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Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Commanded to Love, in Hope of Respect

Commanded to Love, in Hope of Respect
I skipped ahead in my study in Ephesians to Paul’s words in chapter 5 on husbands and wives. I was struck by the verse 33, which in the NIV reads, “However, each one of you must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”
This verse generates a lot of questions in ministry because of people's unending search for answers regarding marriage, and also Dr. Emerson Eggerichs’ successful book, Love and Respect. The book claims that a neglected truth about marriage is that women need love messages from their husbands, and men need to hear that their wives respect them.
Whatever the truth or helpfulness of that insight, a close look at 5:33 turns up that the word translated ‘must respect, ’ ( based on Greek phobos, or fear), is in the passive voice. This is NOT reflected in most translations, and, amusingly, overlooked entirely by Dr. Eggerichs.
If respect is a passive verb, then we ought to read this,.. ‘may she be enabled to respect her husband.’ I am hoping some of you could supply your own understanding of the verse, but it is definitely not ‘must respect.’ The husband is commanded to love, three times in this section, and we see that this love is an outgrowth of the presence of Christ filling his whole field of view. We may understand that the respect is the hoped for fruit of a Christ-saturated marriage.
Your thoughts?

Pastor Harley

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