Ephesians 5:33, let each one of you [husbands] love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Husbands, Love Your Wives

Love is a command

Stages of marriage

  • Romance
  • Reality

Ephesians 5:33, “Husbands love your wives” = agape

John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave is one and only Son….”

2 Corinthians 8:9, …for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich

  • Resentment

Colossians 3:13, bear with one another as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

  • Resilience

John 14:15, Jesus said, If you love Me, you will keep my commandments.

1 John 5:3, This is love for God: that we keep His commands. And His commands are not burdensome.

Ephesians 5:25, Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,

Husbands, “to love” means you sacrifice for your wives

John 15:13, Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

Romans 5:6, For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

“Today you are young and very much in love and you think that your love will sustain your marriage. It won’t. But your marriage can sustain your love!” – Dietrich Bonheoffer

“To Love” means you overlook her faults

Ephesians 5:25-27, Love… as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

1 Corinthians 13:6, [love] does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

“To love” means to nurture your wife

Ephesians 5:28-29, In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church,30 because we are members of his body.

  • Listen to her
  • Share non-sexual touch
  • Say kind things about her in public
  • Share her responsibilities
  • Let her know you admire her
  • Support her authority as a mom
  • Pray for her

Ephesians 5:33 says let every husband love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Wives, Respect Your Husbands

Respect His Responsibility and Role

Ephesians 5:22-24, Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

1 Corinthians 2:14, The natural person [the worldly-thinker] does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

Ephesians 5:23-24, Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Respect because the husband is the head as Christ is the head of the church

Jesus’ definition of “headship”

Matthew 20:25-28, But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 26 It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, 28 even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Ephesians 5:21, Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

What if “submit” made sense?

The “looking glass” self

1 Peter 3:1-2, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, 2 when they see your respectful and pure conduct.