DATE: – 8TH AUGUST, 2021
TOPIC: – GOD’S KIND OF MARRIAGE (PART6)
BIBLE PASSAGE: – Colossians 3: 16 – 25, 4:1
MEMORY VERSE: – “And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him” (Colossians 3:17).
INTRODUCTION:- Following the Biblical principles by the helping and leading of the Holy Spirit, believers can easily determine what is right or wrong in activities and behaviours as we relate with others. Thus, in marriage relationship the application of these Biblical principles will help in building our homes according to God’s standard.
LESSON OUTLINES
Essential Ingredient For God’s Kind Of Marriage
1) Submission: – There cannot be two captains in a ship; neither can a car be driven by two drivers simultaneously. There can never be two heads in a home. A two headed human being or animal scares away people. Submission is not slavery or foolishness. It is a command from the Lord.
To submit means to yield one’s own rights for the sake of another. The general Biblical principle of mutual submission has as its goal to do what is best for others and to help them fulfill their God-given purposes.
This principle is to be applied first in Christian families. Submission, which involves humility, gentleness, patience and respect must be reflected in the life of each member of a Christian family.
The wife is given the God-appointed task of helping and submitting (i.e. yield in love) to her husband’s responsibility of leadership (not ruler-ship) in the family.
The husband also must submit to his wife’s needs in an attitude of love and self sacrifice (Eph.5:23). The children must submit to the authority of their parents in obedience to God. And the parents must submit to the needs of their children and train them in the way of the Lord (Eph.6:1-4, Col.4:1).
The God-given or ordained duty of a wife to her husband includes Love (Tit.2:4), respect (Eph.5:33, 1Pet.3:1-2), assistance (Gen.2:18), purity (Tit.2:5, 1Pet.3:2), submissiveness (Eph.5:22, 1Pet.3:5), development of gentle and quiet spirit (1Pet.3:4), and being a good and godly mother (Tit.2:4), and care taker of the home (1Tim.2:15; 5:14; Tit. 2:5).
Submitting to a husband “as to the Lord” does not put the husband in the place of the Lord, but shows that the wife ought to submit to her husband as an act of submission to the Lord. In this way, God sees the wife’s actions toward her husband as on actual part of her obedience to Jesus.
2) Love: Submission in the marriage relationship is not the attitude required only of wives (Eph.5:21). In fact, as the head of the home, the husband is to take the lead in submitting to and serving the best interests of his wife and children.
He must help his wife fulfill her God-given roles at home, in the Church and in all aspects of life. The fact that the husband is called to love his wife “even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for it” (Eph.5:25) is an extreme challenge. It is hardly possible for any human to love even Christ as much as He loves us, and yet the husband is charged with the responsibility of loving his wife in that way. Of course this does not mean that we are to love any other person over God, but rather that the husband should humbly follow Christ’s example of showing self-sacrificing, unconditional love for his wife. In this way the husband is called to a more extreme expression of submission and devotion than is the wife.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
As Christians, our standard should not be the world, the cultural practices of the world. Rather we should embrace the teachings, doctrine and instructions of the Bible, for that is where our unity comes from. The key to blissful and peaceful marriage is submission and love.
QUESTIONS
- What are the God ordained duty of a wife to her husband?
- Who is to take the lead in submitting and serving?
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