NOTES for Eph 5:22-33

How much controversy this passage usually provokes when we seek not an “official position,” but an honest answer to the question: what do these words mean for us? For me personally? Men, of course, often choose verse 22 for theological reflection: “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord,” while women prefer to philosophize about verse 25: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the Church.” We all seek to justify our own demands on our spouse or on the whole human race. Yet these words were spoken “for me,” not “for the other person.” Notice that the Apostle Paul did not say, “Husbands, force your wives to submit.” Nor did he say the reverse: “Wives, demand from your husbands a love as self-sacrificing as Christ's.” Thus both self-sacrificing love and submission—which, in the relationship Paul describes, are two halves of a single whole, married love—are things we must discover and cultivate in ourselves, rather than trying to instill them in another person.