A Plan for Your Family: God's vs. the World's

Ephesians 5:18-22, 25; 6:1-2

 

     Let's turn to Ephesians chapter 5 and we're looking at the divine pattern for relationships.  This is part two in our series on the family, on marriage, and raising children.  We're going to get into a lot of wonderful things in the weeks ahead.  And we're looking at a sort of a launch pad in Ephesians chapter 5, a great place to begin this study because the Word of God is so specific with regard to these matters.

 

     I want to read to you from verses 18 through 21, Ephesians chapter 5.  "And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father, and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ."

 

     Last week we said that the foundation of all Christian family success, all Christian marriage blessing is set out in that text.  It's not gimmicky, it's not trivial, it's not superficial, it's not manipulative.  What it says is that before we can even talk about wives in verse 22, before we can talk about husbands in verse 25, before we can talk about children in chapter 6 verse 1 and parents in chapter 6 verse 2, we have to set up some foundations for all of those relationships, namely this, you must be Spirit filled, singing, saying thanks and submissive.  And we focused on those four things last time.  Where you have filling of the Spirit which means you're under the control of the Holy Spirit by obedience to the Word, where you have overflowing joy that comes out in songs, where you have constant thanks for everything and where you have mutual submission, you have the foundations of happiness, success and blessing in a marriage and in a family.  All of that is built on that spiritual foundation, whether we're talking about husband and wife relationship, or children and parents.

 

     One of the most popular books on this subject over the last few years was titled, Pillars That Support A Fulfilling Marriage.  At the time that it first came out it was a very popular book.  And the book suggests that what is foundational to marriage, what really makes a marriage successful is five pillars.  Here's what the book suggested, a Christian book, by the way.  Number one is security.  Number two is communication.  Number three is romance.  Number four is touch.  And number five is intimacy of spirit.

 

     The book says things like this, quote: "If a woman truly wants to have meaningful communication with her husband, she must cultivate the right side of his brain."  It says this, "The best way we know to bond within a family is by going camping."  Pretty shallow suggestions, wouldn't you say?  I'm not quite sure how the right side of my brain works, I'm positive my wife has no clue...and I'm really not much for camping either, as a matter of fact.

 

     I would expect that kind of thing in a secular book, I just am shocked to read it in a Christian book.  The pillars of marriage are not security, communication, romance, touch and intimacy of spirit.  The pillars of a marriage are being Spirit-filled, having an overflowing joy, being thankful for everything and mutually submissive.

 

     The Bible says that families are built on spiritual foundations, not psychological ones, not emotional ones.  The Bible says that what is most important in a good marriage is love for God overruling love for self.  What is really important in a good marriage is the pursuit of the needs of others rather than your own.  What really matters is having a submissive heart that cares more about the other, true spiritual joy, gratitude, devotion to God and His Kingdom and His purposes and His glory, true holiness, obedience to Scripture.

 

     In other words, marriage is just a place where you live your Christianity.  And if you live it right, it's a happy, productive, fulfilled and blessed event every day.  If you don't, it is fraught with pain and disappointment and unfulfillment and sadness and anger and all the rest.  It has nothing to do with some human techniques of touch, or romance, or intimacy, or communication, or even financial security, and everything to do with your relationship to God.

 

     In fact, there is no better place, no more important place for you to live out your Christianity than in your home.  And if your home isn't what God wants it to be, it is because the highest standards of Christianity are not being carried out there.  It may be that one partner is making every endeavor to do that and the other is not, it may be that both are falling short.  In either case, great difficulty results.

 

     The family is the environment where your spiritual strength, your spiritual devotion, your spiritual consistency are most manifest.  And not only most manifest but, listen to this, most demanded.  Because of familiarity, because of being together all the time under every conceivable kind of circumstance and in every trial and difficulty, the home is the truest test, your marriage is the truest test of your spiritual life.  That is why in 1 Timothy chapter 3 it says about an elder, a pastor, "He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity, but if a man doesn't know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God?"  Simply what Paul is saying is he manifests the character of his Christian commitment, he manifests his spiritual leadership in the home, and if it isn't showing up there, why would you ask him to lead the church?

 

     A family is just the most significant place where you live out your faith.  I'll even go so far as to say, instruction with regard to the techniques of marriage, if that's a word that's appropriate, instruction with regard to the skills of marriage, instruction with regard to all of the nuances of sensitivity toward male and female differences, when you've added all that up it is of minimal significance.  It seems to be that today we would assume that it's the main theme and the main necessity because so much literature and so much effort has been devoted to it.  But it is really not of grave importance if you have two Spirit-filled, joyful, thankful, submissive, godly people.  It all starts with that spiritual foundation and apart from that there is major trouble and major conflict.

 

     And the reason I'm emphasizing this is because this is where it all begins, this is where it all succeeds and this is where it all breaks down.  In fact, the whole wonderful design for marriage won't work very well where there is sin.  When you invade that domain of marriage and family with sin, it becomes a very oppressive, unfulfilling, miserable experience.  And that's how it is for most people, certainly the unregenerate world today that has been fed a steady diet of justification for personal pride and personal fulfillment has sowed the seeds that destroy all relationships finally.  They're all crushed under the weight of pride.  And even this has effected the church.  Those of us who know the truth have a difficult time living it because we are inundated with the world around us.

 

     In fact, I suppose the term "conflict" is almost synonymous with marriage and family today.  We hear all the time about how oppressive men are, how insensitive they are, how chauvinistic they are, how abusive and uncaring they are.  And on the other hand, we hear so often about women being overbearing, seeking freedoms and the exercise of their own will and their own purposes and not wanting to submit to their husbands.  And why is this?  Well it's because of sin. 

 

     And maybe we could go back to the beginning and get a glimpse of this.  Turn back in your Bible to the third chapter of Genesis.  I want to share with you what may well be an interpretation of Genesis 3 worthy of consideration.  I cannot be dogmatic and say it is absolutely unequivocally accurate.  There are some who would take issue with any effort to be dogmatic in this regard but is at least an interesting possibility in understanding where the conflict comes from.  We know, of course, it comes from selfishness, it comes from personal pride and personal sin.  That's what makes relationships difficult, certainly in the family.  But there may be another element to this conflict of very great interest.  And if we look at Genesis chapter 3, let me call you to Genesis 3 verse 13.  "And the Lord said to the woman, `What is this you've done?'  And the woman said, `The serpent deceived me and I ate.'  And the Lord God said to the serpent, `Because you have done this, cursed are you more than all cattle and more than every beast of the field, on your belly shall you go and dust shall you eat all the days of your life.  And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed.  He shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise Him on the heel.'"  That being the curse of Satan.

 

     But now the woman, verse 16, "To the woman He said," here's the penalty you're going to pay and this is for all womankind, "To the woman He said, `I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you.'"

 

     The curse obviously that came upon the human race as a result of the Fall in Eden altered significantly and dramatically the original design of God.  Before sin there was perfect union.  There was no conflict.  Adam and Eve got along perfectly.  And sin was introduced and sin brought with it chaos and conflict.

 

     Now there were several features to this curse.  There was a separation between man and God as a result of sin.  And man, you remember, was thrown out of the Garden, and intimate and free and full communion with God was ended.  There was also a separation between man and nature.  No longer would nature yield all of its bounty to man without any effort on his part.  Now he had to go out and by the sweat of his brow he had to till the soil and work very hard to make the world yield to him what once had gave him so freely. 

 

     Separation between man and God, separation between man and nature, and finally, separation between man and woman.  And the key part of the curse for us, at the end of verse 16: "Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you."  It is very possible that that one statement answers the question why there is such conflict between men and women...why?  Looking first to the husband it says at the end of verse 16, "He shall rule over you," and the word "rule" means reign, it's a word of sovereignty.

 

     So the curse said the man as a result of the curse is going to dominate you.  And as a result of the curse you are going to desire him.  What does that mean?  Does it mean that she will desire him physically and sexually?  I don't think that's a curse.  I don't think that was a curse before the Fall.  It was already true that she had a desire for him and he had desire for her physically.  It is the highest form of love's fulfillment in terms of physical pleasure.  It is not that she would desire him as protector, as the one who could care for her and support her and cover her.  That too already existed.  From the very beginning she was designed to complement him, but he was the one responsible to care for her.  That already existed.  She was the weaker vessel and that is a delight to the woman to have such care and protection before the Fall.

 

     So it has to be something other than a sexual desire, it has to be something other than a desire to be cared for, protected.  It is also true that the curse could not be physical or emotional desire because not all women desire that, but all are cursed.  All women are cursed.  But not all women desire their husbands physically.  Not all women desire the emotional love and protection and care of their husbands.  This has to be something...something that touches all women, just as it is something that touches all men.

 

     First, the woman was cursed with pain in childbearing.  Right at the very life-giving point, the very...really the very high point of womanhood, to bring life into the world, she is cursed.  But additionally she is cursed with this desire for her husband.  What is it?  What does it mean?  Well the only other time that word "desire" is used, it is used over in chapter 4 and we learn something when we find how a specific word is used in a given context, it's the only other time it's used in the whole book of Genesis.  In fact, the only time in the whole Pentateuch, the first five books.  And you'll notice in chapter 4 how it's used in verse 7.  The middle of the verse, "Sin is crouching at the door and its desire," exactly the same word, "is for you, but you must master it."  The construction here in the Hebrew is exactly parallel, it is an exact parallel construction using the very same word. 

 

     What's he talking about?  Talking about Cain.  You remember Cain.  Cain offered a sacrifice that God did not accept because it was not what God had asked. And then out of anger, you remember, he killed his brother.  And it says here, "The word comes to Cain, the Lord says to Cain, `Sin is crouching at the door, Cain, and its desire is for you but you must rule over it.'"  Now what did sin want to do to Cain?  It wanted to crush him.  It wanted to dominate him.  It wanted to take over his mind and his action.  Sin wanted to rule him. Sin wanted to force him to do certain things. Sin wanted to control him.  And that, I think, that is the parallel to what you have in verse 16.  When it says "your desire shall be for your husband," it is the same construction, the same term as the desire that sin has to control you.  Part of the curse is the woman no longer willingly, eagerly welcomes submission, but there is something in her that wants to control the man.  She wants to usurp authority over her husband.  That's precisely what Eve did originally, right? She should have gone to her husband, sought his wisdom when tempted, Satan knew that, Satan isolated her, Satan deceived her, she acted independently out from under the loving submission that should have been a part of her commitment to her husband and led the whole human race into sin.  As she had done in the original sin when listening to Satan and never consulting Adam, she exercised authority over the man, took things into her own hands and that was in essence the curse.  And since that time the sin of a woman, the innate depravity in women seeks to control.

 

     Man then is left with a curse as well.  He seeks to dominate.  Why is there always a Woman's Liberation movement?  And if not a movement, it's still there in the heart of women.  And why is there male chauvinism and has been and always will be?  Because that's how the depravity of the human heart reveals itself in women seeking to rule and men desiring to suppress.  And therein is one very possible explanation for the intensity and the ubiquitous character, that means all the time everywhere, of conflict in marriage.  Woman by the Fall, in her fallenness is not willing to submit but desires to control, to exert her individualism.  Man by the Fall wants to stay king of the mountain and his rule can be oppressive and insensitive.  Thus the battle of the sexes began with the Fall in Genesis chapter 3.  And children who come into the family just enter into the ring during the boxing match.  Not a good place for children to be.

 

     So there is male chauvinism in the world.  And you can find it in cultures throughout human history.  There is women's liberation in the world, and the same thing, you can find it throughout history as each one expresses the effect of the curse.  Everyone selfishly fighting for his or her own turf.

 

     And the question then comes...how can a marriage survive this kind of conflict?  How can a marriage work and how can children find any peace in this kind of environment?  And even the more important question...how can it be ended?  How can it be ended?  We've already answered that question--by two people who have come to know Christ, whose lives have been transformed, who are characterized by being Spirit-filled, joyful, thankful and submissive to one another.  And that is a spiritual transformation.

 

     In other eras, in other cultures marriages have done better than in our contemporary world.  Not too many years ago, 25 years ago or so, people stayed together. That was the standard way of conduct.  That's what society expected out of people and that's what happened.  That does not mean that there was any less conflict.  Because of fallenness, there will be conflict.

 

     You have to go back to the spiritual dimension to end it.  And that's what's so wonderful about this passage that we're looking at, and you can go back to Ephesians now.  That the solution to the conflict in marriage is spiritual.  And it starts with letting the Holy Spirit control your life, letting the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, obeying the Spirit of God as He reveals His will through the Word of God.  Only the power of the Holy Spirit can reverse the curse in a home.  Where you have a Spirit-filled person in the home, you have hope.  Ever try to pick a fight with a Spirit-controlled person?  Ever try to pick a fight with a totally joyful person that just has rising joy in their heart?  Ever try to pick a fight with somebody who is thankful for everything, even the conflict?  Ever try to pick a fight with somebody who is totally submissive?  Very difficult.  Where that exists, there's hope and it's a spiritual issue.  Conflict goes where the Holy Spirit dominates.

 

     Now as we look at the text before us, we've already kind of talked about this foundation.  And Paul in verse 22 is going to launch into the specific conduct of a wife, a husband, children and parents.  And we're going to look at that in detail in the next few weeks. 

 

     But before we do that, it wouldn't be fair and it wouldn't do justice to the apostle Paul if we didn't at least for a few moments consider the kind of world that he was writing to because certainly the argument comes up...Well, you know, this stuff is ancient history, this stuff is way back, it really doesn't comprehend the kind of world that we lived in, that we live in, they lived in a different time with different perspectives.  And I think you need to understand what was going on, so I want to give you a little bit of history on it.  I know that I may indulge myself on this from time to time, I happen to love history.  When I went to college I decided that I couldn't...I couldn't make up my mind about what I wanted to minor in, I wanted to major in religious studies and so forth, and I did that.  But I couldn't decide what I wanted to minor in, so I doubled minored in history and Greek.  And I've always had a fascination for history, and I think through the years if I'm ever very interesting to listen to, it's probably because I have gone back into history and reconstructed some of the backgrounds that make the Bible live.  And that's very, very important so that the Bible speaks for itself.  And it was written in a time and in a context which demands our comprehension.  So let's set a little of the scene to which the apostle Paul was writing, and you'll see some amazing parallels.

 

     Let's talk about the Jews, first of all.  Obviously there were Jews in the church in Ephesus and this was a circular letter and got around to all the churches, and eventually not only all the churches in Asia Minor, but all the churches everywhere and still getting around to all the churches everywhere.  But there were many Jews in the early church and they too needed to understand the biblical view of marriage.

 

     The Jews themselves had a low view of women.  It did not come from the Bible, but then a lot of their religion by the time of Paul and Jesus did not come from the Bible.  They had developed their own apostate religion.  And part of it was a very low view of women.  In fact, there are Jewish prayers used by Jewish men every morning of their lives.  And in one of these prayers there was one line that illustrates their attitude.  This is what it was, "God, I thank You that You have not made me a Gentile, a slave or a woman."

 

     Now they perceived a woman as lower on the human level than a man.  A woman was an object, not a person.  A woman had no legal rights.  She was in the absolute power of her husband to do with her whatever he wanted whenever he wanted.  In New Testament times then, among the Jews, divorce had become tragically easy ad tragically common.  And they supported it with a passage from the Old Testament, you know, wanting to be fastidious about their devotion to the Mosaic Law, they quoted from Deuteronomy chapter 24 and verse 1, "When a man takes a wife and marries her and it happens that...and I'll give you what the old translation is...she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her...NAS translates it indecency...some uncleanness and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out from his house..."  Stop right there.  Now you'll notice that that's really an appotisis(?), or merely an introductory statement to something else, but they took it as if it was a command, basically, or certainly an allowance.  And they simply said if you find...if your wife loses favor in your eyes because you find some uncleanness in her, then you can write her a divorce and send her out of the house.

 

     There's a lot more to that passage than that.  It was not intended to permit that, it was intended to forbid the fact that if that happens and she remarries, she can never come back and marry you.  That was really the issue. But they didn't get that far, they just said...There it is, if you find some indecency, some uncleanness, ship her out, give her a bill of divorce.

 

     Now the question became...what is the uncleanness, what is the indecency?  Strict rabbis, most familiarly represented by a rabbi named Shimmei(?), strict rabbis said it refers to adultery, and that's all it refers to.  If she commits adultery, you can divorce her.  But liberal rabbis said it refers to absolutely anything and that its vagueness is intended by God to allow you to fill in the blank.  This is represented by a famous rabbi named Hillel.  So throughout sort of rabbinic history, even till today, Jews argue over the view of Shimmei and Hillel.

 

     Hillel said that a man could divorce his wife if she spoiled his dinner.  It meant that she could divorce...he could divorce his wife, get this, if she spilled his dinner because, of course, a spilled dinner is a spoiled dinner.  He could divorce her if she put too much salt on it.  He could divorce her if she walked in public with her head uncovered.  He could divorce her if she talked with men in the streets.  I like this one, he could divorce her if she spoke disparagingly of her mother-in-law.  And this is really good, he could divorce her if she ever argued with him.

 

     Rabbi Achaba(?) even went further.  He interpreted the phrase to mean that a husband could divorce his wife if she became unclean in his eyes because he found somebody prettier.

 

     Now take a guess which was the most popular view among men.  Shimmai had very few followers.  Hillel had many.  So divorce became rampant in the time of Jesus.  Women were discarded all over the place.  And they were victims of such discarding, left with nothing.  All a man had to do at the time of Jesus, at the time of Paul, was simply to hand her a bill of divorce.  And all it took to get one of those was to have a rabbi write it in the presence of two witnesses and it was done, that was it.  You go to the rabbi, he writes it, there might be a little cash involved, two witnesses were there, it's done.  The only alimony or support that was required was the return of the dowry and it was a done deal.

 

     The Jews were fastidious, by the way, about following the technical side, making sure you get to a rabbi and get the documentation, but their hearts were full of cruelty and wickedness.

 

     In Matthew 5:31 Jesus refers to this common custom.  "It was said, `Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of dismissal.'"  That's the way you operate, you want to divorce your wife, just make sure you do the paperwork.  That's all.  Just do the paperwork.  And I think, just in fairness, to Jewish history, in different eras of Jewish history there were different views.  But at the time of Jesus, this was the prevailing view.  So divorce was the solution to any conflict, short term or long term.

 

     And consequently the whole institution of marriage was threatened.  And by the way, prostitution was rampant in Jesus time even among the Jews.

 

     Now let's look at the Greeks.  The Greeks had a very similar approach to this.  They didn't have to worry about any Old Testament technicalities.  They didn't have to worry about finding a verse to misinterpret, to justify what they did.  They just lived in blatant disregard for any marital fidelity.  Prostitution was an absolutely essential part of Greek life.  Their religions were just loaded with prostitutes and it was believed, as we saw last time, not only did you commune with the gods by drunkenness, but you communed with the gods by having sexual relationships with a priestess-slash-prostitute.  Demosthenes, not less than that famous orator, said, "We have courtesans for the sake of pleasure, we have concubines for the sake of daily cohabitation, and we have wives for the purpose of having children legitimately and having a faithful caretaker for our household affairs."  You have the babies and you pay the bills, and that was it.

 

     The Greek man found his pleasure and even his friendship outside his marriage.  His wife was a housekeeper and a baby maker.  His pleasure, outside his marriage sexually.  His friends, outside his marriage.  Home and family life were almost extinct and fidelity was non-existent.  There was no legal procedure for divorce.  You just put them out.

 

     So when Paul lays down the principles that he's laying down here, he is really running head on into the culture.  This is why Paul writing to the early churches emphasizes the sin of fornication so strongly.  As you read the Pauline letters, the sin of fornication comes up again and again.  He talks about porneia or the verb form porneuo, to engage in sexual sin.  References to prostitution, harlotry, sexual perversions of all kind because the world was dominated by those things, the Gentile world.  It's not hard to remember that when you read his epistles how common that kind of stuff was.  It's just a part of life.  The word porneuo or porneia, the root means to prostitute.  Porne is a woman for sale.  Pornos is a man who lies with a prostitute or a male prostitute, a gigolo, or a homosexual.  It was just everywhere and porneia is a common word in Pauline vocabulary.

 

     According to citizenship law of 451 B.C., for example, how we're going four and a half centuries before Christ, inhabitants of Athens, for example didn't have any citizenship rights if their parents were not both Athenians.  For many this meant material disadvantages so that non-Athenian women had no hope of getting married.  If you weren't an Athenian woman, you didn't get married because you couldn't produce children who would be citizens and no man wanted to have children who couldn't be citizens of Athens so non-Athenian women became prostitutes.  In fact, they were a professional class called Heteri which in Greek means "of a different kind."

 

     So the ancient world, for example in Athens was just loaded with prostitutes.  Married women were uneducated.  They were regarded as eukoraima(??), chattel, used for keeping the house and having children.  Slavery which was rampant in that Greek world allowed men to take slave girls basically for no other purposes than sexual fulfillment, mistresses.  Wide-spread prostitution, harlotry, sexual sin of all kinds was all over the place in Greek culture.   They encouraged the Athenian women to fulfill their sexual needs with slaves and indulge in lesbian love.  By the way, also spreading all over the ancient Greek world, long before Paul and still there during Paul's time, was pedophilia, men having sex with young children.  Prostitution existed in the form of worship in the fertility cults.  That was Athens.

 

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