Fifty Shades of Grey and Ephesians 5

 

Ephesians 5 is one of the most maligned passages in the whole Bible today because it tells wives that they should submit to their husbands. A lot of people would like to ignore what it says, and many others try to mitigate what it says or change it. But it is actually a vital passage for understanding the relationship between a husband and wife and how it is supposed to work.

If you want to have a healthy marriage you cannot get away from the need to look at this passage for several reasons: 

- This is the most significant passage explaining what marriage is in the whole Bible. 

- The rejection of this passage has actually led to many of the problems that both society and individuals experience in their marriages today. 

- The abuse of this passage in the Church is manifest all over the place, usually by bad men, and this should be addressed. 

- But also, I don’t think this passage is as radical to accept as people think. In fact, I am going to argue that it actually understands men and women very well, and those who adhere to it will be ahead of the curve. 

Wives - Let’s start by looking at what Paul says to wives,

“22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.”

Wow, you could almost say considering what our culture is like today that this passage is anti-Australian “Wives, submit to your husbands”? Woh!! But is this actually as un-Australian as it sounds? Let’s look at what it does not say:

-        It does not say, husbands make your wives submit.

-        It does not say, husbands force your wives to submit.

-        It does not say put your wives in a Burqa until she submits.

It says, “Wives, submit to your own husbands.” Paul is saying that wives should choose to bring themselves into the frame, the leadership of their husbands. Now, I know our culture struggles with this idea, but does it really?

I don’t think it always does, if you frame the issue of submission right. Let me ask this question: what is the largest selling Romance novel of all time? Fifty Shades of Grey, the first book itself sold over 100 Million copies. Together the series has sold over 150 million books. In the age of screens, no less. To put that in perspective, the beloved and very famous romance novel Pride and Prejudice has sold about 20 million copies.

This means Fifty Shades of Grey is a phenomenon. A story cannot resonate with so many people, and not reflect reality in some way. Putting aside the sex - which plenty of other books have anyway and so it can't stand out because of that - why did this story resonate with so many people? Especially women?

Well, what is this story about? It is about a woman finding a man whom she wants to submit to. And it is the biggest selling romance book ever. Breaking all kinds of records. It is about a woman finding a powerful man she wants to submit to, and over time he becomes the kind of man that will love her. That’s the story.

Now, I have not read the book or seen the movie, it is not my thing. But I have spoken with plenty of those who have and they have confirmed that my summation is right. And you know what, this is what the book had to be about, because for a book to sell so well, and be loved by so many, it has to be based on real human dynamics. It had to in some way reflect the kind of men women want, and it had to show such a man coming around to be the loving man that women want their man to be.

This shows us that Paul wasn’t wrong, he was not out of date, he was ahead of his time and ahead of the curve. Fifty Shades of Grey was a phenomenon because it understood women. It understood that a woman wants her man to be powerful, and for him to use that for her good.

And it is not just this book that does this. The stereotypical Romance novel is a picture of a woman being carried onto a boat by a pirate, or held by a fireman, or by some other strong man whom she has submitted to. On these covers the man exudes strength and the woman falls into his arms. This is a picture of strength and willing submission. This stuff sells, because it speaks to a biblical truth built into humanity, even if the stories are often immoral themselves. Women want to find a man whom they can respect and fall into the arms of. It is also why so many classic movies are classic movies, because they understand this dynamic. So, I don’t think Ephesians 5 is that radical at all, and it shows that Paul knew what he is talking about. Which of course he should because he was inspired by the Spirit of the Lord God who created us to write this passage.  

One of the sources of marriage conflict is this dynamic, a woman will constantly, especially in the early stages of a marriage, test her husband’s ability to lead her by challenging him (shit testing). This is her way of testing if he is that man she wants to come under the leadership of, or if he is still that man. This can go one of a few ways:

-        The man passes these tests and they die down over time, and the couple live in relative harmony.

-        The man seeks to be domineering to his wife to stop her, this can lead to being abusive.  

-        The man fails these tests because he just finds it easier to defer to his wife, she comes to dominate him and they both are less happy, even miserable. This is the most common response.

-        She finds another man who she wants to submit to.

One of the biggest mistakes men make is thinking that they are loving their wife by giving in to her, they are not, they are showing weakness, which diminishes her respect over time.

I think, therefore, that part of what Paul is saying to wives is this: reign in this natural tendency to want to challenge your husband. Love him by respecting him, just like the Church does with Jesus. How does the Church submit to Jesus? Willingly, by choice, it is not forced to do so.

This is vital to understand: forced submission is not Christianity, there is another religion that calls for that, but it is not Christianity. Christianity is a religion where Jesus’ bride chooses to be with him, chooses to obey, chooses to submit to him, and which he fills us with his spirit to help us in this process. Force completely undermines this and completely undermines our faith. Just like Christ wants people who want to follow him, wives need to reign in their desire to challenge, contradict, or override their husbands to test his authority. How the wife does this shows how much she respects her husband and shows an image of how the church follows Jesus.

Husbands – Let’s look at what Paul says to husbands now. I think that if you can make a case that women struggle the most with respecting their husband's leadership, men struggle the most with the temptation to take advantage of their wives by not loving them properly. What is incredible is that this behaviour is easily observed all over the place, but also that Paul decided to address it nearly two thousand years ago in a book many people consider irrelevant,

“25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”

One thing that we men are prone to do is to forget the importance of loving our wives. Not just in words, not just having told them we love them, not just by demonstrating it when we married them, but on a day-to-day basis reaffirming and reassuring that love. Just like men long for respect, women want to see visible signs that we love and cherish them.

This is why Paul tells the men here to love their loves. You might expect him to say we should love each other, and we should. But he is being very deliberate here to strike at the heart of the difference between men and women.

Women show their love for their husbands by deferring to them when necessary. Men show their love to their wives by cherishing them, “28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church,…”

We saw before how women are largely drawn to stories about a woman finding a man she can submit to or fall into the arms of. What kinds of stories do men love? Actions movies, often ones where the good guy beats the bad guys and gets the girl. Think Die Hard, think The Patriot, think every good Bond movie (not you Daniel Craig…), think classic old school action movies.

Men like moves where the guy either beats the bad guy to win the girl, to rescue the girl, or they were motivated to destroy the bad guy because he hurt the girl, or killed the girl, or because he wants to make the world safer for his girl. These are the simple stories that most men love, and we will watch a thousand different versions of that, and when Hollywood forgets that formula, we generally stop watching. Because it is hardwired into the man to risk himself for the girl.

This is exactly what Paul says Jesus did for his bride, the church,

“25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”

What has Jesus done for his bride? He has given himself on her behalf. He sacrificed himself to save her. In Jesus’ case he has rescued his bride from her sin, cleaned her so she can stand right before God, so that he can present her blameless on that final day before the Lord. This is why the story of the man rescuing the woman is so popular amongst us all, because it is baked into creation, it is baked into God’s design for the role the man plays for the woman.

The average man is not likely to need to rescue his wife from thieves pretending to be terrorists in Nakotomi tower when he goes to visit her at her Christmas party. But there are many other ways that a man is to act like a shield for his wife in this world. To protect her from her own sins, from his own bad decisions, and from many of the pressures of this world. 

Peter the Apostle reminds us that women are the weaker vessel, which means we men can hurt our wives if we ask too much of them. Which sadly many modern men do. How many men want their wives to work all day, and then all night after they have come home from work?

Some men have seen this dynamic in this passage in Ephesians and twisted it to use as an excuse to abuse their wives, but for the life of me I cannot see anywhere in this passage where that is encouraged, allowed or supported. As Paul says, “For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church.”

We can see that Paul was not only not out of date, he absolutely knew what he was talking about, and because of this his advice in this passage is genuinely timeless. If you can get this dynamic right in your marriage it will make a massive difference.