FOR THIS CAUSE

2/28/88
FOR THIS CAUSE...
EPHESIANS 5: 22 - 31 & 21
(PAGE 1712 COME ALIVE BIBLE)
JESUS CHRIST loved His church and gave Himself for it. That
means He loved you and gave Himself for you. In doing so He made
possible your salvation. He loved us when we were His enemies.
He came to do for us what we can't do for ourselves. His highest
role is that of Savior. Until He is personally known in that
relationship, He can't be the Role Model in other areas He is
intended to be.
The Scripture uses His relationship with the church as an
illustration of what the husband and wife relationship should
be. Of Him it is said, "Christ love the church and gave Himself
for it" (Eph. 5: 25).
Thus, the loving regard with which a husband should relate to
his wife is defined.
Secondly, it is said the wife should respond to her husband as
the church does to Christ. This concept is as foreign to the
modern American concept of husband and wife relationships as
ever.
Many husbands can quote Ephesians 5: 22, "Wives, submit to your
own husbands, as to the Lord." That is the favorite text of
many brutish males. That concept alone always has been to males
not having a well rounded Bible view of relationships.
In the era in which that statement was authored there were three
primary cultures: Jewish, Greek, and Roman.
Every day pious Jewish males offered this arrogant prayer of
thanksgiving: "God I thank you that you did not make me a
Gentile, slave or woman."
In the Greek culture things were no better. Demosthenes wrote:
"We have courtesans for pleasure, concubines for daily
cohabitation, and wives t ...

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