Tuesday, April 30th, 2024

Scripture: Col. 3:18 Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Col. 3:19 Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them.

Teaching: Following his teaching on how to be content in the Lord, loving like Christ and living for Christ, Paul adds further detail on what this looks like. Notice first that each group mentioned in verses 18-22 do not bear a larger share of responsibility to the Lord; they each are called to a certain example of Christ-honoring living determined by their individual circumstances. Each of these callings is detailed elsewhere in Scripture, and can be studied further in those places.

In verses 18-19, Paul focuses on the roles of wives and husbands. The context of this verse is in living a content and Christ-honoring life that is given to us by the unconditional and agape love of Christ, the expectation is that wives and husbands would both show each other the same kind of love that they are given by Christ. What flows from resting in Christ’s love is an outpouring of the same kind of love to others. What that looks like in practice is women submitting to their husbands, as is fitting to the Lord. Culturally in Paul’s time, a wife’s submission to her husband was expected whether one believed in Christ or not. Paul qualifies this statement by drawing a contrast between the cultural expectations of the world and the faithful expectations of the Lord for wives. Submission, as is fitting to the Lord, by women is not done to be culturally appropriate but instead to be faithful to Christ.

Similarly, husbands are called to love their wives and to not be embittered against them. Like the calling to wives, men are to love and serve their wives’ unconditionally in the same way that Christ loves them. In the same way, in times when a wife is not properly submissive, the husband is not to become resentful or respond in any way that is not Christ-like love. Any act of defiance by the wife does not cancel out the husband’s responsibility to love her as Christ loves him.

Takeaway: If Christ retaliated against us when we defy him, what kind of relationship would that be? If Christ refused to go to the cross until all mankind turned from sin, would his death have been out of love? The relationship of a husband and wife is meant to model the relationship of Christ to the Church. Jesus Christ died for us while we were still sinners because of His great love for us. Paul calls us who know Christ to live in Christ throughout his letter to the Colossians and that means for all of us to submit to Christ. In submitting to Christ, the roles husbands and wives have to one another are different but both glorify Christ and model the gospel. When husbands and wives alike forget what they are called to do in Christ, it is to Christ’s example they are to look for how to repent and return to Him.