seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
Ephesians 5:21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 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. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Ephesians 6:1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise— 3 “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”
4 Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
5 Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. 6 Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. 7 Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, 8 because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free.
9 And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.
This is from the commentary.
Submitting: The word submitting here literally means, “to be under in rank.” It is a military word. It speaks of the way that an army is organized among levels of rank. You have generals and colonels and majors and captains and sergeants and privates. There are levels of rank, and you are obligated to respect those in higher rank.
Wives, submit: To submit means that you recognize someone has legitimate authority over you. It means you recognize that there is an order of authority, and that you are part of a unit, a team. You as an individual are not more important that the working of the unit or the team.
Husbands, love your wives: Paul’s words to Christian husbands safeguards his previous words to wives. Though wives are to submit to their husbands, it never excuses husbands acting as tyrants over their wives.
Children, obey your parents: The command is simple. Children are to obey their parents. This not only means that children have the responsibility to obey, but parents have the responsibility to teach their children obedience — one of the most important jobs for a parent.
And this is from the commentary for chapter 6.Do not provoke your children to wrath: Parents certainly have the opportunity to provoke their children to wrath, through an unkind, over-critical attitude that torments the child instead of training them. But Christian parents should never be like this.
Bondservants, be obedient… as to Christ: The words “as to Christ” change our entire perspective as workers. It reminds us that our work can and should be done as if we were working for Jesus — because we are!
Not with eyeservice: We are not to work with eyeservice (working only when the boss is looking) or as men-pleasers (those who only care about pleasing man), but with good will (a good attitude, not complaining) doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men.
And with that.... I think Paul has confessed to his biggest sin, according to the commentary.Paul is all flash and talk. If Paul was the pastor of the local Baptist Church, he would beat that pulpit as long as one person was sitting in a pew. I think Paul did eye service his whole life. Maybe here he's confessing that he needs to change his toon and just work for Christ instead of himself.
I was listening to someone discussing a difficult topic. The woman said "God made man in His image, so we are perfect when we are born. We should not be trying to change what God made". Did you guess the topic? Anyway, that sentence bugged me all day.
God didn't make us perfect. He made us human. If we were perfect, Adam would have reached up and strangled that serpent for messing with is wife and kids. But we are not perfect, and we have to accept that.
Christians.... You will never be at the top of the food chain in Heaven. The Angels have rank and so do we. We will never be perfect.... Like a leopard has its spots, we have our imperfections too. Some people are waiting because they want to be perfect before asking Christ to adopt them. Stop.... you'll never be perfect... you are human!!!!
My online Bible calls these verses "Instructions for Christian Households".
I call it "eye service v goodwill".
Just because someone might be looking....
