Recently, my wife and I were having a conversation with some friends about marriage, particularly the passage in the book of Ephesians referring to the respective roles of husbands and wives (5:22-33). We were commenting on the metaphor that the apostle Paul employs: the human body. He says that wives are to submit to their own husbands, "as to the Lord", because the husband is her head just as Christ is the head of the church. He also says that husbands are to give themselves up for their wives "as Christ does" for the church and that this giving up of himself is how he loves her.
Now, let me ask you a question: When was the last time you shoved your hand into a fire for fun? Or, when did you last sit at the kitchen table wishing your hand would finally "get its act together" and pick up the fork to start feeding you? These are the kind of absurdities that came to mind during this conversation. When Paul says that wives are like bodies and husbands are like heads, he's pointing out, among other things, the absurd nature of sin: whoever heard of a foot that rebelled against what the head wanted? Or, of a leg "unwilling" to follow the direction of the brain? Husbands who love their wives as they were meant to don't ask their wives to do things that are destructive, harmful, and belittling to either themselves or their husbands. In fact, they are willing to hazard such dangers themselves before exposing their wives to such destructive potential. It's the difference between a man reaching into a fire to save, and a man reaching into a fire because he likes to watch flesh burn. Only an idiot and a fool does the latter, while only a loving hero risks losing his hand for the sake of another. And it is not hard to follow such a man gladly.
BHT
