December 2 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading:

Ephesians 5:17-33

¹⁷Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.
¹⁸And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;
¹⁹Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;
²⁰Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;
²¹Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
²²Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
²³For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
²⁴Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
²⁵Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
²⁶That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
²⁷That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
²⁸So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.
²⁹For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:
³⁰For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
³¹For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.
³²This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
³³Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.

Devotional:

The main thrust of this section is found in the command: 'Be filled with the Spirit!' (5:18). In explanation, Paul appends several ways in which this filling with the Spirit is to be manifested: 'speaking ... singing ... giving thanks ... submitting' (5:19-21). In verse 22 he begins to amplify the matter of submitting, wives being first mentioned. But let us not forget that the apostle is here describing what it means to be 'filled with the Spirit.'

What about the submission wives owe to their husbands? Just as surely as God made men and women the same for communion and union, and the same essentially in His eyes through Christ, just as surely in His economy He made them to have different functions. The husband is to lead, in love, even in the matter of Christian growth. The wife is to follow, to submit to him in reverence. A marriage is not complete in God unless both of these aspects are present. If a woman is bristling under the command of God to submit, perhaps the man is not leading her, teaching her and loving her as his own body, or as Christ leads and teaches and loves the church.

However, husbands should refer back to verse 21! In a sense, they should as Christians be submissive to their Christian wives in a horizontal relationship under God! In this sense every Christian is to be submissive to every other Christian, seeking in humility to regard others as better than himself.

And the first duty of husband and wife alike is submission to God! They are the wife, remember, and He is their Husband.

How is it with us? Maybe we should be asking whether we really know what it means to be 'filled with the Spirit.'