Ephesians 5: 21 – 6: 9

Ephesians 5: 21 – 6: 9 gives us a good foundation of what it takes to be a Christian family.

Very soon we will be going for our Family Camp where we enjoy ourselves, enjoy the fellowship that we have together as Kum Yan Family and also with our Lord Jesus Christ. In this camp, we will also be discussing about family matters so that all of us will come back with a renewed heart and mind to live our lives as Disciples of Jesus Christ while we are at home.

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. (Eph 5:21)

Ephesians 5: 21 – 6: 9 gives us a good foundation of what it takes to be a Christian family. Here is the passage.

21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the Word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church—30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
6 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise—3 “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”
4 Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

This passage discusses about the relationship between Christ and the church through three examples, the relationship between husband and wife (5: 22-33), parents and children (6: 1-4), masters and servants (6: 5-9). If we flip it around, our relationship with each other is also grounded on the relationship model between Christ and the church.
For myself as a husband and a father, I am always reminded how I should love my wife like how Christ love the church and how I should not exasperate my children and bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. I am not perfect and I am not a good role model. I also struggle to live out what the Word of God teaches us. But I am trying, I am striving towards it.
I encourage all of us to read the portions that are only applicable to us and strive towards what God’s Word is already teaching us. Let’s struggle and strive together to build a family that submits to one another out of reverence for Christ.