Stuart Briscoe is Minister at Large for Elmbrook Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin, where he served 30 years as Senior Pastor. He is a Contributing Editor to Preaching.
(second in a sermon series on Family Business)
Ephesians 5:15-24When people get married, they often say, "We have decided to
"tie the knot." Given the numbers of people who are deciding not to
tie the knot at the present time, I think that is an admirable decision.
I try to point out to them that when we think in terms of Christian marriage, it's not so much two people deciding to tie the knot as God deciding to join two people together. It's not so much a human decision as a divine action. Marriage is all about God joining two people together. I say this on no less of an authority than Jesus Christ Himself. In fact, He went even further, saying, "Whom God, therefore, has joined together, no man should separate!”
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So when we think in terms of marriage in these terms – “God having joined two people together” – it's rather obvious that two independent people now being brought together in some new union are going to have a lot of adjustments to make.
In Ephesians 5 and 6, the apostle Paul gives some very helpful teaching on this whole business of how the husband and the wife adjust to each other. He does it in a very balanced way. For instance, here is a familiar verse, “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord” (5:22). It's very familiar because the wives have heard it over and over again.
It’s also very familiar to the men. Some men, who don't know any other verse in the Bible, know this one very well, indeed. However, if we're going to look at what Paul actually said in verse 25, he said, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church." You see, it's rather like a pair of scissors – when you have a pair of scissors, you've got two things (blades) that have been joined to form a new whole. If the scissors are going to work, then both sides have got to be in operation and in harmony.
So Paul would say, “Look, half the story about marriage is ‘wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord;’ the other half is ‘husbands, love your wives, as Christ loves the church.’” Today I'm going to talk to you about the first half of this relationship, this business of adjustment. “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.” Next time it will be about “Husbands, love your wives,” and no you cannot go and play golf! You have to listen to both of these, unless you're going to try and operate with half a pair of scissors.