BUILDING YOUR MARRIAGE: SOME THOUGHTS FROM ST. PAUL

Building Your Marriage: Some thoughts from St. Paul

These verses of Scripture from St. Paul are commonly used in Christian marriage ceremonies. They speak of the relationship between a husband and his wife. As beautiful as they are, they are also very misunderstood and misinterpreted. Look closely and see their wisdom for your marriage. In Ephesians 5,21 to 33 Paul writes:

“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

“In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church – for we are members of his body. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is profound mystery, but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as her loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”

Comment              There are four important points here. First, Christ loves us so much that he wants to marry us. He call us his bride, and he uses marriage as a picture of his relationship to the church and to each one of us as his followers. He personally washes his church. Second, there is the “S” word – submission. Submission does not imply inferiority. God made Eve out of the side of Adam, to be bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh – his equal – his companion. To say that submission somehow implies inferiority is to say that Jesus, when he submitted to the Father, was somehow inferior to the Father. Submission does not imply inferiority in any way. It is a voluntary reliance on another in perfect trust. In fact, the Apostle Paul says that we are all to submit to each other. Wives to submit to husbands, husbands to wives, and both to Christ.

Third, husbands are to be the leaders of the family, the pastors at home. And men are to love their wives as Christ loves the church, and even died for her.

And finally, just as Jesus prepares his bride, the church, for the day when she will be presented in heaven, without spot or wrinkle, so husbands, as leaders, as to prepare their wives to stand before God one day. Leadership at home is primarily a spiritual responsibility.

the conjugal love of Christian spouses is one of the specifics of the divine salvific reality. That is, marriage is the specific venue of the reconciling ministry of Christ. Christian marriage is inserted into the sphere of redemption. The fundamental economy of Christianity, the fruitful unity of Christ and his church is realised anew in every Christian marriage. Since a symbol not only points to but also effects (brings about) the reality, we may say that Christ, as it were, is waiting for Christian spouses to love one another in order that through them he could express his love for the church. Christ is “enabled” by spousal love to act upon the world. By their love, married partners place the sign of Christ’s love for the church. Christian marriage is the specific venue of Christ’s action of restoring harmony in the world and creation.