In the Family (Wives)

Austin Rammell

Sunday, May 17, 2026

God's People: How We Act

Family Love Obedience Wife

Today, we are in week one of a four-part section in our study of Ephesians. It addresses how we are to act as God’s people in the most foundational institution of society—the family. Specifically, this week’s passage addresses wives; next week’s addresses husbands; then children; then parenting.

To those who currently have none of those titles and possibly have no plans ever to be any of those things: this is still an extremely relevant subject for you to learn about from the Bible. It’s incredibly healthy and spiritually formative to understand how God wants His people to act and function within the family, because it has MASSIVE societal implications and contains HUGE Gospel foundations, motivation, and purpose that apply to everybody, no matter where they are in life, including the church itself.

Now, before I go any further, it needs to be clearly stated that I believe in and preach Biblical marriage and Biblical family, meaning I show no concern or allegiance to the world’s versions of what God created and rules. As the world always does, it offers all kinds of alternatives to the God-created relationships and institutions that He is in charge of and then rules them as it rules everything else—in total separation of God, His life, His holiness, His love, and His blessing. I have no opinion, involvement, or allegiance to any of those relationships or institutions, nor can I offer any authoritative advice on how to make them successful by the world’s standards. My job as a pastor is to teach and correctly apply God’s Word, and to lead and equip the local church and its people to do the same.

Interestingly, when Paul wrote this letter to the church in Ephesus, he could not have written anything that more clearly contrasted with the culture he was writing to than the truth about God’s design for the family. Sadly, “family life” in the United States is increasingly resembling the chaotic disaster the people in the church in Ephesus had grown up in. I’ll comment about this more next week, but in short, the state of marriage and family in the first-century Roman Empire was a complete disaster, including what was taking place in Jewish culture. To no surprise, then, as Western society moves further and further away from Biblical morality and God’s design for the family, it also moves further and further away from the way God created society to experience prosperous, abundant living.

So, with that, let’s start things off by reading the entire section on the family so you can see the overall context and how everything fits together. None of these instructions is independent of the others; rather, they are contained within an organizational design created by God that only works properly if each part functions as it should. Paul has already spoken to us from the same perspective in chapter four, when he illustrated the church as a physical body that depends on each part being and doing what it was created to be and do for the overall body to be healthy. With that in mind, let’s read Ephesians 5:22-6:4.

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. 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. 1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 "Honor your father and mother" (this is the first commandment with a promise), 3 "that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land." 4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. (5:22-6:4)

It can’t be missed that Paul’s teaching on the family is that the family is a body. It is a living, breathing organism that requires each part to be healthy and fulfill its role in a healthy way, for the body to exist as it was created to exist. In so doing, that means the overall health of the body, and thus the overall health of the family, is necessarily codependent on the collective health and function of each part. Now, by codependent, that doesn’t mean the foot can’t do its job if the eye can’t see; it just means the context of the foot doing its job is impacted when the eye can’t see.

For instance, if the eyes can’t see, the foot might step on something not meant to be stepped on, and, as such, be unable to provide the secure foundation the body needs, resulting in the entire body rapidly impacting the ground! So, the foot, doing its job as a foot, is not dependent on the eye. Still, the foot's ability to do its job well, and thus for the body to have an overall healthy experience, is necessarily dependent on the eyes!

My point is, as we look at each of these four areas of the family (wife, husband, children, and parenting) we need to remember that these positions don’t exist in a vacuum, but rather are completely connected to the others, so strongly that the experience of each is unavoidably impacted by the other. For a family to experience what God designed it to experience, every person in the family has to be on board with what God designed it to do and how God designed it to be done.

Furthermore, for those who are new to the Bible, you need to know that Paul’s letters didn’t invent marriage. Jesus Himself stated,

4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Matthew 19:4-6)

Jesus made it stupid clear that marriage is an institution created and ruled by God. Jesus also made it clear that marriage is the core organizational structure of a distinct, autonomous family. It begins when a man leaves the organizational structure he was born into and commits to creating a new autonomous organization by becoming the husband of a woman who commits to being his wife. Together, they form a brand-new independent organization. That is not to say that this new organization doesn’t exist in community with other organizations, especially those it was derived from, but that it does so as a new and autonomous unit that is no longer subject to the authority of the one it came from.

Finally, it is massively important for us to remember that neither “wife,” “husband,” “child,” nor “parent” is a person’s identity. If you are a redeemed child of God, then that’s your identity. If you gave your life to Jesus Christ, when you look in the mirror, you are looking at a fully favored, eternally adopted child of God that is so loved by God that the eternal Son of God suffered the entire wrath of God on your sin so that you could be set free from its curse and justly abide in Him and with all who are in Him forever! To see ourselves through the lens of our job, role, marital status, parental status, financial status, employment status, societal status, no matter how important or successful that status may be viewed in this world, is to see ourselves with a costume that covers who we really are; a costume that no matter how awesome it may be, will always make us look like somebody less than who we are!

I am a child of God, striving to honor God and my family by being the best husband and father I can be; a child of God trying to honor God and the church by being the best pastor I can be; a child of God trying to honor God and my community by being the best neighbor I can be; but in every role and responsibility I am not that role or responsibility I am a child of God whom He has called and equipped to be His light and life in the roles He’s created me to fill. As such, I can never properly fulfill those roles or experience the life God intended for me to experience in those roles if I see the role as my identity.

So, with that as our foundation and context, let’s get started with what has sadly become the most controversial, misunderstood, and misapplied part of the Biblical structure of marriage and family—the role of the wife in the organization of the family. It is without question that the Bible establishes the husband as the head of the marriage and family, and as such, the wife is supposed to submit to her husband in that way. Ephesians 5:22-24 presents a wife’s submission to her husband as a matter of fact, meaning it doesn’t attempt to rationalize it, but rather gives us three very clear principles on how it is supposed to be viewed and successfully accomplished.

Ephesians 5:22-24 contains three key principles concerning a wife’s role in a Biblical marriage.

The first key principle concerning a wife’s role in a Biblical marriage is that
A wife’s role in marriage is performed in obedience to CHRIST! (5:22)
22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.

“… there is no verb at all in verse 22, because the call for submission in verse 21 is intended to be carried over into it. So verse 21 is in fact a transition verse, forming a bridge between two sections, which is why the neb puts it in a paragraph by itself.”¹

“Even the biblical word ‘submission’ is often expounded as if it were a synonym for ‘subjection’, ‘subordination’ and even ‘subjugation’. All these words have emotive associations. ‘Submission’ is no exception. We have to try to disinfect it of these and to penetrate into its essential biblical meaning. This we shall discover neither from its modern associations nor even from its etymology but primarily from the way it is used in its context in Ephesians 5.”²

“One should compare Col. 3:18, “in the Lord.” It is not that the husband is the ultimate authority, but that wives are to respect their husbands because of their own relationship to Christ. Jesus sets the pattern for both submission to authority (i.e. always the Father’s will) and the exercise of authority (i.e. over the church, cf. v. 25).”³

“The ὡς, as, does not express similarity, as though the obedience of the wife to her husband was to be as devout and as unconditional as that which she is bound to render to the Lord. But her obedience to her husband is to be regarded as part of her obedience to the Lord.”⁴

“He begins with wives, whom he enjoins to be subject to their husbands, in the same manner as to Christ,—as to the Lord. Not that the authority is equal, but wives cannot obey Christ without yielding obedience to their husbands.”⁵

First, it’s important to remember that we are not talking about women submitting to men. Paul is very clearly addressing an organizational role within the institution of a Biblical marriage.

Note: As I previously demonstrated in Christ’s teaching on the subject, Biblically, only a biological woman can be a wife, and only a biological man can be a husband. Therefore, to those who want to use the Bible in the modern-day debates over gender, please understand that Biblically, gender is without exception or consideration, always linked to biology, and thus only a biological male can be a husband and a dad, and only a biological female can be a wife and a mom.

Second, and to the point of this verse, when two people commit to live in Biblical marriage, they are committing to the rules and roles of the covenant prescribed by God for the covenant they are entering into, not just with one another, but more prominently with God! We are entering into something He made and is in charge of, not something we made or are in charge of. Therefore, if a woman makes a vow with a man to enter the Biblical covenant of marriage with him, she is committing to the role God assigns to women in that covenant—a wife and potentially a mom. For a man committing to a Biblical marriage with a woman, he is committing to the role of husband to her and potentially to being a dad.

Therefore, a woman is to live out her role in marriage because of her submission to Christ, just as the husband is to live out his role in marriage because of his submission to Christ. Both a husband and a wife do what they are supposed to do because both are supposed to be at all times living in submission to the only one who is KYRIOS (LORD, RULER, MASTER, COMMANDER, SUPREME LEADER … GOD!)!!!

Therefore, a woman’s commitment to live in submission to her husband as the leader of their marriage and family isn’t dependent on how well her husband does his job, nor is a husband’s love and leadership of his wife dependent on how well she lives in submission to him as his wife, but rather out of total obedience to Christ because He is GOD and we made a vow to Him to do it—Period!! Doing what we committed to do in marriage is not a response to the person we are married to but a response to the one we are bowed down to—Jesus! It is a response, not to the performance of our spouse, but to the love and authority of our Savior; a response to the worthiness of JESUS to be radically and joyfully obeyed! As believers, we can never forget that.

When we surrendered our lives to Jesus, we surrendered all of it or none of it. We can’t come to Christ or abide with Him on our terms; we can only come to Him and abide with Him on His terms, and His terms are all or nothing!

23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. (Luke 9:23)

2. 33 So therefore, anyone of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:33)

So, to the woman who wants a Biblical marriage, you need to know you have to be committed to do what GOD says to do in the relationship that HE created and rules, or you can’t have the marriage God intends for you to have.

The second key principle concerning a wife’s role in a Biblical marriage is that …
A wife should expect her husband to lead, view, and treat her as Christ does the church. (5:23)
23 For the husband is the head of the wife even asChrist is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.

“There is an analogy between the headship of Christ over the church and the headship of the husband over the wife. All kinds of exegetical gymnastics have been attempted in order to try to vitiate this passage, but here it is: headship involves authority. This authority is not given to exercise tyranny, but leadership. The husband is responsible for the leadership of the home. He is accountable to God for how the home is managed, and how the affairs of the home are conducted.”⁶

“Because Christ is the head of the church, he is its Saviour; therefore as the husband is the head of the wife, he should not only rule, but protect and bless.”⁷

“In order to understand the nature of the husband’s headship in the new society which God has inaugurated, we need to look at Jesus Christ. For Jesus Christ is the context in which Paul uses and develops the words ‘headship’ and ‘submission’. Although he grounds the fact of the husband’s headship in creation, he defines it in relation to the headship of Christ the redeemer: for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Saviour (verse 23).”⁸

“This headship, moreover, implies more than rulership, as is clear from the words which follow, namely, as also Christ is head of the church, he himself (being) the Savior of the body. … The comparison with Christ as head of the church (cf. 1:22; 4:15; Col. 1:18) reveals in what sense the husband is the wife’s head. He is her head as being vitally interested in her welfare. He is her His pattern is Christ who, as head of the church, is its Savior! What Paul is saying, therefore, amounts to this: the wife should voluntarily submit herself to her husband whom God has appointed as her head. She should recognize that, in his capacity as her head, her husband is so closely united to her and so deeply concerned about her welfare that his relation to her is patterned after the sacrificial interest of Christ in his church, which he purchased with his own blood! One is reminded of those many Old Testament passages in which Jehovah’s love for his people is vividly portrayed. There is, for example, the story of Hosea’s unfailing tenderness toward his wife Gomer. Though the latter was not true to him, went after other “lovers,” and conceived “children of whoredom,” nevertheless Hosea, instead of rejecting her, slips away to the haunt of shame, buys her back for fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a half of barley, and mercifully restores her to her former position of honor (Hos. 1–3; 11:8; 14:4). For similar passages describing the Husband’s (Jehovah’s) marvelous reclaiming love see Isa. 54:1–8; 62:3–5; Jer. 3:6–18; 31:31–34.”⁹

So again, this is yet another verse that makes it abundantly clear that, in a Biblical marriage, God designates the husband as the one in charge of the relationship and his wife. The word “head” takes us both to the role of Adam over creation and, more importantly, the better Adam, Jesus! Adam’s headship led to all of humanity living under the curse of sin. It’s a negative example, but nonetheless, it demonstrates that when God assigns headship, He means headship! To be the head of something is to, in every way, be in charge of it AND responsible for it. Adam miserably failed in his responsibility, so praise the Lord, God’s plan didn’t end with Adam’s headship, but with Christ’s!

Furthermore, praise God, the example of how a man leads his home is not Adam but Jesus! Therefore, it is indeed the example of Christ’s leadership of the church that a woman should look for a husband to supply to the marriage. The Bible states,

17 For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. 18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. (Romans 5:17-19)

18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. 21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him (Colossians 1:18-22)

We are going to flesh this out WAY more next week, when we move into the part of this passage that discusses the role of a husband. Paul is going to come right back to this point and drill down on it big time. Therefore, for now we just need to make sure we don’t miss that “A” in a Biblical marriage a wife is under the authority of her husband as the head of the marriage, and also “B” the wife is supposed to expect her husband to use his position of authority to lead her in the way Christ leads the church, which in the end saves, redeems and even glorifies the church by completely rescuing it from the curse of sin, and sanctifying all who are in the church to be God’s fully favored adopted children forever!

Ok, so I’ve just loaded up the women’s guns to preach a hellfire and brimstone sermon to their husbands about how he needs to get his act straight! But, women, as tempting as it may be for you, this passage can not be a license for you to try to nag or drag your husband into leading you the way Christ leads the church. You should want it for sure! You should encourage it, nurture it, and applaud it, but if you think the way to get your husband to act like Jesus is for you to refuse to do what God has called you to do in the marriage until husband does what he’s supposed to in the marriage, then you are fundamentally saying God’s not worth trusting and obeying unless things go the way I want them! You can’t teach your husband that God is always worthy of our trust and obedience while justifying your refusal to trust and obey God and live in submission to your husband. It’s exactly why Peter wrote,

1 Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, 2 when they see your respectful and pure conduct. 3 Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear—4 but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. 5 For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, 6 as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening. (1 Peter 3:1-6)

Peter isn’t telling women not to wear jewelry or do their hair in ways considered to beautiful; he’s saying the way to win over your husband to the Lord is not with your outward beauty but your inward beauty! The things that will point your husband to Jesus are the fruits of a life filled with the Spirit!

Now, women, you can’t expect a man to BE JESUS ... He ain’t! Your husband can never be Jesus for you. Only Jesus can be Jesus. But you should expect to be married to somebody who is walking in step with the Spirit and, as such, is being filled with the Spirit and therefore leads you and your marriage from that standpoint. You should have an expectation for marriage that looks for a husband to bear the fruit of God’s life into your life and marriage, not as Jesus, but because he is filled with Jesus! Therefore, when that happens, stand up and praise God. When that happens, don’t fight against what God is doing in and through your husband, applaud it!

Furthermore, when you see your husband wrestling with sin in his life, don’t throw stones at him for being a man in need of a savior; be his biggest cheerleader in the same way you want him to be that for you! If you want him to bear the fruit of Christ in your marriage, applaud the efforts to live in glad submission to the Lord. If you want him to be like Jesus, then be like Jesus!

Therefore, it is of significant pastoral importance that I stop right here for a second and speak to those who are single! This verse is a huge shot across the bow to Christian men and women who continue to date people who have no testimony of a heart that desires to live in glad submission to the Lord! A man can’t lead and love his wife and family as Jesus leads and loves His church if he has no idea how Christ leads and loves His church, and especially if he isn’t committed to trusting in and following Christ to find out. Men, you cannot expect a woman to have enough faith in Jesus to submit to your inevitably flawed leadership of your marriage if she isn’t already living a life that’s truly submitted to Christ as a single woman. Nobody should marry somebody they aren’t physically attracted to and that they don’t want to be close friends with, but they also shouldn’t marry somebody who isn’t striving to live a life in joyful, glad submission to Jesus! God designed marriage for two people who are rightly positioned in Him, so much so that the potential of a marriage will never exceed the level to which both people in the marriage are surrendered to Christ!

The third key principle concerning a wife’s role in a Biblical marriage is that …
A wife should submit to her husband in the same way a local church should submit to pastoral (5:24)

Now, some of you just got caught off guard by that principle! The New Testament calls pastors the overseers of the local church and makes it very clear that they are its leaders. And, just like a wife is supposed to submit to her husband’s leadership, a local church is called to do the same thing with its pastors. For instance,

17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. (Hebrews 13:17)

So, for a local church to be properly submitted to Christ, it must also be properly submitted to the pastors/elders who oversee it. A local church is to be completely submitted to the leadership of the pastors (plural) as long as the pastors are qualified to do so and that where they are leading is to obedience to sound doctrine and in so doing, leading the church to know, follow, and glorify JESUS, which necessarily MUST include being a totally sold-out movement of Christ to turn the world right-side-up with the Gospel!

Pastors are not called to lead the church to the places the church votes to go, nor the way the church votes to get there, but under the authority of God’s Word, the pastors are to lead a local church in the way the Holy Spirit leads them to do it, and the church is supposed to follow them. The church may not prefer their vision or methods, they may think there dumb, or even foolish, but it’s the pastors' (plural) job to lead the church in the movement of Christ, and it’s the church's job to follow them. This is exactly how the Bible instructs a wife to follow her husband. Paul writes,

24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

“Paul summarizes the contents of verses 22 and 23 as follows: Then, just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives (should be subject) to their husbands in everything. The submission of the church to Christ is voluntary, wholehearted, sincere, and enthusiastic. It is a submission prompted not only by a conviction, “This is right and proper because God demands it,” but also by love in return for Christ’s love (1 John 4:19). Let the same be true with respect to the submission of wives to their husbands. Moreover, that obedience must not be partial, so that the wife obeys her husband when the latter’s wishes happen to coincide with her own, but complete: “in everything.” This little phrase must, however, not be interpreted as if it meant “absolutely everything.” If the husband should demand her to do things contrary to the moral and spiritual principles established by God himself, submission would be wrong (Acts 5:29; cf. 4:19, 20). With this exception, however, her obedience should be complete.”¹⁰

“‘but as the church is subject’ The form of this verb is either PRESENT PASSIVE or PRESENT MIDDLE INDICATIVE. As the wife submits to her husband for (1) her own best interest (MIDDLE VOICE), or (2) because she is enabled by God’s Spirit (PASSIVE VOICE), so too, the church must submit to Christ. ‘in everything’ Christ, not husbands, must be the ultimate authority (cf. Matt. 10:34–39). This verse does not chain a believing wife to an abusive husband, nor does it condone evil actions or deeds demanded by an authoritarian husband.”¹¹

“As verse 22 teaches the nature of the subjection of the wife to her husband, and verse 23 its ground, this verse teaches its extent. She is to be subject ἐν παντί, in every thing. That is, the subjection is not limited to any one sphere or department of the social life, but extends to all. The wife is not subject as to some things, and independent as to others, but she is subject as to all. This, of course, does not mean that the authority of the husband is unlimited. It teaches its extent, not its degree. It extends over all departments, but is limited in all; first, by the nature of the relation; and secondly, by the higher authority of God. No superior, whether master, parent, husband, or magistrate, can make it obligatory on us either to do what God forbids or not to do what God commands. So long as our allegiance to God is preserved, and obedience to man is made part of our obedience to him, we retain our liberty and our integrity.”¹²

Now, to wrap this up, the text itself is a three-verse challenge to married women to submit to their husbands’ leadership. But, in so doing, it brings all of us into the subject of the Biblical doctrine of submission. The Bible tells us all to submit to governmental authorities (Romans 13:1), to local church authority (Hebrews 13:17), to workplace authority (Ephesians 6:5-8, Colossians 3:22), and the list goes on and on. The bottom line is, as believers, we are called to live in submission to the authority God places us under; that is, we can’t say we are living in proper submission to Christ if we refuse to live in proper submission to the authority Christ has placed us under in this life!

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Challenge:

The way you trust and submit to authority is the testimony of how you trust and submit to Christ.
What is your relationship to the authority God has placed in your life, saying about the condition of your faith in Christ?

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DISCUSSION GUIDE

God’s People Part 2: How We Act
In The Family (Wives)
Ephesians 5:22-24

Have you ever come across an item, where a seemingly inconsequential part was
missing, and it ruined the use of the item?
Ephesians 5:22-24 contains three key principles concerning the role of a wife in a Biblical marriage:

A wife’s role in marriage is performed in obedience to Christ! (5:22)
Discuss the differences between your role and your identity
How have you found that roles and identity help or hurt the other?
How did you (couples) handle ‘leaving father and mother’ and becoming your own family unit?
Can anyone share a struggle in committing to the Biblical role of “wife”?
A wife should expect her husband to lead, view, and treat her as Christ does the church. (5:23)
What has the process of accepting your husband as the “head” been like?
How have you helped your husband become the “head”?
How have you handled moments or seasons when he was domineering more than leading?
Has there been a time when you focused on what is expressed in 1 Peter 3:1-6.
A wife should submit to her husband in the same way a local church should submit to pastoral authority. (5:24)
How did you struggle in submitting ‘in everything’?
Has your identity in Christ altered your submission to your husband?

Challenge: The way you trust and submit to authority is the testimony of how you trust and submit to Christ. What is your relationship to the authority God has placed in your life, saying about the condition of your faith in Christ?

Other Scriptures Mentioned: Matthew 19:4-6, Luke 19:23; 4:33, Romans 5:17-19, Colossians 1:18-22, Hebrews 13:17, 1 Peter 3:1-6
Discuss the Objective of the Month