Sign up for our free newsletter:

The main ingredients that energize a marriage, Paul asserts in today's passage, are respect (especially from wives) and love (especially from husbands). Putting these into daily practice is a win-win process. Her respect will motivate you to lead considerately. And she'll surely reciprocate your tender affection. The example of Christ's self-sacrificing care for the Church can keep you from settling for something less.

1. How did Jesus handle his leadership role with his disciples (see Luke 22:27)? How could His example apply to how a husband handles his role?



2. Paul devotes twice as many words to telling husbands to love their wives (vv. 25-30) as to telling wives to submit to their husbands (vv. 22-24). Why do you think this is so?



3. In following Christ's sacrificial example, what may you need to give up for your bride?



4. How might you lovingly caring for your wife (v. 28) indirectly enhance your own well-being?



5. Do you sense that your marriage is becoming "an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one" (v. 32)?

Ask God to show you fresh ways to consistently model unselfish love to your wife, making respect an attitude that comes naturally for her.

²¹And further, you will submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. ²²You wives will submit to your husbands as you do to the Lord. ²³For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of his body, the church; he gave his life to be her Savior.

²⁴As the church submits to Christ, so you wives must submit to your husbands in everything. ²⁵And you husbands must love your wives with the same love Christ showed the church. He gave up his life for her ²⁶to make her holy and clean, washed by baptism and God's word.[a]

²⁷He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. ²⁸In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man is actually loving himself when he loves his wife. ²⁹No one hates his own body but lovingly cares for it, just as Christ cares for his body, which is the church.

³⁰And we are his body. ³¹As the Scriptures say, "A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one."[b] ³²This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. ³³So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Prayer for the Week

Lord, give me a resolve to relate to my wife with Your kind of love.

				Try an Issue of Men of Integrity Free! Name Street Address City/State/Zip E-mail Address No credit card required. Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery. Offer valid in U.S. only. Click here for International orders. If you decide you want to keep Men of Integrity coming, honor your invoice for just $19.95 and receive five more issues, a full year in all. If not, simply write "cancel" across the invoice and return it. The trial issue is yours to keep, regardless. Give Men of Integrity as a gift Buy 1 gift subscription, get 1 FREE!

FREE Newsletter Sign up for the Men of Integrity Newsletter    RSS Feed   RSS Help