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Christian Insights
Building Your Marriage: Some Thoughts From St. Paul
By Douglas Cowan, Psy.D.
These verses of Scripture from St. Paul are commonly used in
Christian marriage ceremonies. They speak of the relationship
between Christ and the Church in terms of the relationship between a
husband and his wife. As beautiful as they are, they are also very
misunderstood and misinterpreted. Look closely and see their wisdom
for your marriage.
In Eph 5:21 to 33 Paul writes,
"Submit to one another out of reverence for
Christ. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the
husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church,
his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to
Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved
the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing
her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her
to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any
other blemish, but holy and blameless.
In this same way, husbands ought to love their
wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares
for it, just as Christ does the church- for we are members of his
body.
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united
to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound
mystery, but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each
one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife
must respect her husband."
There are four important points here:
First, Christ loves us so much that He wants to marry us.
He calls us His Bride, and He uses marriage as a picture of His
relationship to the Church, and to each of us as his followers.
Second, there is the "S" word. Submission.
Submission does not imply INFERIORITY. God made Eve out of the side
of Adam, to be bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh - his equal -
his companion. To say that submission somehow implies inferiority is
to say that Jesus, when he submitted to the Father, was somehow
inferior to the Father.
Submission does not imply inferiority in any way. It is a voluntary
reliance on another. In fact, the Apostle Paul says that we are all
to submit to each other. Wives to submits to husbands, husbands to
wives, both to Christ.
Third, husbands are to be the leaders of the
family.
The Pastors in the home. And men are to love their wives as Christ
loves the church, and even died for it.
And finally, just as Jesus is preparing his bride,
the Church, for the day when she will be presented in Heaven without
spot or wrinkle, so husbands, as leader, are to prepare your wives
to stand before God one day. Always remember that leadership in the
home is primarily a spiritual responsibility.
May God richly bless your marriage.
Douglas Cowan, Psy.D., is a family therapist who
has been working with ADHD children and their families since 1986.
He is the clinical director of the ADHD Information Library's family
of seven web sites, including http://www.newideas.net,
helping over 350,000 parents and teachers learn more about ADHD each
year. Dr. Cowan also serves on the Medical Advisory Board of VAXA
International of Tampa, FL., is President of the Board of Directors
for KAXL 88.3 FM in central California, and is President of
NewIdeas.net Incorporated. |
