Family Life Series
Reading: Ephesians 5:23–29; Joshua 24:15
“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” — Ephesians 5:25
Meditation
When Scripture calls the husband the head of the wife, it immediately tells him whose headship he must imitate: “as Christ is the head of the church” (Eph 5:23). And how does Christ exercise His headship? He girds Himself with a towel. He washes feet. He gives Himself up. Biblical headship is not a throne from which a man is served; it is a cross on which he learns to die daily for the good of those entrusted to him.
The world knows only two distortions of this calling: the tyrant, who rules his house by fear, and the absentee, who abandons his post altogether. Scripture cuts down both. The husband is charged to love “as Christ loved the church” — a love that is prior, costly, and purposeful. Christ loved the church before she was lovely, paid for her at the highest price, and labors still to present her in splendor (Eph 5:26–27). A husband’s authority exists for his wife’s flourishing, never for his own convenience.
Headship is also priestly in character. Job rose early to offer sacrifices for his children, “for Job said, ‘It may be that my children have sinned’” (Job 1:5). Joshua answered for his whole house: “as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (Josh 24:15). The head of the home goes first — first to the Word, first to prayer, first to confess when he has sinned, first to forgive when he has been wronged. He sets the spiritual temperature of the house not by his commands but by his knees.
And there is a warning attached to this office. Peter tells husbands to live with their wives “in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman… so that your prayers may not be hindered” (1 Pet 3:7). A man cannot neglect his wife on earth and expect open doors in heaven. God has bound the husband’s communion with Him to the husband’s tenderness at home.
Husband, your family does not first need your opinions; it needs your example. Lead the way Christ leads — going ahead of them in repentance, in service, in sacrifice — and your headship will feel to your household not like a weight upon them, but like a roof over them.
For Reflection
1. Where is my leadership at home more like a throne than a towel — and what would giving myself up for my family look like this week?
2. Do I go first in the things of God — in prayer, in confession of sin, in opening the Scriptures — or do I wait to be led?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, Head of the church, teach the heads of our homes Your way of ruling — the way of the towel and the cross. Forgive us for harshness and for passivity alike. Make our husbands and fathers priests in their houses, first in repentance and first in love, that their families may find in their leadership a picture of Yours. In Your holy name. Amen.