This is a very important study of Ephesians 5. I discovered these principles well into married life and I wish I had understood them much earlier. As we begin our study in verse 25, we find that a husband is supposed to love his wife in the same way that Christ loved the church. I used to think of this in terms of doing kind things for your wife or protecting her from danger, and so forth. However, there is much more to it than this. Verse 25 tells us that the way Christ loved the church is that He gave Himself for it so that he could sanctify and cleanse it through the Word. It’s important then to think about how we as husbands could love our wives in the same way.
Let’s look at it step by step. Christ’s purpose is to sanctify and cleanse the church using the Word. Our ministry to our wives should be to do the same thing, although not in the same way that only the Son of God could do. Sanctification means to set apart for a special purpose. We should sanctify our wife in such a way that she is a holy person, dedicated to God and to her husband. You should not look at your wife as one among many women, but as that special woman that God has brought into your life and to whom you have committed your life and devotion.
There is a special service we should be doing for our wife in the area of the Word of God. It is our responsibility as the husband to be a man of the Word and then to take that Word and use it in the life of our wife. The flow of spiritual life, teaching and application should be from the husband to the wife and not the other way around. It seems that most frequently the wife is more spiritually attuned than the husband is and this is a reversal of God’s plan.
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