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Our Key Study Passage compares the husband's leadership in the home to Christ's leadership in the church. It's a heavy comparison. And in certain church and theological circles, it's a controversial comparison. It's also an easily twisted comparison used by men to smugly and sometimes abusively claim authority over their wives. But no matter how you and your church interpret this passage, one thing is certain: If a husband seeks to be like Christ in the home, his love for his wife and children will be expressed through both service (Luke 22:26) and sacrifice (Eph. 5:25).

Key Study Passage:

Ephesians 5:21-32

1. Why is it important to carefully and slowly read verse 21 before moving on to verse 22?
2. What do you think it means to "love your wife as Christ loved the church" (v. 25)? What are practical ways to demonstrate this kind of love?
3. According to verses 28 and 29, why should a husband love his wife as much as he loves his own body?
4. For deeper insights into Ephesians 5:21-32, consult a study Bible. Some options: NLT Study Bible, NIV Life Application Study Bible, or the NIV Quest Study Bible.

Spend Time in Prayer: Ask God to help you understand how to apply Ephesians 5:21-32 to your marriage; express your desire to love your spouse more deeply; close by thanking God for your wife, naming specific traits you appreciate about her.

Ephesians 5:21-32

Spirit-Guided Relationships: Wives and Husbands

21 And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

22 For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. 24 As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything.

25 For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her 26 to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God's word. 27 He 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. 28 In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. 29 No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. 30 And we are members of his body.

31 As the Scriptures say, "A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one." 32 This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one.

Copyright © 2013 by Christianity Today/Men of Integrity magazine. Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.

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Prayer for the Week

Creator of Marriage, forgive me when I take my wife for granted, acting as if she's not there or doesn't even matter to my life; show me how to love her more tenderly, passionately, and selflessly.

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