OK, I've been out of this discussion for a few days because I needed to do some backstopping to what I had said earlier. There are a few of you on here who are not going to like what I'm going to say, because it doesn't fit with what you believe you know about the Ephesians 5 passages. Let me say, I'm a strongly conservative Christian, happen to be Southern Baptist but there are other denominations I could be comfortable in as a member, and this reflects current SBC faith and message. It is also what my Greek studies taught me years ago, and what I've refreshed in my mind the last couple days.
The section 5:21–6:9 addresses what are called "household codes." In Paul's day, many Romans were troubled by the spread of “religions from the East” (e.g., Isis worship, Judaism and Christianity), which they thought would undermine traditional Roman family values. Members of these minority religions often tried to show their support for those values by using a standard form of exhortations developed by philosophers from Aristotle on. These exhortations about how the head of a household should deal with members of his family usually break down into discussions of husband-wife, father-child and master-slave relationships. Paul borrows this form of discussion straight from standard Greco-Roman moral writing. But unlike most ancient writers, Paul undermines the basic premise of these codes: He speaks against absolute authority of the male head of the house.
Commentators note that the verb "submit" is not actually in the text. If you look at a good interlinear Bible which shows direct English translation, verbatim and in Greek sentence structure, you will see the word hupotasso is not in v. 22, the word translated "submit" or "be subject to" in v. 21. That contradicts what I said the other day, but I retract that statement here. The Greek sentence structure does not repeat the word. It has to be supplied from the preceding verse (v. 21) enjoining all Christians to "submit" to other another -- a radical break from the standard patriarchal marriages and household codes of the day. And this basically enjoins the "submitting" of all Christians one to another (as I'd said a couple days ago: husbands, wives, children, masters, servants, etc.). The further implication is that whatever "submission" a wife is called to, her husband (as a Christian) is called to the same thing.
The final expression of being filled with the Spirit is "submitting to one another" because Christ is one's Lord. All the household codes Paul proposes are based on this idea. But although it was customary to call on wives, children and slaves to submit in various ways, to call all members of a group (including the male head of the household) to submit to one another was unprecedented. The participle of Ephesians 5:21 is the last of a series of four, and clearly belongs to what precedes it. This verse also supplies the verb “to submit” for this hard saying, without which Ephesians 5:22 would be grammatically incomplete and without meaning.
The verse in Greek reads literally: "Wives, to your husbands as to the Lord." The verb to "submit" is absent and can only be read into the sentence because of the intimate connection between the two verses. Ephesians 5:21 is therefore transitional, both belonging to what precedes and setting the agenda for what follows. Thus the kind of radical self-submission to one another which evidences the fullness of the Spirit is now explored in terms of its implications for husbands and wives. That is, what does this self-submission, modeled in Jesus, look like in marriage?
First, Paul begins this three-part structure in a very unusual way. As the climax of his exhortations describing a Spirit-filled life (Eph 5:18–21), Paul calls on all believers to submit to one another(again, in Ephesians 5:21). It is true that the following context delineates different ways to submit according to differing societal roles. We have to admit, the very idea of "mutual submission" strained the common sense of the term "submission." Householders were sometimes called to be sensitive to their wives, children and slaves, but they were never told to submit to them. That Paul envisions the same sort of mutual submission to cover the slave and master relationship is clear from his exhortation in Ephesians 6:9. After explaining how and why slaves should submit (Ephesians 6:5–8), he calls on masters to "do the same things to them," an idea which again, if pressed literally, goes beyond virtually all other extant writers from antiquity.
Paul has clearly shown throughout the epistle that Christians are a new social order created to express the fullness of Christ in the midst of the old, fallen order. What he is saying in Ephesians 5:21 is that the Spirit empowers Christians to exist in relationship with each other in a radical, culturally transforming way, namely, through mutual self-submission. The ground for this radically new approach to human relationships is "out of reverence for Christ." The reason for that reverence (or, perhaps better, awe) is the radical nature of Christ's earthly life, the total, free submission of Himself as God's suffering servant on the cross, climaxed in His self-giving on the cross (Ephesians 5:2, 25). It is reverence and awe toward that self-giving love that is to motivate our mutual self-submission to each other. It is Christ's servanthood and Christ's sacrifice that is to be displayed in each of us toward others, particularly our families. It is not His unquestioned authority to that is to be displayed, because quite frankly, we don't own that authority. It belongs to Christ alone.
The submission of the wife to the husband is to be “as to the Lord.” Her submission is to be freely chosen, being there for her partner “as to the Lord,” that is, as a disciple of the Lord, as one who followed in his servant footsteps, motivated by self-giving love. This kind of submission is not a reinforcement of the traditional norms. It is rather a fundamental challenge to them. The duties are listed as reciprocal duties. Whereas most household codes simply addressed the head of the household, instructing him how to govern other members of his household, Paul first addresses wives, children and slaves. Far from instructing the husband/father in how to govern his wife, children and slaves, Paul omits any injunction to govern and merely calls on him to love his wife, which was undoubtedly a common practice, but rarely one that was rarely prescribed, it being assumed -- and as we see even today, occasionally erroneously so. Paul exhorts the man to be restrained in disciplining his children and to regard slaves as equals before God. This is hardly the language of the common household code, although some ancient philosophers also exhorted moderation and fair treatment of subordinates. The wife, children and slaves are to regulate their own submission voluntarily.
Does that interpretation negate the husband/father's responsibility for the spiritual direction of the family, and the individual members' growth? Absolutely not! For if we are to be to our wives as the Lord is to the Church, then it is understood, without equivocation, that entails the responsibility for spiritual guidance and direction coming from him, as spiritual guidance and direction for the church comes from the Lord Jesus Christ. That is what this passage says in the context of the Greek language, the sociopoliticoeconomic dynamics of the day, and in the rest of the Bible. If this is not what it says, then it is not agreement with Christ's teachings. With that, blessing are prayed upon you, and I am, again, done here.
