Welcome back as we begin a new week on the Ask Pastor John podcast. Thanks for making us a part of your daily routine. Kelly writes in to ask about spiritual leadership in the home. She writes, “Hello Pastor John, my husband and I are still in the beginning stages of our marriage. Both of us were raised in Christian homes, but unfortunately both of us had fathers who failed to lead the family spiritually. Our mothers did that job. Now, I desire my husband to lead our home spiritually, but we both don’t know what that looks like. Does he lead prayer with me daily? Does he read the word with me daily? And what do you do with your family? What did this look like for you?”
Well, my first thought is: I wonder why Kelly wrote to us instead of her husband. I hope it is because they agreed they both wanted to ask and they agreed it was just simpler for her to write in. That is fine. I hope it is not because he is dragging his feet and she is having to pull him along. So my first suggestion is that she go get her husband right now. Turn this off. Go get him, and listen to this together rather than her becoming the mediator here and turning it into something he may not like.
Let’s put one passage of Scripture, at least, in front of us so that the assumption isn’t taken for granted. Ephesians 5:21–25, “[Submit] to one another [husbands and wives] out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 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. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”
So the picture we have is that in loving each other and serving each other and submitting to each other’s needs and longings in a kind of loving and humble mutuality, the wife takes her cues from the church as the church is called to follow Christ as its leader. And the husband takes his cues from Christ as the head of the church who gave himself up for her. One of the reasons this whole issue of headship and submission in marriage matters is that God intended for marriage to represent the covenant love between Christ and his bride, the church. That is what we are trying to flesh out when we are working on this matter of headship and submission.
There are differences and there are similarities between the relationship between the wife and the husband on the one hand and the relationship between Christ and the church on the other. And both the similarities and the differences shape the way we flesh out this drama of Christ and the church.
