Telling the Truth

Guest (Female): Marriage is two people coming together as one. Today, Stuart Briscoe's message talks about a passage of scripture that's become quite controversial over the years. The verse in Ephesians that says "wives, submit to your husbands." What does it mean? Well, Stuart shows you, and it might surprise you, coming up.

Guest (Male): If you want a strong and lasting marriage, the best place to look for guidance is the creator of marriage itself, God. We want to help you build a healthy and fulfilling marriage by sending you Jill Briscoe's series, Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work. We'll send you this resource along with a beautiful Bible verse print as thanks for your gift today to help others experience life in Christ.

So call today to request your copy of this powerful four-message series: 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now, here's Stuart Briscoe to start today's message.

Stuart Briscoe: When people get married, they often say, "We have decided to tie the knot." Given the number of people who are deciding not to tie the knot at the present time, I think that is an admirable decision. But I try to point out to them that when we think in terms of Christian marriage, it’s not so much two people deciding to tie the knot as God deciding to join two people together. It’s not so much a human decision; it is a divine action.

Now, it's very important that we try to get that firmly in our thinking, that marriage is all about God joining two people together. I say this on the authority of no less an authority than Jesus Christ himself. In fact, he went even further. He said, "Whom God therefore has joined together, no man should separate." So when we think of marriage in these terms, God having joined two people together, I think it's rather obvious that two independent people now being brought together in some new union are going to have a lot of adjustments to make.

The apostle Paul in Ephesians chapters five and six gives some very helpful teaching on this whole business of how the husband and the wife adjust to each other. He does it in a very balanced way. For instance, verse 22 of chapter five is a very familiar verse: "Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord." It's very familiar because the wives have heard it over and over and over again, and it's very familiar to the men. Some of the men who don't know any other verse in the Bible know this one very well indeed.

However, if we're going to look at what Paul actually said, in verse 22, he said, "Wives, submit to your husbands." But then in verse 25, he says, "Husbands, love your wives." You see, it's rather like a pair of scissors. When you've got a pair of scissors, you've got two things that have been joined to form a new whole. If the scissors are going to work, then both sides have got to be in operation and in harmony. So the apostle Paul would say, "Look, half the story about marriage is wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. The other half is husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church."

Having given you the analogy of a pair of scissors, in the interest of time, I'm going to have to concentrate on just one of these two things. So today I'm going to talk to you about the first half of this relationship, this business of adjustment: "Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord." Next, men, it will be about "husbands, love your wives." And no, you cannot go and play golf. You have to come and listen to both of these unless you're going to try and operate with half a pair of scissors.

It's very important that we understand the context in which Paul is giving this teaching. It's very important because if we don't understand the context, we may get Paul all wrong. Is it possible to get Paul all wrong? Yes. Talk to many people who never go to church in this part of the world at the present time and ask them about the apostle Paul. If they're women, they'll probably say, "Paul, he was an old chauvinist." He was an old chauvinist. He actually told wives to submit to their husbands. Can you believe that?

Well, is he an old chauvinist? In actual fact, if you look at Paul in his immediate context, what you will discover to your amazement is that he was a radical and that he was doing more for the emancipation of women and other oppressed groups at that time than anybody else on earth. But you'll never understand it until you see it in context. It's important that we see this because many people are simply dismissing this aspect of biblical truth concerning marriage. They will have absolutely nothing to do with the idea of wives submitting to their husbands as to the Lord.

All right. First of all, then, the historical context. First-century Greco-Roman culture was the culture in which Paul was living, to which he was writing. They were particularly interested in maintaining law and order. They said the way you do that is by breaking society down into its most manageable pieces and maintaining law and order there. The most manageable piece of their society was the household. Very different from the nuclear suburban household that many of us are used to at the present time.

This could be a rather large group of people: certainly husband and wife, certainly children, and very, very often slaves and many, many servants. The way that they maintained order in that household was by giving absolute authority to the husband, the father, and the owner of the slaves. He could rule that household with a rod of iron. It would work out in many different ways. For instance, if his wife gave birth, in his opinion, to too many daughters, he could order the infant baby girl to be exposed and die because he'd got enough daughters, he didn't want any more. That wasn't a problem in that culture.

If his son became unruly or disobedient, whatever, he could be thoroughly beaten and, if necessary in the father's eyes, he could be imprisoned. If a slave escaped from the household and was captured, he could be executed at the command of the head of the household. The wife was regarded not as a person, but as a piece of property. She was not allowed to make decisions of her own, particularly in the area of religion. The father, the husband, he decided what everybody's religion was going to be. She had no rights whatsoever. So as far as the women, the children, and the slaves were concerned, they didn't rate at all.

Now, it's not too difficult for us to understand this because the founding fathers of this nation had a rather similar view of women and of children and of slaves. But when we look at the situation that Paul was addressing, we've got to understand that when he came and preached the gospel, this was a dramatic intervention in their culture. Because this is what he told these people: You are all created in the image of God. God loves all of you. You slaves, God loves you. You women, God created you in the image of God as much as he created your husbands in the image of God.

Christ died for all of you. All of you are sinners. You have that in common: men, women, children, slaves, wives, husbands. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Christ died for all of you that you might be reconciled to God. If you're reconciled to God, the Holy Spirit will come into your life and he will baptize you into the body of Christ, and he will give you gifts. In the body of Christ, men, women, children, slaves, slave owners, husbands, wives, you will be all one in Christ Jesus. For in Christ there's neither Jew nor Greek, nor male nor female, nor slave nor slave owner. We're all one in Christ Jesus. He started to preach this.

Guest (Female): This is Telling the Truth, the teaching ministry of Stuart and Jill Briscoe. Today, Stuart's message speaks about what submission really means. We'll be right back with more.

Guest (Male): One question we often hear from Telling the Truth listeners is, "What's the Bible's secret to a long, happy marriage?" Over their years of ministry, Stuart and Jill Briscoe have both had a lot to say about this question. After all, they had the biblical wisdom and real-life experience of over 60 years of marriage to back it up. And in Jill's four-message series called Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work, she shares timeless truth on marriage from the Bible, along with practical day-to-day advice from her own marriage to Stuart.

We want to help you build a marriage that stands the test of time as you apply biblical truth to help your marriage not only survive but thrive. That's why we're excited to send you Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work, as well as a beautifully designed print featuring a Bible verse on marriage, as our thanks for your gift today. Your gift will help keep sharing the life-changing truth of God's love with people around the world through the resources and teaching of Telling the Truth. So call today to request Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work when you give: 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Back to Stuart now on today's Telling the Truth.

Stuart Briscoe: Now, it's all old hat to us. We've known that ever since we've known anything about Christianity. This was a radical message to the people that Paul was preaching to. The women couldn't believe their ears. What is he saying about us? The slaves couldn't believe what they were hearing. What is he saying about us? The men, they were having fits. They thought, these women might start believing this crazy character. They might start to think they're as important as we are. These slaves might get all kinds of big ideas about themselves. We will lose control.

And if we lose control in the household, it's only a matter of time until law and order breaks down in the household and then the whole of our society will collapse. And that's why Christianity was regarded as dangerous and subversive at that time. How many of you think that the man in the street in America today regards Christianity as dangerous and subversive? The man in the street in America today generally regards Christianity as fundamentally weak-kneed and irrelevant. That will give you some idea of the change in culture.

Now, the apostle Paul is bringing a message to those women who are hearing something so exciting, so radical, and so emancipating that it's very important that he teaches them very, very carefully how to enjoy their freedom in Christ and live in the norms of their culture. Come to think of it, that's what we have to do today. How can we live uniquely free in Christ according to the norms of our culture so that we don't become a scandal in the name of Christ to the culture of which we're a part?

Secondly, I want you to notice the grammatical context in which Paul is writing here. Now, look very carefully in your Bible. It's an excellent book on the subject, particularly if you read it. Verse 22, this is what it says: "Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord." Now, some women hate that verse. They absolutely hate that verse. Well, I've got some good news for you. That verse was originally written in Greek, not in English. And when it was written in Greek, the word "submit" was not there.

In actual fact, if you look in the previous verse, verse 21, it says, "Submitting to one another out of reverence to Christ, wives to your husbands as to the Lord." In the Greek, it makes perfect sense. You don't need the "submit" in the second sentence because it borrows the verb from the previous sentence. You say, "Well, what's all the fuss about then?" No fuss, it's just explaining something to you and it is this: you cannot separate verse 22 from verse 21. You just can't do it.

You cannot separate verse 22 from verse 21. So now you get the grammatical context which gives a very, very different light on it. You don't start with, "Wives, submit to your husbands." You start with submitting to each other, submitting to each other. Do you hear me? Submitting to each other as unto the Lord. And in that context, wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. Now, you may have noticed that I was saying "submitting," but actually your text in the Bible says "submit." Well, "submitting" is the accurate translation here.

It's what we call a participle. I'm just going to mention it to you quickly because there are three other participles. This is what they are: "submitting" in verse 21, "singing" in verse 19, "speaking" in verse 20, and "giving thanks." Submitting, giving thanks, singing, and speaking. Now, the important thing about that is this: that these participles are like big clusters of grapes. You've got a cluster called "submitting," and you've got one called "thanking," you've got one called "speaking," and you've got one called "singing." And these clusters of grapes all need a branch to hang on.

That's what a participle needs. It needs a verb on which to hang. And the verb on which these participles hang is found in verse 18 where it says, you know this: "Don't be drunk with wine, which leads to all kinds of wrong living. Rather," listen, "be filled with the spirit." And that's the context. That is the grammatical context in which Paul now says to wives, "Wives, submit to your husband as to the Lord." So where does it all start? It all starts with husbands and wives being filled with the spirit.

And how can you tell that they're filled with the spirit? By their speaking, by their singing, by their thanksgiving, listen, and by their submitting one to the other. And in that context, where you've got a husband and a wife filled with the spirit, and you can tell it by their speaking and their singing and their thanksgiving and their submitting, in that context, wives are submitting to their husbands. Now we've moved a long way from simply saying, "Wives, submit." But if you take a text out of its context, you're left with a con.

Now, the third aspect of this context we need to recognize is what I would call the spiritual context. And that starts in verse one of chapter five. You see, when you read a scripture, you've got to follow its line of reasoning, particularly in the epistles of Paul. In verse one of chapter five, this is what he says: "Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children." That is a command, it is a principle for all believers. Are you a dearly loved child of God? Is that how you regard yourself?

That's what the Bible says: God so loved the world that he gave his only son, whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Are you a dearly loved child of God? The answer should be yes. All right, then this is what dearly loved children of God do: they seek to imitate God. They want to become more like him. Now, how do they do that? They do it by living a life of love. But how do they live a life of love? Just as Christ loved us. But how did he love us? And gave himself up as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

This is the overarching rule for Christians. You can tell Christians: they are dearly loved of God and they bask in the love of God. And because they bask in the love of God, they want to imitate him. They want to live more like his son Jesus. And how did his son Jesus live? He lived a life of love and of submitting gladly to the will of God.

Guest (Female): Living a life of love. Stuart Briscoe on today's Telling the Truth. He's coming right back to talk about this idea of submission and what it means to live it out on a day-to-day basis.

Guest (Male): God has given you the secrets to a long-lasting and joy-filled marriage. And they're found throughout the pages of scripture. We want to help you mine the treasures of God's word so that you can grow your marriage God's way. That's why we're excited to send you Jill Briscoe's four-message series, Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work. This powerful series will breathe new life into your marriage as you learn to anchor your relationship to God's truth.

We'll send you Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work, along with a specially designed print featuring a Bible verse on marriage, as thanks for your gift this month to keep sharing the teaching and resources of Telling the Truth with so many around the world. Generous friends like you keep broadcasts like this one going, reaching others with God's healing love so they can experience life in Christ. If you haven't given before, consider a gift today to help keep God's word going out to you and many others. And remember to request Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work and your Bible verse print when you call and give: 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online when you visit tellingthetruth.org.

Guest (Female): Now, here are Stuart's answers to a few questions about his message today. Stuart, what encouragement would you have for the woman who is submitting to her husband because she knows she should as a Christian, even though he's not loving her like Christ loved the church?

Stuart Briscoe: I think one of the difficult things for us to understand about the biblical teaching on marriage, particularly with a view to the issue of submission, is this: that given our freedoms and given the emphasis on individuality and the opportunity and the right of every human being to be making decisions that determine their own life, then this idea of submission is a very foreign concept at all. It is an intrusion that we don't particularly appreciate. I think that's fair enough to put it in those terms.

What we need to understand is when Paul was writing, that was not the way they looked at it at all. Women who were being addressed by Paul were startled that they were even being addressed, that they were even being spoken to, because up until that time they were regarded as nonentities. But Paul was elevating their position. Not only that, he was actually telling these women that they were profoundly significant, that they were created in the image of God, that they were redeemed, that they were indwelt by the Holy Spirit, that they were gifted, and that they were to participate in the life of the body.

Now, this was radical, it was emancipating, it was thrilling, it was exciting, but there was a problem. There was a problem that the women might become so excited about that whole approach that they would go haywire. They would go hog wild into all kinds of things. And this would be scandalous in the society of that day. So we've got to realize that it was in the context of women recognizing their worth, their value, etc. that they were to avoid taking freedom to limits that were unacceptable to their society.

All right, translate that into our situation today and say, "Look, when we talk about submission in a marital situation, we're not talking about doormats." We're talking about people of worth, people of profound significance, treating each other as if they're profoundly significant. And I would say to women, you're not there to be a doormat, and you're not there to submit to everything that your husband decides that he as Lord and Master has demanded. You are to point out that you are a person of worth, created in the divine image, redeemed by God, and significant for all eternity, and help him to see your value and your worth.

Guest (Female): Great stuff from Stuart Briscoe. Before we go, we want to remind you this month, when you give to continue sharing God's word through Telling the Truth broadcasts like this one, we'll send you Jill Briscoe's four-message series, Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work, along with a Bible verse print about marriage. This powerful series will encourage you with eight biblical keys to a healthy, life-giving marriage.

So please request your copy when you call 1-800-889-5388. 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online when you visit tellingthetruth.org. We're glad you've listened today. Come back next time for more truth from God's word. Experience life here on Telling the Truth.