The Spirit Filled Marriage 6: Headship

Outline

• What it isn’t
• What it is

Introduction

‘I hate him. I hate him because he made me feel worthless, inadequate—like a nonperson, a slave. I could never do anything that made him happy. I always came short of the mark. I was always desperately working to win his approval. I hate him for the crummy way he made me feel about myself. I don’t know whether I will ever get over the hurt he caused in my life.’ These are the words of a wife whose husband has failed to be the loving head of the home. Today we turn our attention to the husband as we consider Ephesians 5:23, ‘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.’

Just as God has given the gift of authority in government for the thriving of a country, the gift of parental authority to make children thrive, and the gift of ecclesiastical authority to elders for the thriving of the church, husbands are a gift of authority in a marriage. Authority in general is something which is seen as bad so we need to make a special effort to define what the bible means by the husband being the head. So today, as we did when looking at submission we will look at what headship is not and then at what it is. Our goal is to redeem headship and see it restored to God’s Edenic purposes in Christian marriages, in order that it might cause human flourishing for the glory of God.