And you have the potential to create life, and you are uniquely called by God to display the glory of God. And so what I would say about marriage is, go ahead and treat it lightly, if you will. Go ahead and hold it loosely, if you want. As a matter of fact, redefine it to meet your own felt needs and act like it’s no big deal. And what I would say to you in response, if that’s what you choose to do, my counsel to you would be watch out. Because you are messing with God’s design. It’s not the church’s design. It’s not been put in place by theological reflection or by the actions of a group of people. It is God’s original design. And so I would agree with N.T. Wright. Tinker with it at your peril. Now with that said, let’s talk about a Christian marriage. Are y’all still with me? Okay. Let’s talk about a Christian marriage. Christians are to be marked by mutual submission as one sign of being filled with the Spirit. If you go back to Ephesians 5 verse 18, Paul says, don’t get drunk on wine, be filled with the Spirit. I want you to notice he doesn’t describe a drunk person because he doesn’t have to. Everybody knows what a drunk person looks like. What does a Spirit-filled person look like? How do I recognize that? How do I know if I’m filled with the Spirit? Well, here’s what Paul says. Here’s the teaching of the New Testament. Paul alludes to some of this in Ephesians. When you become a Christian, when you are saved in our parlance, if you ask Christ into your life, the Holy Spirit of God takes up residence in you. And you are baptized by the Holy Spirit into the family of God. You are sealed by the Holy Spirit, Paul says. As a matter of fact, in Ephesians 1, Paul says the Holy Spirit is given to you as a down payment, as earnest money, to guarantee your future inheritance. And so, every Christian has been baptized by the Holy Spirit, has been given the gift of the Holy Spirit, has been sealed in the family of God by the Holy Spirit, and has a promised eternity because of the role of the Holy Spirit. Then, Paul says, now, every day, be filled with the Spirit. Okay, that means every day you have the opportunity to be filled with the Spirit of God. Well, what does that mean?

Well, Paul describes it. He uses, in the Greek language, he uses a series of participles. He says, here’s how it looks. People that are filled with the Spirit, look at verse 19. They talk to each other in a certain way. There’s a worshipful tone in how they care and relate to other people. They actually speak truth, psalms, hymns, songs from the Spirit. They’re singing. They are making music in their hearts. They’re giving thanks. They’re thankful, grateful people, he says. And look at verse 21. And they’re submitting to each other out of reverence for Christ. They’re submissive in their spirit. And so, the Holy Spirit of God, when you’re filled with Him, He begins to make changes in your life. He guides you. He gives you insight. He gives you power. He gives you spiritual provision. He helps temper your behavior. He produces the fruit of God. He gives you God’s presence in your life. Whenever you as a Christian are dealing with something challenging and difficult, and you say, I cannot do this, you’re speaking the truth. But if you are filled with the Spirit of God, He will empower you, and now you have an opportunity to do what it is that God has in front of you. You need Him. You need Him every day. You need Him at work. You need Him in your conversations. You need Him at school. You need Him in your relationships. You need Him in your decisions. You need Him at work. You need Him in your neighborhoods. You need the Holy Spirit every day, and here’s the good news. You have Him, and you can be filled with Him. Now, with that said, Paul says, Now, let me show you how to take it home. And this is where it gets intimate, if you will. This is where we’re challenged, as we just read in Ephesians 5. What does Paul say in this text about a Christian home? Here’s how I would put it. A Christian home is characterized by an appropriate level of order and clarity. Marriage is a heaven-earth partnership between a man and a woman, each participating in the partnership willingly and lovingly as unto Christ. Men and women are different, uniquely designed by God, Genesis 1, 26 through 28, and both created in His image. Marriage is not just a partnership intended for mutual fulfillment, though this does happen. It is intended to be a reflection of the mystery of the union of Christ and His church. Non-Christians should gaze at Christian marriages with wonder, curiosity, and amazement. Non-Christians should look at us that are married and say, How do y’all do that?

That’s what should happen. Now, do y’all have any questions about this text? I hope you do. Here’s what I would tell you about it morning. First of all, this is not a treatise on all things marriage. Paul’s not answering every question. Think about the millions of circumstances and situations and conversations and difficulties and challenges and problems within marriages all over the world. That’s not what Paul does. If this happens, do this. If that happens, do that. If she says this, you say that. He doesn’t do that. Instead, he lays out a template, pattern. But it can be fraught when you read the text for a number of reasons. There are cultural considerations. There are grammatical considerations. There are theological considerations. There are historical considerations. There are vocabulary considerations when you look at this text. I would like briefly to address those, if I may, and we’ll be done. Is that all right? Let’s start with cultural. There are some cultural considerations here. Paul is writing this letter from Rome in the first century, A.D. 60 or so. In Paul’s era, the understanding of marriage was predominantly dominated by Greek culture. Alexander the Great had Hellenized the world, and so the Greek version of marriage was alive and well in the Greco-Roman world once the Romans took over. Now, also, there were Jews who were married, and so there was a Jewish theological perspective of marriage. But there’s a cultural consideration. So, for example, the primary philosophical view that dominated the Greek culture regarding men and women was given expression by Aristotle. Aristotle taught that women were an inferior version of men. And so Aristotle said this. I’m paraphrasing. Men demonstrate their manliness by commanding. Women demonstrate their womanliness by obeying. That view was pervasive in the ancient world. It dominated the Greek cultural understanding of marriage. So the man was always superior. The woman was always inferior. And the roles they played within the home were played out accordingly. And they were duty-bound rather than, more often, love-filled.

You’ll search far and wide, long and hard, to find any instructions in any pagan literature in the ancient world that talks anything about love in a home. It was duty-filled, and people played their roles. There’s a theological conversation. You and I are the beneficiaries, or victims, of 2,000 years’ worth of theological reflection. And so consequently today, when this conversation comes up among evangelical theologians in particular, I’m gonna discount Roman Catholic theologians and just talk about our side of the family. Evangelical Christians, whenever they have this conversation, they normally use two words that I think are both a little bit fraught. One of those words is complementarian. The other word is egalitarian. Now, those two words may mean nothing, and if they don’t, that’s fine. But for those who have spent time in this literature, they mean a lot. Complementarian is a view that says men and women are different, and they play complementary roles in society and in a family. That’s the gist of that meaning. However, that meaning or that particular theological perspective can be pushed to the extreme. And sometimes it is. And when it’s pushed to the extreme, you end up with the teaching that the role that men play in a home and in society is always superior. The role that the woman plays is always inferior and subservient. That’s the extreme of complementarianism. Does that make sense? You can be a complementarian and not share that extreme view, but it’s one of the challenges of that view. The other view is the egalitarian view. That’s the idea that men and women are created equal, and they live on an equal plane. You push that one to the extreme, which some do, and you get to the point where you say, there is no difference between men and women. They’re the same. There really is no gender. There’s no distinction between men and women. And you can push egalitarian to the extreme if you choose to. I don’t like those two terms, I’ll be honest with you. And the reason I don’t is because I feel like if I ever use one of them, I always have to explain what I mean by it. And the purpose of words is to communicate, and so it bothers me when you have words and nobody understands what they mean. So consequently, if somebody of that ilk who wants to have that conversation asks me what I am, I say I’m an egalitarian complementarian.

That’s the best way I know to put it. I do believe men and women are different. I have no problem with that. The Bible teaches that in my opinion. And Paul’s world accepted it as fact. Paul lived in a very physical world. Most of the men who worked, worked physical jobs. And they were physically stronger than most women. Just the truth. We know that, right? We know there are differences between men and women, right? We just watched the Olympics. Why do we have women’s sports and men’s sports? Because they’re different. Florence Joyner, one of my favorite Olympic athletes. She’s the fastest woman who’s ever lived. 1988 set the world record. Think about it. 1988, nobody’s ever equaled her. Fastest woman who’s ever lived. You take her time, put her in the men’s competition, she comes in 7,614. 7,600 in first place.

Just on record. There are 7,600 men who run the 100 meters faster than her. Does that mean she’s not an incredible athlete? No, it just means men and women are different. They’re just different. It’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with that. They’re just different. And so if you push the egalitarian view too far, you start to blur that distinction. If you push the complementarian view too far, you start to exaggerate that distinction. And I would say you do it at your peril, in my opinion. I’m gonna get back to that in just a second. Are y’all still with me? Even if you’re not, I’m gonna keep going because you can come back and think about it. We have a vocabulary challenge with this text. The New Testament was not written in English. It was written in Greek. And it wasn’t just written in Greek. It was written in Koine Greek. Koine Greek is the street market Greek. It’s the language of the people on the street. So we’ve got all these potsherds and little pieces of writing and marketplace exchanges and bills of lading and all those things from the first century that help us understand the kind of Greek that’s used in the New Testament. It’s the language of the people. And so you have three particular words in this text that are a little bit challenging. For example, you have the English word head. Did y’all hear that? The husband, verse 23, is the head of the wife. Well, in Greek, you can say that in several ways. You can use the word arche. Arche means ruler, lord, authority. Um, we use that word as a prefix in English. You can talk about an angel. And then you can talk about an archangel. What’s an archangel? That’s the leader. That’s the king, if you will. That’s not the word Paul uses here. Paul uses the word kephale in Greek. The word kephale means head. But it can mean leader. It doesn’t mean ruler. And it doesn’t mean lord. It’s a different word. It means leader. Head. Christ is the head of the body. He’s the leader. The man. That’s the leader. Paul also uses the word hypostasso in Greek, translated submit or subject in English. It’s an interesting word. It’s not the word for obey. Hypokouo is that word. If you look at chapter 6, verse 1, Paul says, children, hypokouē, obey your parents. That’s not the word he uses for the wife. He uses the word hypostasso, which means arrange your life. And it means to subject. It means to support. It means to give credibility to, if you will. Doesn’t have the connotation necessarily of obedience. And then there’s the word for love. Husbands, love your wives. In Koine Greek, Paul could have said that in various ways. He had options. There’s the Greek word ereo, eros, sensual love. There’s the word philia, warm affection. There’s the word agapao, agape, which is a deeper, more profound kind of love as best we can understand. That’s the word Paul uses here. He says, husbands, you’re to love your wives. He says, agape, love that many times in the New Testament is attributed to God. Not always, but many times it is. And then you have the grammatical challenges of this text.

Greek is more dense grammatically than is English. And so, for example, in English, you typically have the active and the passive voice. In Greek, you have the middle voice, which doesn’t really exist for us, but it does in Greek. It’s very intentional. That’s the voice that’s used in this text for women. Submit yourselves. It’s usually how that’s translated. It’s an expression of intentionality. It’s something that you choose to do voluntarily. It’s not passive, but it’s also not active. It’s in the middle voice. It has the idea of responding to something, if you will. So, Paul is writing this text, and he realizes these people are living in a Greek-Roman culture, and the culture’s already suspicious. Here’s why. Because they’re already noticing that people are gathering in these small groups called churches, and the gatherings are raising suspicion. And Paul wants the church to be subversive. He wants the church to be provocative. He wants the church to cause questions in the minds of pagans. He wants the church to represent the gospel. He wants people to wonder, what are these Christians doing? Well, they’re already suspect. The reason they’re suspect is because when they gather together, men and women are gathering together, even if they’re not married to each other. That was very suspicious in the Roman world. Jews and Gentiles were gathering together. That didn’t happen anywhere else. Masters and slaves were coming together. That didn’t happen anywhere else. And because pagans weren’t allowed in the meetings, they were trying to figure out what’s going on in those meetings. And what they’re beginning to hear are things like this, where they’re worshiping a god. Well, which god is it? Is it one of our gods? They’re also eating flesh and drinking blood. Hmm, that’s interesting. That was a reference to the Lord’s Supper. We’ve even heard that they’re greeting each other with kisses. Who are these people? And so, the pagans would say, have you ever met a Christian? And someone might say, yeah, there’s one that lives in the apartment right next to us, a little Christian couple. Well, what do they do in there? What are they like? What are these Christians doing at home? What kind of god are they worshiping? Okay? So, you got these Christians living in these homes, and what Paul wants to do is help them to be subversive but at the right level so the culture can still hear the gospel. Not just to throw the baby out with the bathwater, not just abandon everything that is because the Romans were interested in order. So, Paul says, all right, the home for a Christian still has to have clarity and order. There are still roles to be played. But you’re gonna do it for a very different reason. And you’re going to live it out very differently. In fact, it’s going to stand out in your neighborhood.

Years ago, I was in West Africa, and we were in a village, predominantly Muslim village among the Fulani people. And one of the leaders had asked me if I would be willing to come and sit with some of their leaders down at the mosque when they finished their prayer service. I said, I’d be happy to. So, I went and sat down there and waited with my translator, and the worship service ended. And the men all came out and sat around me. I don’t know, 15 or so men, I’ve forgotten now. Back in those days when Cindy and I at one of our wedding anniversaries, we gave each other a gold bracelet. I wore mine for like 18 years, but it finally broke, and so I don’t have it. But I had it then. So, we’re sitting there. They’re asking me questions about things. The translator told them that I’m a holy man. That was the only way he knew to communicate to them. They weren’t sure what that was. And finally, one of them said, well, what’s that on your arm, that piece of jewelry? Where did you get that? And I said, well, my wife gave that to me. Translator told him that, and that man, the man said, well, my wife’s never given me anything. When I get home today, I think I’ll just beat her. All the men laughed. Because in the Fulani culture, it’s very common for husbands to beat their wives, hold them down. They’re subservient to them. I sat there for a second, and I said, well, tell him this. I’ve been married to Cindy a long time. I’ve never beaten her once. Maybe if you quit beating your wife, she might give you something.

Translator looked at me and said, do you really want me to say that? I said, yeah, say that.

Because I want to tell him why. He said it, and the guy went, hmm. And all the other men went, hmm.

And that led to a little bit of a conversation about why I’m married, and that my wife doesn’t belong to me as a piece of property, because I’m a Christian. My view of marriage is very different. It’s supposed to be different. In fact, the pagan world should look at it and go, how are they doing that? Because you see, in the Roman world, a husband had a role to play, and everybody knew what it was, and he didn’t necessarily care about it. And a wife had a role to play, and she had no option in it. This is just what you were supposed to do. This is what you had to do if you were going to be in this marriage. It was duty-bound. It was almost like a wife was a pupil to be taught, and the husband was going to lord it over her. All of a sudden, Paul says, well, actually, when Christians get married, you husbands, you be the leader. You be the front man. You take the first bullet.

You be the protector. You be the provider. In other words, you got a role to play. Now, you women, you choose voluntarily to support him. Now, can you imagine, these women are down there washing clothes one day, and they’re like, first century Ephesus, and there’s five pagan wives, there’s one Christian wife, and the five pagan wives are griping, and the Christian wife says, you know, I love my husband. You love your husband? Mm-hmm. In fact, I chose to marry him. You chose to marry him. Mm-hmm. And I actually voluntarily, I support him in what he does because we have a mutual partnership. You have a what? See, that’s not how it works. We do what we’re told. We’re in this because we have to be. We’re duty-bound. I’m not. I actually choose to do this on my own every day. All of a sudden, that’s subversive at the right level without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Are y’all still with me? But if you’re not careful, you can push this however far you want to push it if that’s what you want to do. You can. And you can take this language, and you can use it and hit your spouse over the head with it, and you can say, I’m the lord of this house, and you have to do whatever I say. It’s what the Bible says. You’re supposed to obey me even though the Bible never says a wife’s supposed to obey her husband. Doesn’t use that word here. It does say you have different roles to play. It does say he’s a leader. It does say that she is to submit herself and support him in that leadership. It does say they’re mutually responsible for each other. They’re in a mutual partnership. It also says they’re supposed to be mutually submissive to each other. But if you’re not careful, you can lose your way in this conversation and deteriorate it into misogyny, and you start to subvert women. As a matter of fact, denominations can lose their way in this conversation. it’s my contention when they do that, they’re on dangerous ground because they may just lose their voice in every conversation. So husbands, love your wives, this text says. How? Like Christ loves the church. Come on, y’all.

Come on, guys. Think about that. What kind of leader are you in your home? Well, you’re supposed to be like Christ. You’re supposed to be modeling who he is. You’re supposed to be that kind of person. And the wives can support you and support their husbands in that role, but they live in a mutual partnership that’s voluntary, that’s mutually submissive. It’s a dynamic, loving relationship that should stand out in a wayward culture who can’t seem to make up their mind on anything. It’s almost like words have no meaning nowadays. And like I said while ago, redefine it all at your own peril. I would say you and I as Christians, marriages, those of us that are married, let’s pay attention to our marriages. Let’s be thoughtful. Let’s realize that heaven and earth merge together in our homes. We’re like small churches almost where we live together in these mutually submissive, loving relationships, and we try to understand what our role is, and we talk about it, and we figure it out together because that’s how God has designed it for us. May it be so. Let’s pray together. Father, we know we live in a world that’s challenging. My goodness. I’m filled with so many questions, so many misleading views. And we just want to honor you. We do. We want to fulfill our role. We want to be that place where this cosmic reality occurs, heaven and earth come together miraculously through our Messiah, even in our homes. So I pray right now for our homes. That they’d be places of healing where men and women and boys and girls would know that they’re loved, that they’re blessed, that somehow engaging in a relationship with each other, we find our way in it. And you’re honored and glorified. And lost people are drawn to you. That’s our hope. And that’s our prayer today in the name of Jesus. Amen. Let’s stand together. I want to give you an opportunity to respond to whatever the Lord may have led you to do. It could be to join our church. And if so, Ashley and Ryan are here at the front. Be happy to receive you if you want to join us today. Give your life to Christ. You can do that. Could be that it’s just a time for you to reflect.