For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her….
-Ephesians 5:25, NLT
When I hear this verse cited by Evangelicals, I shudder internally.
This is a highly abused text. Evangelicals often use this as a proof text to shame husbands.
Obviously, this text teaches husbands to be loving and sacrificially so for their wives. I think that is the general point.
Like the verse on wives submitting to husbands (see Ephesians 5:22), other verses in the Bible (see Ephesians 5:21) make it clear that this is a mutual matter. We run into trouble when we take verses out of context and utilize them to control either gender.
Philippians 2 is a clear example where ALL Believers are to imitate sacrificial love modeled after Christ’s death.
This is not just a “husband” matter. Similarly, submission is not just a “wife” matter as Ephesians 5:21 demonstrates.
Such verses, in my experience, are often used to judge the “performance” of spouses. This is unhealthy. We do not “earn” our places as spouses.
Once we start treating marriage as a transaction, then we have engaged in commodification of our spouse. They have become a means to an ends–i.e. serving my needs. This is antithetical to spiritually healthy or godly relationships in general.
I think many cheaters are stuck in this commodification mindset.
They feel entitled to a “better” deal. So, they treat their spouse and the marriage covenant with contempt. This includes using verses from Ephesians 5 to “justify” their contempt. It is sick.
We need to get better providing context for these verses in our teachings. If we hesitate to shame women with Ephesians 5:22 about submission–as we should–then we also should hesitate to shame men with Ephesians 5:25 about dying for their wives.
Submission and sacrificial loving is the Christian way of loving God and serving others. It is not related to one gender or the other. Both need to grow in both ways of becoming more like Christ.
_____
*A version of this post ran previously.
