Dale Partridge - Ephesians 5_22-27 ~ An Introduction to Biblical Patriarchy

00:00:00.000 amen well it was valentine's day yesterday and also my 16th wedding anniversary by god's grace

00:00:13.780 um saint valentine's uh saint valentine he gave a really incredible quote that i found this

00:00:22.140 weekend i said love does not only consist at gazing at each other but in looking together

00:00:29.360 at Christ. Now, I want to talk about marriage today. I think marriage is a very important

00:00:35.120 topic that is obviously a point of contention for many families in this nation. Now, I want

00:00:41.120 you to imagine that you're trying to build a piece of furniture that's got hundreds of

00:00:45.620 parts, it's got bolts, it's got different tools, it's got screws and panels and brackets,

00:00:51.440 but the instructions are missing. Now, I think a lot of us have actually probably dealt with

00:00:56.380 a situation similar to this. The instructions are missing. And you have to, usually the dad

00:01:01.880 or the husband, figure it out. Figure out how to put this together. And what you do is you end up

00:01:07.740 forcing pieces together that weren't meant to connect. You end up tightening screws that

00:01:12.120 shouldn't be tightened yet. You have to undo things and redo them because you put them in

00:01:16.420 the incorrect order. And by the end of it, you're sweating, you're irritated, you're frustrated,

00:01:22.600 you're blaming one another if you've put it together with a particular person.

00:01:26.380 And the real problem is not any of that.

00:01:29.260 The real problem is that you're trying to build something

00:01:32.140 designed a particular way,

00:01:34.200 and you don't have the instructions.

00:01:37.620 And you don't have the instructions.

00:01:40.820 And this is exactly what marriage can feel like

00:01:44.400 for many families, for many couples.

00:01:47.300 They're trying to put something together with many parts,

00:01:50.820 with many different elements and functionalities

00:01:54.160 and complexities.

00:01:54.840 and they don't understand why it is not working.

00:02:00.080 And it's because they don't have the instructions.

00:02:04.720 Trying to build without instructions

00:02:06.800 or trying to play something without the rules

00:02:09.400 is a very difficult experience to endure.

00:02:13.620 Now, instructions and rules

00:02:15.460 are designed to help people to succeed, right?

00:02:19.060 The purpose of the instructions

00:02:20.420 and the purpose of, say, rules in a game

00:02:22.700 is to help you succeed, to help you win,

00:02:26.520 to help you accomplish what you set out to do.

00:02:30.120 And without them, you always end up

00:02:33.400 with some degree of frustration or chaos or resentment,

00:02:37.220 and it becomes a difficult experience.

00:02:41.500 Now, the state of your marriage affects many things.

00:02:45.300 It affects your joy, it affects your children,

00:02:48.380 it affects your work, it affects your money,

00:02:50.940 your legacy, many things. So if you want to have a good legacy and you want to have joy,

00:02:58.840 you cannot do so without also having a good marriage. And so marriage is absolutely essential.

00:03:06.560 Now, many couples step into marriage in the same way that you'd step into this project of putting

00:03:12.200 things together without instructions or the game without the rules. They love each other,

00:03:17.560 they mean well, right? That's very clear. People get together. And in fact, the love makes them

00:03:23.560 blind to a lot of the complexities that come with marriage. So very early on, they overlook each

00:03:29.760 other's sins because you know what? We love one another. But eventually, they need to know

00:03:36.940 how marriage is supposed to work. And if they don't, what they do is they make it up as they

00:03:43.640 go along. They make it up as they go along. And when you make up marriage, as you go, you don't

00:03:50.120 get peace. You eventually get divorce. That is the statistical reality of this narrative.

00:03:57.260 Because without rules, someone will always become the tyrant. Someone will always become the tyrant

00:04:04.400 and someone else will always feel oppressed. The person who wins is almost always the person who

00:04:12.660 is the most emotional, whoever is the most loud, whoever is the most intense, whoever is the most

00:04:19.640 stubborn, the most threatening, the most manipulative, that person typically wins in this

00:04:25.960 battle. And the other person learns either to explode back, to shut down, or to quietly resent

00:04:33.740 the other person. And that happens over and over again in families across this nation

00:04:42.240 every single day.

00:04:45.940 That is not glorious marriage.

00:04:49.480 That is relational survival.

00:04:54.940 And when marriages operate like this,

00:04:57.960 families feel it.

00:04:59.880 Families feel it.

00:05:01.320 The children feel it.

00:05:03.260 The entire household becomes tense

00:05:05.440 and it's difficult to enjoy everything.

00:05:09.040 But what if God invented marriage and also gave instructions for it?

00:05:17.160 This is the very important question.

00:05:19.320 What if God invented marriage and also gave instructions for how you can succeed, for

00:05:26.820 how you can win?

00:05:29.740 What if there are rules and boundaries and roles and wisdom not to restrict joy, but

00:05:35.860 to actually create it?

00:05:39.040 to have a marriage that is filled with joy to have a legacy that is filled with goodness and

00:05:45.360 righteousness we have to remember that again rules don't ruin good things rules protect good things

00:05:54.400 you know i think about guard rails on a mountain road the guard rails as you're driving down the

00:06:00.160 mountain road um they don't limit freedom they prevent destruction they prevent you from driving

00:06:06.960 off. And when you have the design of marriage that comes from the scriptures, it's not limiting

00:06:13.480 your freedom. It's preventing you from divorce. It's preventing you from anger and frustration

00:06:18.500 and sin and wrath. There is a way to do marriage and there is a way to do it according to God's

00:06:27.380 design. And that's what we're going to be talking about today. Ephesians 5, 22 through 33 is what

00:06:35.220 believe to be the bible's most clear passage on god's design for marriage and i'm not going to be

00:06:42.340 able to get through every single verse today um but i will offer an overview of christian marriage

00:06:49.380 of the doctrine of what we call biblical patriarchy and the concept of loving headship

00:06:55.780 and joyful submission how do we operate in a joyful experience of marriage

00:07:02.500 now as a preface i just want you to see how god relates in the scriptures here how god relates

00:07:11.120 marriage to the relationship between christ and his church okay that is the big overarching theme

00:07:18.200 of this particular text is that god relates marriage your marriage to the relationship of

00:07:25.260 christ and the church now we know that we can never perfectly match that relationship but we

00:07:32.020 are called to model it and we're called to model it in the world it's not about a perfect match

00:07:39.000 but a mimicking a modeling of this particular relationship between christ and the church

00:07:44.420 we are to model those things in the world and this shows us that god's instructions for marriage

00:07:49.240 they're not only for our personal benefit but they're actually a benefit for the public

00:07:54.440 They're a benefit for the public to see the order and harmony and beauty of how marriage is to work.

00:08:04.280 And that is when you see a husband and wife, when you see a family, when you walk into someone's home and it's orderly and harmonious and good and righteous and everybody's at peace and contentment is here and laughter is here.

00:08:19.040 When you see that, that husband and wife operating according to God's design,

00:08:23.520 you're seeing a living, breathing version of the gospel.

00:08:28.660 You're seeing that connection there.

00:08:31.180 A beautiful husband that is acting like Christ

00:08:34.960 and a beautiful wife that is walking like the church.

00:08:39.360 That should be something that is seen by your children in your marriage.

00:08:43.880 That is something that should be seen by your friends and family

00:08:46.600 when they come to your home.

00:08:47.820 They should see a little bit of the gospel in your own marriage.

00:08:56.640 This also helps us understand why marriage is so often attacked.

00:09:00.220 Why marriage is perverted and why marriage is distorted

00:09:03.520 and why the definition of marriage has been constantly under attack the last maybe 10 years.

00:09:09.340 Why is it changing? Why are people attacking it?

00:09:13.560 A perversion of marriage is a perversion of the gospel.

00:09:17.820 That's why when you can confuse the design of marriage,

00:09:22.400 you can confuse the physical image of a spiritual reality in the world.

00:09:32.040 This is why this passage of scripture is so important.

00:09:37.100 Ephesians 22 through 24.

00:09:40.140 I'm going to read it.

00:09:40.920 You can follow along if you'd like. 0.86

00:09:42.220 It says, wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the Lord is the head of the wife. 0.93

00:09:52.360 Sorry, 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. 0.97

00:10:01.860 Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. 0.90

00:10:10.400 Now, you might wonder why the apostle addresses the subordinate party first. 0.78

00:10:17.540 I've read this passage a hundred times over the last many years,

00:10:22.680 and I asked that question for the first time this time.

00:10:27.140 Why is the apostle addressing the subordinate party first?

00:10:33.580 Now, interestingly, this is Paul's pattern across the New Testament.

00:10:36.620 We see this not just here in Ephesians, but elsewhere.

00:10:41.300 But in Ephesians 6, he addresses the children before he addresses the parents.

00:10:46.200 In Colossians, we see the same pattern.

00:10:48.960 In 1 Peter, we see the same pattern.

00:10:50.980 Wives before husbands, servants before masters, children before parents, over and over again.

00:10:58.860 And you might wonder, again, what's the purpose of this?

00:11:02.140 Now, this was actually a sharp contrast to the Greco-Roman writings that were of this time,

00:11:09.260 the writings that would maybe follow Aristotle's style or the philosophers of that time.

00:11:16.440 And in a Greco-Roman world, the subordinate party wouldn't even be addressed.

00:11:24.140 Okay, when you go into what I would call a patriarchal society,

00:11:27.720 not a biblical patriarchal society, but a patriarchal society,

00:11:31.480 the writings of that era don't even address the subordinate parties.

00:11:37.040 That is, the wives, the children, the slaves were not even thought of.

00:11:45.160 They did not have any purpose to have a discussion with.

00:11:50.260 So in a real sense, when you have the apostles of the New Testament

00:11:53.880 addressing wives or children or servants or slaves.

00:11:58.400 What it is, it's a dignifying act.

00:12:01.240 It's a dignifying act.

00:12:04.360 Imagine, imagine being a slave or a child

00:12:07.060 and all of a sudden the apostle of Jesus Christ

00:12:10.900 is writing something to you,

00:12:13.880 is giving something to you.

00:12:19.560 It was some sense of a public affirmation

00:12:22.580 of their personhood and their value.

00:12:26.380 That you are, as an individual,

00:12:29.160 still accountable before the Lord.

00:12:33.560 It's very hard to even understand this sort of world

00:12:36.220 because we live in such an egalitarian framework

00:12:38.240 where everybody is exactly the same

00:12:40.100 and there is no class structure

00:12:41.640 and then there is no respect or hierarchy or honor.

00:12:44.160 But that is how the world operated.

00:12:48.140 And so for the apostles to address

00:12:50.140 the subordinate parties

00:12:52.180 is really a dignifying act.

00:12:58.880 But here Paul gives one command and one qualifier.

00:13:03.380 One command and one qualifier. 0.99

00:13:05.740 The command is for wives to submit to their own husbands. 1.00

00:13:09.760 To submit to their own husbands 0.99

00:13:11.520 and the qualifier offers the degree

00:13:14.460 in which that submission is to extend,

00:13:17.960 which says it is to be equivalent

00:13:20.860 to their submission to Christ,

00:13:24.060 that is a big command.

00:13:29.960 That is a big command.

00:13:32.240 Now in scripture, institutional authority, right?

00:13:36.600 The family, the church, the state,

00:13:40.180 these are institutions, right?

00:13:41.640 In scripture, institutional authority is male.

00:13:46.000 That's the general overwhelming consensus

00:13:48.900 of the scriptures is that it's male.

00:13:51.320 But that does not mean that every woman

00:13:53.420 must submit to every man.

00:13:55.380 That's not what this text is saying

00:13:56.960 and that's not what biblical patriarchy

00:13:58.520 is saying as well.

00:14:00.380 Yes, a woman in the congregation 1.00

00:14:01.620 should submit to the spiritual authority 0.96

00:14:03.800 of her male pastor.

00:14:05.240 We understand this.

00:14:06.400 We know this. 1.00

00:14:08.000 Yes, a woman should submit to the civil authority 1.00

00:14:10.280 of her male magistrate, her ruler, her governor, 0.97

00:14:14.400 her sheriff.

00:14:18.900 but she is not required to submit to men generally

00:14:22.800 as if all men have equal authority over all women.

00:14:28.160 That is not what we see in the scriptures.

00:14:31.480 Male authority is real,

00:14:32.600 but that authority is always limited to a particular office

00:14:35.360 with standards that stay accountable to the Lord.

00:14:40.140 And so the male authority of the family

00:14:42.400 is to be loving according to the Lord.

00:14:46.660 The male authority of the church is to be holy according to the Lord.

00:14:51.920 The male authority of the civil magistrate is to be just according to the Lord.

00:14:58.100 These are spheres of institutions and they are accountable to God.

00:15:03.540 God has a standard, loving, holy, just.

00:15:09.000 And within those frameworks, there is order and headship and submission and leadership and shepherding.

00:15:15.740 Now, the reason Paul connects the extent of a wife's submission to the church's submission to the Lord 0.67

00:15:23.480 is because in the next passage, he is going to command the husbands to behave like the Lord, to follow the Lord.

00:15:31.940 Now, this does not mean that a wife's submission is dependent upon her husband's ability to perfectly imitate Christ.

00:15:39.460 If you've been married for any longer than one minute, you know that your husband will not perfectly imitate Christ.

00:15:47.320 And that does not mean that you do not have to submit to your husband in all lawful things.

00:15:53.740 We also know as a husband that your wife is not going to be able to perfectly imitate the glorious nature of the church.

00:16:01.380 now what paul is talking about here is submission is the normal posture of a christian wife to a

00:16:09.820 christian husband it is a normal posture it is the normative posture it is the expected posture

00:16:15.700 it is a good thing i often remind couples that christian women do not need to feel oppressed

00:16:24.340 in submission because god designed it that way it's a good thing and christian men don't need

00:16:32.960 to feel like they're oppressors because god designed it that way now you can have tyrannical

00:16:41.840 leadership and you can have insubordination both of those are sinful but the ordinary christian

00:16:48.300 marriage is good and the order and the hierarchy of command is also good. All authorities have

00:16:59.360 limits, right? We know this. All authorities have limits. A wife does not need to submit to her

00:17:03.940 husband who are leading her into acts of sin in the same way that citizens don't need to submit

00:17:09.660 to governors that are forcing them under evil laws. We know Peter and John are there in the

00:17:17.820 book of Acts. The Sanhedrin says that they must do a certain thing that violates Christ. And what

00:17:27.180 is their response? We must obey God and not man. And so there are those moments that occurs.

00:17:35.860 Now, a woman needs to understand that this is talking about all lawful things. So if your

00:17:45.380 husband says, well, you know what, honey, we're going to move to California. Or, hey, you know

00:17:49.160 what, we're going to use this money and we're going to put it in this particular investment

00:17:52.180 account. Or we're going to do this sort of discipline for the children. As long as those

00:17:57.280 realities are not sinful, a wife is not to seize control of the leadership and to be insubordinate

00:18:05.140 and she is to follow and trust the leadership of her husband.

00:18:08.000 yes she may counsel her husband she may offer an appeal she may even warn in extreme cases her

00:18:21.540 husband but she should again not seize authority in fact she should trust that her submission to

00:18:27.660 her husband is truly a form of a submission to christ how many times have you not understood

00:18:37.600 good where Christ is taking you, but you have submitted and you have found out that it was

00:18:45.720 good. And the same thing has happened many times in marriage where a wife in an emotional

00:18:52.520 state says, you know, I don't want to do this. But in a joyful submission and obedience

00:19:00.080 to not just her husband, but to Christ, she follows her husband. And we have a God who

00:19:06.000 says, I cause all things to work together for good, for those who love me and are called according

00:19:11.420 to my purpose. And we see that those things turned out to be quite joyful. Now, does it mean that

00:19:18.240 husbands don't make mistakes? Yes, they do. They do. And the Lord corrects those 0.98

00:19:24.440 and humiliates them in those moments. Now, I do want to emphasize a particular power that women 1.00

00:19:33.980 have in this act of what I would call joyful submission, joyful submission. Submission is 1.00

00:19:40.920 not doing something you already want to do, just to be clear. It's not submission when your husband

00:19:47.860 says, hey, we're going to Hawaii this week and get your bags packed. And you're like, praise the

00:19:54.960 Lord, I'm in. That is not truly a form of submission. In the same way, your obedience

00:20:01.580 from your children is not we're going to Disneyland and get in the car like that's not a form of

00:20:06.620 obedience obedience is doing what your dad wants you to do even when you don't want to do it

00:20:13.420 submission joyful submission is following your husband even in times where it doesn't

00:20:21.400 particularly make sense it's clearly not sinful but you don't particularly want to do it

00:20:29.120 And so, why is this so powerful in a world that we live in today? 1.00

00:20:37.580 Because a world filled with insubordinate feminist women, joyful submission is a righteously confusing witness to the broken world. 1.00

00:20:47.500 They look at it and they go, how is this happening? 0.99

00:20:51.380 Because what they're seeing is what's normal.

00:20:54.820 What's common is insubordination, but it's not normal.

00:20:58.160 what's normal is order. What's normal is order. And our duty as the church, as Pastor Corbin

00:21:04.880 said, is to tell the world what is normal because the Bible communicates what is normal in the Word

00:21:12.080 of God. And when you have the instruction manual for marriage, it's pretty easy. You can follow

00:21:17.520 the rules and roles of marriage and you have a very ordered marriage. Joy is the result. And that

00:21:23.900 is an extremely powerful evangelistic witness to women when they see your joyful submission

00:21:31.620 and your beautiful ordered family. It is very, very beautiful. George Orwell, he famously wrote

00:21:42.100 in his book, 1984, he says, in a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

00:21:51.060 It's one of my favorite quotes, right?

00:21:53.080 In a time of universal deceit,

00:21:54.760 telling the truth is a universal act.

00:21:57.300 In the same way, in a world, again,

00:21:58.860 where female submission is treated as evil 0.98

00:22:01.300 or where women are trained 0.99

00:22:02.980 to not trust God's authority structures, 0.99

00:22:06.220 submission, especially joyful submission,

00:22:10.660 it's, again, it's evangelism.

00:22:12.240 It's a form of truth-telling.

00:22:14.060 It really is a revolutionary act.

00:22:16.460 it's like in the all the chaos all of a sudden you see this very beautiful submission

00:22:24.800 it makes you curious it makes you ask questions it makes you want to understand

00:22:31.340 what's going on here how does this uh how is this working how is this working

00:22:38.820 now i think this is a good transition from the instructions to wives to the instructions to

00:22:50.360 husbands because the husband as it says in verse 23 is the head of the wife as the head of the

00:22:56.880 wife that is you know people understand what does that mean well uh the head is responsible he is

00:23:05.620 the responsible and representative party for the marriage before God. A husband's headship is kind

00:23:15.040 of like the captain of a ship. Even if every sailor on the ship has a list of duties and 0.91

00:23:24.100 responsibilities, the captain is the one held accountable for the condition and the direction

00:23:29.580 for the entire vessel. He is the head of the ship. And so it doesn't eliminate the

00:23:37.680 responsibilities of others there, but he has a unique accountability and a unique responsibility

00:23:44.000 that the other sailors do not share. Now, in the same way, God holds the husband and

00:23:51.440 as this representative leader, and he is accountable and he is responsible for the

00:23:57.860 spiritual health and the order of the household. He has an extra weight upon him that the wives 0.77

00:24:04.540 do not have. He has an extra pressure on him that the children do not have. 1 Corinthians 11.3 says, 0.89

00:24:11.240 But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ. The head of a wife 0.95

00:24:16.940 is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. Again, this doesn't mean that the wife is not 0.60

00:24:25.420 accountable to God also. She is, just like the sailors, have responsibility and duties.

00:24:32.520 But rather, what it means is that her husband is given a particular position

00:24:36.940 of responsibility that she does not hold. And that responsibility is a grave responsibility.

00:24:45.220 It is a very difficult responsibility. It is a very high calling.

00:24:48.660 but again i really want you to see how the apostle parallels the relationship between the church

00:24:57.780 and the husband to christ i want you to see this the wife ought to look to how the church is called

00:25:09.320 to behave toward christ and shape her own behavior toward her husband we know that and the husband

00:25:17.600 ought to look to how Christ behaves toward the church.

00:25:20.780 So he ought to shape his behavior toward his wife

00:25:24.160 in that manner.

00:25:26.400 So you want to see,

00:25:27.580 if you want to know how to be a great husband,

00:25:29.320 you have to constantly be looking at Christ

00:25:31.600 and how he deals with the church.

00:25:33.360 And if you want to be a great wife,

00:25:35.200 you have to constantly be looking

00:25:36.460 at the expectations of scripture for the church

00:25:38.600 and how she is to behave toward her Lord.

00:25:41.960 That back and forth is very key

00:25:44.860 to understanding the beauty of marriage.

00:25:51.040 As for the men modeling Christ,

00:25:53.440 there are many dimensions in which we can model Christ.

00:25:56.900 We can model Christ's grace and his mercy

00:25:59.460 and his love and his truthfulness

00:26:01.740 and his faithfulness and his stability and his strength.

00:26:04.460 There's so many dimensions of Christ

00:26:06.140 that need to be modeled.

00:26:08.840 But we only have a little bit of time.

00:26:11.260 And so I'm going to focus on two aspects

00:26:14.280 which I'll sum up as this,

00:26:19.640 Christ's sacrificial responsibility

00:26:22.420 and his loving authority.

00:26:25.720 We are called to model his sacrificial responsibility

00:26:29.740 and his loving authority.

00:26:33.120 What does that look like?

00:26:35.540 Now, again, as we know, the church needs rescuing.

00:26:39.640 We know the church needs rescuing.

00:26:41.820 It needs rescuing from what?

00:26:43.500 Well, from the wrath of God for the sin of the world.

00:26:50.960 We also know that the price of sin is death.

00:26:53.980 Romans 6.23 says the wages of sin is death.

00:26:57.340 The reason all humanity dies, the reason you will die, is because of sin.

00:27:03.820 And you will either pay the price of death or Christ will pay it for you.

00:27:08.660 but you will pay, somebody will pay the price.

00:27:16.480 Now, Christ who had no sin in the model of the gospel

00:27:20.680 takes responsibility for the sins of the church.

00:27:24.260 Pay attention to this.

00:27:26.940 Christ takes responsibility for the sins of the church

00:27:32.980 by paying for them with his life on the cross.

00:27:38.660 so the debt owed for the price of sin is life something must die and christ says i'll do that

00:27:48.740 for you i will sacrifice for you i will though christ is not guilty for the sins of his bride

00:27:57.620 he takes responsibility for the sins of his bride by paying for them on the cross

00:28:02.420 And it is precisely because of this sacrificial responsibility that Christ has authority over

00:28:14.960 the church.

00:28:15.800 Now, I want to be clear, Christ has authority because he is God and it's not that Christ

00:28:27.840 has no authority unless he died on the cross,

00:28:31.020 but he expresses this responsibility

00:28:35.000 and illuminates this authority through the gospel.

00:28:39.500 His authority is not, it's not empty,

00:28:41.920 it's not self-serving, it's a purchased authority.

00:28:45.720 It's an authority that he has actually

00:28:48.960 taken responsibility of the weight of sin,

00:28:52.280 and now we owe him our lives.

00:28:56.160 1 Corinthians 6, 19 through 20 says to Christians,

00:29:01.920 it says, quote, 0.96

00:29:02.540 You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.

00:29:06.900 Therefore, glorify God in your body and your soul,

00:29:10.640 both which are God's. 0.83

00:29:15.840 Now, again, husbands can't replicate this level

00:29:19.820 of sacrificial responsibility, but we can imitate it.

00:29:23.080 Husbands can't replicate this.

00:29:25.160 but we can imitate it. 1.00

00:29:26.660 We can imitate it. 0.92

00:29:27.620 While we cannot die for the sins of our wives, 0.86

00:29:30.920 we can repent for them.

00:29:33.560 We can repent for them on their behalf.

00:29:37.280 While we cannot make her holy,

00:29:40.420 we can pray for her holiness.

00:29:43.180 You can pray for your wife's holiness.

00:29:46.080 You can lead her to holiness.

00:29:48.520 While we cannot take away all of the burdens of life,

00:29:52.320 we can carry many of them.

00:29:53.400 we can model this sacrificial responsibility of Christ.

00:30:03.760 And the point that I want to make is this,

00:30:06.880 sacrificial responsibility produces authority.

00:30:12.080 Sacrificial responsibility produces

00:30:14.580 a real respected authority.

00:30:19.680 Now, yes, every husband possesses what I would call positional authority.

00:30:28.240 Every husband.

00:30:30.000 When you walk down the aisle and the authority of that father gives away that daughter, a bride, to her husband,

00:30:37.920 he's handing over the authority.

00:30:41.720 And so, yes, you do have a positional authority as a husband.

00:30:46.420 but authority without sacrificial responsibility

00:30:50.100 quickly becomes hollow and often resented.

00:30:54.740 And often resented.

00:30:56.800 You want a great way to ruin your marriage?

00:31:01.060 Exercise authority without sacrificial loving responsibility. 0.82

00:31:05.740 That's a great way to ruin your marriage.

00:31:10.300 Why is this important?

00:31:12.960 Every husband wants to be respected.

00:31:15.780 Every husband wants to be honored, especially in his own home.

00:31:20.400 And while, again, a husband can technically demand respect from his title alone,

00:31:25.740 that is not the model we see in Christ.

00:31:29.280 That's not what Christ did.

00:31:34.640 Jesus had the ultimate positional authority.

00:31:38.040 King of kings, Lord of lords, he did not have to come down to earth.

00:31:42.160 Yet he still demonstrated that authority through sacrificial responsibility.

00:31:49.680 It's an amazing thing that though he had everything, he came down, put on the body of man and died for sinners.

00:32:06.680 This leads us to our text in verse 25 here in Ephesians.

00:32:09.760 It says, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

00:32:18.700 You got a little context now to understand what he's meaning by this particular phrase.

00:32:24.040 Now, I want to talk about this.

00:32:25.360 Just first, just let's look at the words, husbands, love your wives.

00:32:30.640 Man, not that complex, right?

00:32:33.240 Husbands, love your wives.

00:32:35.760 Love covers a multitude of sins.

00:32:38.600 So many problems can be overcome by that simple reality of husbands, love your wives.

00:32:45.000 Now, I want to give you a few masculine and what I would call strong expressions of love.

00:32:49.960 And then I'm going to give you one, what I would call a more gentle expression of love.

00:32:55.760 Now, these expressions are beyond what I would call the baseline. 0.66

00:33:00.660 And the baseline is that you must be a Christian husband.

00:33:04.840 If you're not a Christian husband, we've got to back all the way up to the gospel here.

00:33:10.380 And why is that so important? 1.00

00:33:11.760 Because you cannot say that you love your wife if you're affirming her or leading her to hell.

00:33:18.500 That's not loving. 0.97

00:33:20.380 I love you, but we're going to hell together. 0.58

00:33:25.820 That's not great.

00:33:27.520 What does Jesus say?

00:33:29.380 What is it if a man gains the whole world and loses his soul?

00:33:35.040 Now, what is it if you have this wonderful marriage

00:33:37.160 and you both end up in hell?

00:33:40.100 Not great.

00:33:42.180 And so the baseline is Christ.

00:33:46.320 You must have Christ.

00:33:49.820 Now, beyond the baseline,

00:33:52.480 I'm going to give you a few things.

00:33:54.140 A husband must be a proficient provider.

00:33:57.680 He must be a proficient provider. 0.78

00:34:00.040 The first mission of a husband is to unemploy your wife. That is very common today. I've seen

00:34:08.440 many, many young women who are desperate to just stay home. They don't want to go to work anymore. 1.00

00:34:15.080 They're being exasperated in these masculine environments and they're realizing that their

00:34:20.600 nature isn't designed them to deal with career the same way that men have. It doesn't mean that

00:34:27.160 that women don't work. It just means that this work is aimed in particular directions. 1.00

00:34:34.560 Now, so the first duty of a husband is to be a great provider. In fact, the scriptures say that

00:34:39.480 if you don't provide for your own household, you're worse than an unbeliever. It's a very 1.00

00:34:43.880 sinful reality. Now, again, can a wife not work at all? Of course she can work. She's going to 1.00

00:34:54.480 work in the home. If she has no children, there's a difference of capability. If she's single, 1.00

00:35:00.320 there's different things. What about a woman whose children are grown and she doesn't quite 1.00

00:35:03.600 have grandchildren yet? There's always these exceptions, but the rule is that women are not 1.00

00:35:09.100 to be operating in the same degree of career and provision as men. Ultimately, what I'm saying here 0.66

00:35:22.000 is that men, husbands, should labor to lead in such a way 0.95

00:35:25.360 that your wife never has to work. 0.88

00:35:27.560 Can she have hobbies and can she make sourdough

00:35:29.820 and can she start a farm stand with the eggs from her farm? 0.70

00:35:33.040 Absolutely. 1.00

00:35:34.900 But is she doing that because she's got to make rent?

00:35:38.760 Where you're throwing the stress and the burden upon her? 0.98

00:35:44.000 Instead of taking responsibility for the burden,

00:35:46.240 you're letting her carry some of that burden? 0.98

00:35:47.920 if a woman doesn't have to work she's free to be feminine she's free to be feminine in fact i think 1.00

00:35:59.200 that's one of the greatest needs of our day is that women want to be free to be feminine to raise 0.50

00:36:04.560 children to to love and to nurture and to cook and to care and to create a loving home and and to 1.00

00:36:09.680 have the freedom to do those things that she wants to do not the things that she has to do from the

00:36:15.500 burden of provision. God designed man to bear that burden. I

00:36:22.740 can work 80 hour weeks and keep going. Women, statistically, 1.00

00:36:30.560 historically, experientially, do not share that same reality. 1.00

00:36:38.780 Now, ladies, if you have a man who does this, you have a man

00:36:44.740 loves you that is a form of love husbands love your wives i go well the first thing if you're

00:36:51.780 going to love your wife is uh make sure she doesn't have to go to work for 40 hours a week

00:36:56.900 um so that's a great way to love your wife so right there ladies if you have a husband that

00:37:01.300 does that praise the lord realize that you have a husband who loves you it's awesome

00:37:08.340 the second strong expression of love is that a husband is a sufficient protector

00:37:14.740 He is vigilant.

00:37:17.420 He is a man who is not only physically protecting you,

00:37:21.760 but emotionally and spiritually and intellectually.

00:37:25.260 He's guarding you from the evils of the world, from the lies,

00:37:28.740 from those that want to manipulate her.

00:37:32.260 He is protecting her.

00:37:37.480 And so ladies, if you have a husband who allows you to stay home with your children

00:37:42.280 and also guards you from many of the enemies of the world.

00:37:46.800 You have a man who loves you.

00:37:49.780 The man who loves you.

00:37:50.820 This is a very good thing.

00:37:55.480 Now, third, the strong expression of love is that you are a leader.

00:37:59.980 Men, you need to be a leader.

00:38:02.140 You actually need to lead.

00:38:03.600 I don't care if you're, I'm introverted or I never was a leader growing up.

00:38:08.060 Great.

00:38:08.460 I don't care.

00:38:09.320 The scriptures don't care. 0.81

00:38:10.260 You are called to lead your family, to lead your wife.

00:38:13.800 Does it mean you need to lead like me

00:38:15.220 or lead like the next guy?

00:38:16.380 No, it means that you need to take responsibility

00:38:19.060 to offer the vision, the mission, the focus,

00:38:24.280 the direction for your own family.

00:38:27.560 You're not a passive man.

00:38:29.960 You're not a checked out man.

00:38:32.080 You're not a guy who is playing video games all day

00:38:35.060 while your poor wife is here

00:38:36.740 having to make decisions for the family.

00:38:41.260 No, again, you're a man that has vision for the household,

00:38:44.020 for the finances, for the children,

00:38:45.460 for the spiritual disciplines,

00:38:46.620 and you do so in a loving way.

00:38:48.760 Doesn't mean your wife's not involved in those decisions.

00:38:51.080 Doesn't mean that you're not helping her

00:38:52.800 or she's helping you in a variety of ways.

00:38:54.760 I get that.

00:38:56.220 But it means that you're taking the lead

00:38:58.140 and you're bringing her along.

00:39:01.320 That is a great way to love your wife.

00:39:05.520 So again, ladies, if you have a man who provides for you,

00:39:08.420 who protects you, who leads you,

00:39:10.260 you have a man who loves you.

00:39:12.660 That's a great sign of a loving man. 1.00

00:39:15.340 And again, we live in a world where women want so many things

00:39:22.120 that are far beyond the scriptures of a man. 0.82

00:39:25.880 He needs to be essentially a woman to be my friend, 1.00

00:39:28.560 to bear my emotional realities. 0.79

00:39:29.980 And we need to realize that, again, you look throughout history.

00:39:35.020 If you were a woman that needed to be married,

00:39:37.640 If you found a man that was to provide for you, that protected you, that led you, that was a

00:39:46.700 Christian, oh, wow, you are blessed in that way. And husbands, if you found a wife who is a Proverbs

00:39:56.100 31 woman, she is not lazy. She wants children. She wants to create and nurture a beautiful 1.00

00:40:03.020 environment in the household and she joyfully submits to you you are a blessed man we have so

00:40:10.540 many expectations we are the entitled generation but when you realize if you just have those

00:40:17.500 fundamentals you have a great marriage you have the great recipe or ingredients to the recipe of

00:40:23.740 marriage now uh women don't merely need strong expressions of love 0.97

00:40:33.020 They also need gentle expressions of love.

00:40:35.840 And this is where many strong men struggle, including myself.

00:40:39.900 I think a lot of us men can relate.

00:40:44.740 Loving your wife is loving her how she needs to be loved.

00:40:50.400 There's a quote in marketing that says,

00:40:52.280 speak to people how they need to hear it, not how you want to say it.

00:40:56.420 And that sympathetic communication is extremely difficult,

00:41:01.620 especially for very masculine men, to walk in and go, I'm going to think about how my wife

00:41:09.980 needs to be loved right now. And that might mean you compliment her. That might mean you flirt

00:41:17.560 with her. That might mean you romanticize her. That might mean you talk with her in a way that 0.95

00:41:24.820 you have not recently, but you need to express those softer acts of love more deliberately

00:41:30.200 and more frequently.

00:41:32.600 That is a great way to love your wife.

00:41:37.760 And so again, ladies,

00:41:38.820 if you have a man who does all of these things,

00:41:42.220 he might not be perfect,

00:41:45.120 but you have a godly husband.

00:41:48.300 You have a godly husband.

00:41:50.500 Now, men, the purpose of this Christ-like love

00:41:54.640 that you're called to model

00:41:55.740 is seen in these last two verses,

00:41:57.820 and I'll wrap it up here in a second.

00:41:59.560 Verses 26 and 27, it says,

00:42:03.120 That he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,

00:42:07.960 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing,

00:42:13.400 that she might be holy and without blemish.

00:42:18.460 That's the purpose.

00:42:19.460 That's the reason that Christ had the sacrificial responsibility,

00:42:23.940 that he might sanctify her, cleanse her, wash her

00:42:28.820 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor

00:42:32.020 without spot or wrinkle or any such thing

00:42:35.220 that she's essentially morally pure, she's holy, she's without blemish.

00:42:39.920 So, how does that translate to you?

00:42:44.460 How does that translate to your own marriage?

00:42:50.040 We are to love our wives in an effort to present them to the Lord

00:42:53.320 as well-shepherded, sanctified, cherished,

00:42:58.120 holy, glorious Christian women.

00:43:01.440 That's the purpose. 0.99

00:43:05.320 All of our shepherding should be aimed at going, 1.00

00:43:08.160 oh, I'm presenting this woman to the Lord

00:43:10.680 as this image of the church,

00:43:14.220 just beautiful and pure and joyful and hopeful and peaceful.

00:43:18.320 they are our wives

00:43:22.700 meaning our wives are in a sense

00:43:24.700 a reflection of our own faithfulness

00:43:27.280 if you want to see

00:43:30.680 for example

00:43:31.380 how great a parent is

00:43:34.720 where do you look?

00:43:36.080 to the children

00:43:37.140 and you want to see how great a husband is

00:43:40.160 where do you look?

00:43:42.320 to the wife

00:43:43.420 if she is a radiant

00:43:46.480 glorious

00:43:48.380 cherished, loved, peaceful woman.

00:43:54.960 What a great thing it is to go,

00:43:57.560 wow, she must have a great husband.

00:44:03.440 I'm not talking about year one.

00:44:05.400 I'm talking about year 25 in marriage.

00:44:08.320 You've been together for a long time.

00:44:12.600 Unfortunately, a lot of people get married

00:44:14.760 and the wife is a great young bride. 0.81

00:44:17.740 And sometimes she is ruined by her husband.

00:44:21.440 And sometimes you have a great husband. 0.52

00:44:25.220 And he is sitting on the corner of his house by a terrible wife.

00:44:30.880 And so we want harmony. 1.00

00:44:35.820 On the flip side, if your wife is foolish, 1.00

00:44:38.940 if your wife is arrogant and depressed and she's filled with anxiety 1.00

00:44:43.280 and she's preoccupied with the worries of the world, 0.88

00:44:45.600 that is also a reflection of your shepherding.

00:44:52.060 In the same way, again, this order of authority with parents,

00:44:56.100 if your children are hellions all over the place,

00:45:01.020 disobedient, insubordinate,

00:45:02.800 not just one time, but patternistically,

00:45:06.780 it's observed over the years,

00:45:10.280 then that is a key for you to go,

00:45:11.940 you know what, maybe we should reflect on our parenting.

00:45:15.040 And again, if your wife is in a state of peril,

00:45:18.420 maybe we should reflect on my husbandry.

00:45:23.360 How can I model Christ more sufficiently in my marriage?

00:45:29.920 And so your marriage is an effort to present the gospel to the world.

00:45:39.940 That's what you're doing, husbands.

00:45:42.060 That's what you're doing, wives.

00:45:44.060 it's not performative, it's genuine. 0.85

00:45:49.180 You're trying to show the world

00:45:51.780 what order and normalcy looks like.

00:45:56.040 It is a good thing to be in an ordered marriage.

00:46:01.380 It is again that physical picture of a spiritual truth.

00:46:05.820 And this is why marriage is good.

00:46:08.140 Why do we want more people married?

00:46:11.420 Because it's more pictures of the gospel.

00:46:14.640 And why do we want those marriages to reflect the gospel and Christ and the church?

00:46:20.460 Because it is good for society.

00:46:22.940 And so when we live in a world in which fewer people are being married and distortions of

00:46:29.180 marriage are happening and perversions of marriage are happening, we are losing that

00:46:34.500 physical picture of that spiritual reality.

00:46:40.500 And so join me to pray.

00:46:44.060 that the Lord might raise up more godly men and women

00:46:46.980 for godly marriages.

00:46:48.680 Let's pray.

00:46:51.360 Father, we thank you, Lord,

00:46:53.340 for the instructions of marriage,

00:46:56.200 for the institution of marriage,

00:46:59.560 Lord, that you have not left us guessing.

00:47:05.340 But Lord, we thank you for the model

00:47:06.940 of the ultimate patriarch, your son, Jesus Christ.

00:47:09.140 lord we ask that you would help us to understand this in our own marriages in our own lives

00:47:16.520 for the husbands and for the wives lord we pray that you would help our marriages

00:47:22.700 be emblems of goodness in a broken world lord that you would help us to evangelize

00:47:31.540 not just in word but also in deed we thank you for your word we thank you for your grace

00:47:37.480 and for your gospel in Jesus' name, amen.

Dale Partridge - February 18, 2026

Ephesians 5_22-27 ~ An Introduction to Biblical Patriarchy

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript