On the last Insight for Living program, Chuck Swindoll gave the fifth chapter of Ephesians a surprising comparison. He said Paul's teaching on husbands and wives was like looking at an ancient map that illustrated uncharted territory.
Here be dragons. In other words, be warned, deep mysteries ahead. Well, on this edition of Insight for Living, Chuck will wade into controversial territory, but he'll do so with confidence because the Bible is his guide. Whether you're married, divorced, single, or widowed, all of us can learn from this passage. Chuck titled today's message, The Most Challenging of All Relationships. These are the most challenging of all relationships on earth.
Husband, wife, parent, child, employer, employee. Challenging. Full of the possibility of conflict and full of emotions.
So these are charged with difficulty. Let me give you a couple of three statements. Can I do that as I have thought about these verses? The entire section sits in an important context. The entire section, chapter 5, verse 22 through 6, verse 9, sits in a very important context.
You know what the context is? It's the filling of the Spirit. Do you notice 18, 19, and 20 in chapter 5, and including verse 21 is all one sentence?
There's no period until the end of verse 21. It starts, verse 18, it runs on, on, on, on, to the very end on the subject of submission. It begins with, be filled with the Spirit. It's a command.
It describes what happens when you are filled. You speak to one another in songs and you worship with one another. You are grateful for what is occurring and you are submissive to one another.
It closes in verse 21. That's the context. Now, that leads me to my second statement. All the relationships depend on the same concept, submission. All of the relationships depend on that context, verse 21, be subject to one another. Wives, submission to their husbands and to his God-given role as their leader, their head. Husbands must apply submission in their love for honoring and supporting their wives and treating them with enormous respect. Children must understand submission or there will be a breakdown in obedience. We obey because we submit.
We don't submit, we don't obey. Every teenager, every child, everyone still living at home under the roof of parents needs to know what the verses one to three are saying. Fathers, verse four, need to know and apply submission or they will provoke their children to anger.
Fathers, we are given to demands and to perfectionism and to a critical spirit and we expect more of our children than we should, more often than not. And it takes the filling of the spirit which brings about a submissive spirit that teaches us how to lead them graciously, firmly, yes, but graciously, humbly. People who work for others, verse five, are obedient to their bosses because they have a submissive spirit. Third statement, the truth of this section of scripture has been missed and misapplied. Religious fanatics and fools have caused immense harm using this section of scripture to teach an unbalanced position on submission and dominance.
Domination is never, never spirit-filled leadership. It's sinful, it's overbearing, it is exacting and unfair abuse. That's not what the scripture teaches. Whoever teaches that twists the passage to make it say that. So let me urge you to do two very difficult things aside from concentrate, which I always expect you to do.
I'm going to ask you to do two things. I'm going to ask you to think biblically instead of culturally. I'm going to ask you to reason theologically instead of humanistically.
Some of you are saying, what? I'm going to ask you to think biblically. Before you let your culture tell you where to stand, stay right here in the text so that you are riveted to the Word of God rather than your times. You will be forever relevant, but I tell you ahead of time, you will be terribly out of step and misunderstood. Face it. That's why Jesus said to his followers, the world will hate you. The world will hate you. Be careful when all people say only good about you. All that means is you're swimming with the stream. You've lost your salt and light.
So I'm asking you to think biblically, and I'm asking you please to reason from God's vantage point than man's vantage point. This is one of the few places you're free to do that. You always have your mind where you can do it internally, where you must do it at times.
But this is one of the few places in public where you'll be surrounded by people who want to do that too. And I'm telling you, it is hard work. It's getting harder. And so with all of that as a backdrop, I want you to turn to Ephesians chapter 5 and look with me at verse 21, which is the concept in the context that is so pervasive. Be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. Be submissive to one another out of respect for Christ. Let me give you a statement that I want you never to forget. The Spirit-filled believer is a submissive person. Don't tell me about your temperament, please.
Don't tell me about your scars, don't go there, please. Don't bring up a situation that, no, no, let's not go there. Remember, biblically, theologically. The Spirit-filled believer is a submissive person. See the word be subject to, those words? They come from one Greek word, hupotasso. Sounds like hupotasso, h-u-p-o-t-a-s-s-o, used in the New Testament to mean arranging in rank under. To arrange in rank under is to hupotasso.
Let me apply it militarily. If I am a lieutenant, I am in a subservient role to a captain. If I am a lieutenant JG in the Navy, I am in a subservient role to a captain. If I am a captain, I am in subservient role, I am hupotasso to the admiral. If I am a corporal, I am hupotasso with the staff sergeant.
Got it? These are roles, and out of respect for the rank, I salute, I submit. Please look at the generality of verse 21. Be subject to one another.
Not talking about male-female, not talking about wife-husband, not talking about children-parent, not talking about employee-employer, to one another. The Spirit-filled believer, verse 18, is a submissive person. What does that mean? It means with one another in the rank of Christianity, in the family of God, we are not competing with each other. We are not out to get our own way. We do not pull rank on other people or seek a place of importance. As men, we do not dominate over women. As women, we do not dominate men. As teenagers, we are not impudent in our behavior, but respectful of our moms and dads. We cooperate. We are not determined to put them in their place. We are willing to hear and to talk it through, and in a submissive spirit, to hear them out. We are not overbearing fathers or mothers who treat our children unfairly, or embarrass them or fail to honor them, just as we know that they will not fail to honor us. As employees, we are submissive to our employers, and as employers, we have hearts of submission around those who are in our company.
Got it? I'm trying to make it so clear nobody can get out from under it and say, but if you knew where I am, don't go there. The Spirit-filled believer is a submissive follower of Jesus, Jesus in coming to this earth as the very God submitted himself to the cross. Philippians 2 says, Don't think more highly of yourself than you ought to think, but... Oh, that's Romans 12. Don't think more highly than you ought to think, verse 3, but to think soberly, seriously, realistically.
Regardless of gender, when we are Spirit-filled, we model the life of Christ. When that's true, three things emerge. Dignity, equality, and unity.
Put them down. Dignity, equality, unity. In Christ's eyes, there is no man or woman, child or parent, as far as worth is concerned. In roles, there are all of the above, but in person, there is dignity, equality, unity. Think biblically, not culturally.
Think reason theologically, not humanistically. That means my wife is as worthy as I in every way. She and I are absolute equals before God. That means my son and I are on an equal plane before God with an eternal soul. That means that young man is deserving of dignity, my dignity and respect, and I am of His because I am in the same family, and that's the way Christ conducted His life. Are you ready for verse 22? Before you read it, remember there is nothing inferior about the role of submission.
It's Christ-like. Wives, hupo taso to your own husbands as to the Lord, has nothing to do with inferiority, has everything to do with dignity and equality and unity. In God's order, as He put together a plan for this earth, He has arranged certain roles to be an authority over other roles. Without, for a moment, taking away the dignity or worth of the individual, those roles must be sustained or there is anarchy, confusion, unhappiness, and a breakdown of the spiritual order.
Let's say something else here. Equality of worth is not identity of role. You may be as worthy as your husband and you are, but it doesn't mean you have the role of head.
He does. Husbands, you may be as worthy as your wife in God's eyes, but it does not mean that your authority is to be tyrannical, which is the second subject I want to mention. Neither is authority a synonym for tyranny. If you are abusive of your wife, it is not right, it is sinful. If you are unfair in your leadership, it is not Christ-like, it is sinful. If you take unfair advantage of your children and expect of them something that God would not expect, it is unfair and it is wrong and it is sinful. It is not authority. The wife who understands God's plan willingly places herself out of respect for Christ under the authority of her husband, and she does so confident that God will honor that.
Now, when I say that, I can read some of your minds. Some of you are rushing to an extreme situation where some husband demanded of his wife, and it might have been you, something that was not only displeasing to you, but disobedient to your Lord. Stop. Stop.
Don't go there. Because John R. W. Stott says this better than I, I want to make something very clear here, and I quote from his book on Ephesians. We have to be very careful not to overstate this biblical teaching on authority. It does not mean that the authority of husbands, parents, and masters is unlimited, or that wives, children, and workers are required to give unconditional obedience. No, the submission required is to God's authority delegated to human beings. If therefore, and this is extremely important, if therefore they misuse their God-given authority by commanding what God forbids or forbidding what God commands, then our duty is no longer conscientiously to submit, but conscientiously to refuse to do so. For to submit in such circumstances would be to disobey God.
The principle is clear. We must submit right up to the point where obedience to human authority would involve disobedience to God. At that point, civil disobedience becomes our Christian duty. In order to submit to God, we have to refuse to submit to human beings. As Peter put it to the Sanhedrin in Acts 5, 29, we must obey God rather than men. This is the exception, however, the general rule on which the New Testament insists is humble submission to God-given authority. Now the key in all of this, ladies, is in the end of verse 22.
Look there. Wives, hupotaso, your own husbands, as to the Lord. This is the manner of your submissive spirit.
This has everything to do with attitude. If you will, this is a duty which you owe to the Lord out of respect for Him. When my Lord gives me instructions as a pastor to do certain things in my life, it may not come naturally, and it may rake on my nature, and it may not be easy, but out of respect for Him, I do what He says. Some chauvinists have misinterpreted this ending and said, Wives, you are to treat your husbands as you treat your Lord. Wait, wouldn't that be idolatry?
Isn't that what Moses meant when he said, through God's leading there should be no other gods before you? My wife is not to worship me. I assure you she doesn't. My wife does not sit in reverence of me and pray to me. She does that only with her Lord. I would be most uncomfortable being in a role like that. That's not what as to the Lord means.
It means out of respect for your Lord, you fall in rank under the authority that He has established for the home. You model that so that your sons and daughters will learn from the model what that is about. Let me tell you a story. When I was a little boy, I forget how old I was, my mother and father had apparently had an argument. I never heard them argue in front of me, but I knew that they must have had an argument because I knew what my mother looked like when she was really ticked off. She happened to be ironing. And boy was she ironing. And I remember sitting there on a sofa, kind of aggravating her, which was common, and she said, just don't talk to me right now. She said, if I had my own way, I'd just leave your daddy. I remember that put a chill down my back. And then she looked at me and she said, I'm sorry, Charles. She said, I'm to honor your father. And we've had a disagreement, and I don't agree, but I know he's right.
But right now I don't like him very much. I thought, that's a great thing to hear. And I've been there a thousand times with my partner and she with me.
Almost ruined our marriage for the first ten years. As I took to an extreme this role of authority, I never forget when she said to me in our kitchen in New England, she said, I want you never ever to say again publicly that we are partners, because we are not. You're in a world I don't even know. And I am just a thing to you. I said, that's not true. Yes, it is. No, it isn't.
Yes, it is. She won, and I finished doing the dishes that night. She went up to the bedroom, I'll never forget this, and I opened the door and I walked in, I sat on the foot of the bed, and she's just crying her eyes out. And she said, I made a vow and I won't break my vow, but you are overbearing, and I can hardly stand to live with you.
She was right. And it began a journey that took about four years for us to hammer out. And I'll tell you, it was really tough.
Really tough. We're together because the two of us said, you know, we made a vow, and obviously what we're doing right now isn't working, it isn't right. And you know what I found out when I understood my role and fulfilled it? I've never had a problem with her fulfilling hers ever, ever, ever, ever.
It's amazing. Another moment of complete transparency from our Bible teacher, pastor and author Chuck Swindoll. And I'm sure most of us who are married can identify a few struggles of our own as we strive to live in harmony. I'll encourage you to stay with us because Chuck's prepared a closing comment that's coming up in just a moment. This is Insight for Living.
We're just getting started in a conversation about the most challenging of all relationships. Because of the magnitude of this topic, Chuck's study of Ephesians 5 is taking extra time, and we're featuring the entire presentation over the course of six episodes. To learn more about this ministry, visit us online at insight.org.
Well, in the United States, Thanksgiving is observed tomorrow, and on Friday, consumers around the world will go online to begin their Christmas shopping in earnest. So while you have some extra leisure time over the next few days, let me encourage you to visit our website to select a few gifts for friends and family that have eternal value. For instance, we're featuring a popular flip calendar called Quotable Chuck, Daily Insights from the Pulpit. Psalm 119 105 says, Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path. By displaying this calendar on your desk or kitchen counter, you'll be reminded of your freedom in Christ every single day in 2021. To purchase the flip calendar called Quotable Chuck, either as a gift for someone you love or for yourself, give us a phone call.
If you're listening in the United States, dial 1-800-772-8888, or go online to insight.org slash store. As we finish another year of ministry together, I can assure you that my personal passion for preaching and teaching has only intensified with the passing of time. In fact, I'll be honest here, I don't believe I've ever felt stronger about seizing the day every day, because I truly believe that current events signal the soon return of our Savior. Over the lifespan of Insight for Living Ministries, we have witnessed a litany of catastrophes. Some were national disasters. Others were violent acts of wickedness.
Think about it. Tsunamis wiping complete islands off the map and swallowing families into the sea. Then there were earthquakes smothering innocent people with debris.
There were two commercial jets flying into the Twin Towers, creating apocalyptic chaos, horrible destruction. There have been senseless shootings, too many to count. Plus, racial tension that has escalated, political parties are polarized, and our citizens are feeling confused.
Some are downright angry. Times like these cause us to conclude, yes, we are really living in the end times. Well, through all these disasters and through all the cultural turmoil, Insight for Living has remained constant, delivering a constant reminder that God is sovereign and in full control. By teaching God's Word, we serve as a calming voice of stability, pointing people to the Savior for more than 37 years.
And now, let me urge you to invest generously. Do that so that we may turn up the volume on the Gospel, guiding more and more people directly into the truth. In these last days, your donations, large or small, will truly make a difference. Let's do this together, and let's do this now, while there's still time. Remember Jesus' words?
We must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by the One who sent us, for the night is coming, and then no one can work. Thanks for hearing my heart today. I so look forward to hearing from you soon. And here's how to respond to Chuck Swindoll right now. To give a donation, call us. If you're listening in the United States, dial 1-800-772-8888, or go online to insight.org. And thank you so much for your generous support of Insight for Living Ministries. Join us when Chuck Swindoll continues his study on the most challenging of all relationships, Thursday on Insight for Living. The preceding message, The Most Challenging of All Relationships, Part 1, was copyrighted in 2000, 2001, and 2009. And the sound recording was copyrighted in 2009 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.
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