“Edwards was less than helpful as a host, for he was still a light eater and would often finish his meal before the others did. He would then slip out to his study, returning to the table only when he was alerted that the others had finished and he was needed to preside over the grace which was always said at the end of meals as well as at the beginning.”

From the outset Biblical marriages have been less than ideal. Consider:

Adam and Eve – original sin and tragic family
Isaac and Rebekah – she deceived him along with Jacob
Jacob and Leah – he preferred Rachel
David and Michal – he left her childless for being upset with him
David and Bathsheba – a marriage begun in adultery and the death of her husband
Solomon – 700 wives and many marriages of convenience
Job’s wife – curse God and die
Hosea and Gomer – she was a prostitute
Ananias and Sapphira – they both died as punishment

However, one of the best marriages in the Bible was a Jewish couple who were forced to leave Rome during a period of persecution. They befriended Paul and followed him to Ephesus from Corinth and were still living there when he wrote this letter to the Ephesians. They are mentioned six times in four different books and always as equals because they worked together as a team. Sometimes he addresses them as Aquila and Priscilla and other times as Priscella and Aquila. That would be unusual given the times. They were flexible and moved around when the need arose. They were brilliant together as they were the couple in Acts who took Apollos aside and instructed him in the way of God more fully. They were Paul’s fellow workers and in Romans he says they risked their lives for him and “not only I but all the Gentile churches are grateful for them.” They were models of maturity and, I suspect, a template for marriage that Paul looked to when he was writing this letter to the church. I think he is not so much describing an idealized marriage as he is describing a great partnership that existed between Priscilla and Aquila.

2. The basis for marriage begins before marriage. It begins with a description of a whole range of relationships. Look at verse 21. Submit to “one another out of reverence for Christ.” In other words, submission is the way we are to relate to each other as a church – not just in marriage.

This is to be the pattern for all our relationships. Ray Stedman says that we do not live life alone and on our own terms. “We vitally need these relationships. Life is made this way. Life is so constructed that we cannot find fulfillment without another person being involved. We are not made to satisfy ourselves. Though each of us has within us a drive to fulfill ourselves and to find satisfaction, we make a very grave and serious error if we think that we can ever do that apart from reacting and relating to another person. One of the fundamental mysteries of life is that we cannot achieve our own satisfaction if we try to do so, but we can only achieve it if we seek to attain not our own benefits but the benefits of another. This is why Paul says, “Subject yourselves to one another.”

That word does not mean lose your identity or enslave yourself. It does not mean think nothing of yourself. It means adapt yourself to the other person…not out of expediency or accommodation but out of reverence for Christ. The best thing we can do for our children to prepare them for marriage is to teach them to adapt themselves in relationships from the beginning.

Again, I like the way Ray Stedman puts it:

“You can only subject yourself when you see a third party present in every situation — the Lord Jesus Christ. It is therefore not a case of “you against me” or “me against you,” but it is a case of Christ being present. In the case of a Christian, the great issue is the matter of my relationship to him, and my obedience to his word and to his will. This touches the matter of motivation. I never can submit to another if it is a case of “you versus me” or “me versus you,” for then my pride comes to the fore and I get stubborn and rationalize my position and justify myself, and so the conflict is perpetuated. But when we see that it is a matter of loving obedience to the One who first loved us and gave himself for us, and who now lives within us as our Lord, our God, this then becomes the primary relationship, and it is easier, much easier, to give up our fancied rights in order that we may be obedient to that which is first — our relationship to Christ.”

3. So, in verse 22 we read. “Wives, adapt yourselves to your husbands as to The Lord.” This does not mean follow all his whims or do whatever he says but to realize you are to be a part of his calling and to serve a unique role in keeping him on course in that. She is to be his partner, not his boss or his trophy. She is to join him in his purpose for life. She is invited into his life. It is not just being married to live with each other but to be joined in unique roles to accomplish something and together to grow toward maturity. It is an invitation for both to be joined together to grow together toward maturity.

4. And, in verse 23 we read the husband is the head as Christ is the head. How is Christ the head?

First, he is appointed and placed. He is permanent, fixed, the cornerstone of the relationship. There are no days off or vacations from being the head. While we both adapt ourselves in different ways, husbands adapt by being in leadership and being responsible. The natural inclination of many men is to never grow up – to be Peter Pan. Wives adapt by not being the head or being in authority – and sometimes the natural inclination of many is to be in charge and take over when the husband wants to stay a little boy.

Second, the husband provides protection and love. He is loyal to his wife and defends her.

Third, he is the head through sacrifice which is the source of all genuine power and authority.

Fourth, the head brings all things together. He is the one who makes peace and unifies the relationship.

5. Not only is the husband the head but he is to love his wife as Christ loves the church.

First, by giving himself up. Again, I like the way Ray Stedman puts it…but I am convicted by this as well.

“But his form of subjection is different. It is not to give in, but to give up — to give himself up for his wife. No husband is playing his proper role in marriage until he learns to give himself up to his wife, to open his heart to her, to share his emotions and dreams, his thoughts and disappointments, his joys, to fully expose himself to his wife. And there is nothing that makes a woman happier than to know that she fully enters into her husband’s life. That fulfills her, and it fulfills him. Let me share a great secret with you men. It is something I learned from the Scriptures, for I would never have learned it from life, though it is confirmed by life: Women cannot understand themselves; only men can understand women. Ah, but ladies, do not feel bad — men cannot understand themselves either; only women can. How often we realize that our mates know us better than we know ourselves! So the man is to give himself up in order that the woman might fulfill her womanhood.”

Second, he is to sanctify her. That doesn’t mean turning her into an idol or trying to perfect her according to your wishes. Not only is that impossible – it is not what we are to do as men. A person is sanctified when they have found their particular purpose. It is the same sense Paul describes in Ephesians 2:10 when he says we have been “prepared”. It means we have been designed in certain ways to accomplish His will for us. The husband is to help his wife find her part of their purpose as a partnership.

Third, he is to honor her and to build her up. Literally, the word means to make her radiant. Our wives each have a particular kind of beauty that we are to grow and encourage. We are to bring out the unique beauty in the way a gardener works. Too often we as husbands are farmers instead of gardeners. We want our wives to be productive and not radiant.

We have been given someone that we will ultimately present to God. What will He say about our stewardship of that relationship? Have I brought out the particular beauty that He created in her or have I squelched it? Have I been a gardener or a farmer?

Fourth, to complete himself and the two become one in their growing together in maturity. They do not always agree. They are not identical. They are inseparable. Like Paul always referred to “Aquila and Priscilla” and never to one or the other, people see us as one and not just as individuals. We are both sanctified by each other.

6. I’ve been thinking about the fact that we are celebrating our fortieth anniversary next month. The number forty as you probably know has special significance in Scripture. It is symbolic of a time of testing and preparation. Israel was in the wilderness for forty years – not just as punishment for lack of faith but because it took forty years for a whole generation of habits to die and for the people to be ready for the Promised Land. Maybe marriage is that way as well. Maybe forty years is the time it takes to prepare both husband and wife for what is next – for the promised land and for actually accomplishing what God intends. Not for settling down in comfort but for understanding what the first forty years prepared them for.

So, what can we do with this passage if we are well into marriage? It’s easy to see this passage as helpful for those who are newly married and have not become set in their relationship with each other. It’s easy to see this as good advice but impractical given where we are in marriage.

I think we can still learn to adapt to each other and grow.

First, pray for our marriages together and today. What has God called us to as partners. Are we working together or just living together? Are we becoming more mature?

For wives, are we helping or discouraging our husbands in his calling and purpose? You don’t grow someone with control and manipulation but speaking the truth in love.

For husbands, are we growing and making radiant in the beauty that God has given our wives? Or have we squelched it with sarcasm, disloyalty and ridicule?

Second, we can practice adapting and not just accommodating or compromising.

Third, we as husbands will always need to “leave all others” and that does not just mean our parents. It means making our relationship with our wives more important than that with our friends, our co-workers and all the other relationships that are competitive with her. It doesn’t mean cutting ourselves off from others but placing our relationship with our wives first.

Fourth, we can continue to give up ourselves in the way Ray Stedman described. To talk to each other about things that matter. I was reading an article last night on an older couple and the death of the wife. Here is what her husband said at the funeral.

“We left nothing unsaid. We left nothing undone.”

How many of us can say that? We left nothing unsaid. Maybe today is the right time to begin saying those things to our wives that would make it possible for us in that moment to say the same.

I love “Fiddler on the Roof” and especially the scene where Tevye asks Golde “Do you love me?”

Do you love me?

(Golde)
Do I what?

(Tevye)
Do you love me?

(Golde)
Do I love you?
With our daughters getting married
And this trouble in the town
You’re upset, you’re worn out
Go inside, go lie down!
Maybe it’s indigestion

(Tevye)
“Golde I’m asking you a question…”

Do you love me?

(Golde)
You’re a fool

(Tevye)
“I know…”

But do you love me?

(Golde)
Do I love you?
For twenty-five years I’ve washed your clothes
Cooked your meals, cleaned your house
Given you children, milked the cow
After twenty-five years, why talk about love right now?

(Tevye)
Golde, The first time I met you
Was on our wedding day
I was scared

(Golde)
I was shy

(Tevye)
I was nervous

(Golde)
So was I

(Tevye)
But my father and my mother
Said we’d learn to love each other
And now I’m asking, Golde
Do you love me?

(Golde)
I’m your wife

(Tevye)
“I know…”
But do you love me?

(Golde)
Do I love him?
For twenty-five years I’ve lived with him
Fought with him, starved with him
Twenty-five years my bed is his
If that’s not love, what is?

(Tevye)
Then you love me?

(Golde)
I suppose I do

(Tevye)
And I suppose I love you too

(Both)
It doesn’t change a thing
But even so
After twenty-five years
It’s nice to know.

It is nice to know, isn’t it? Maybe this is a good question for all of us to ask today.