Ephesians 5 explained: Love, Light and Marriage

Love instead of greed (vv. 1-7)

Readers should take after God as loved children take after a parent, and love as Christ did when he gave his life, pictured as an altar offering whose smell pleased God. Sexual wrongdoing, greed (called idol worship because money becomes a god) and crude joking are ruled out, and verses 5 and 6 bluntly say such a life brings God's anger and has no share in his kingdom.

From darkness to light (vv. 8-14)

Readers were once darkness and are now light, so their lives should show goodness, fairness and truth, and bring hidden wrongs into the open. The call in verse 14 to wake up and rise from the dead is not an exact Old Testament quote; many scholars think it comes from an early Christian song, perhaps sung at baptism, echoing Isaiah 60:1.

Living wisely (vv. 15-20)

Because the times are hard, readers are to use every chance for good; the Greek pictures buying up opportunities, which is why older versions speak of redeeming the time. Instead of the false lift of getting drunk, they are to be filled with God's Spirit, which shows in singing together and giving thanks.

Yielding, and wives (vv. 21-24)

Verse 21 asks all believers to yield to one another, and in the oldest Greek copies verse 22 has no verb of its own, so it borrows submit from verse 21 and is tied closely to it. Wives are then told to submit to their husbands in everything, as the church does to Christ its head, and Christians read these words in sharply different ways (see below).

Husbands to love sacrificially (vv. 25-30)

In a world where husbands held most of the legal power, they are told to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, caring for them as for their own bodies. The cleansing with water and the word in verse 26 is widely read as baptism, pictured like a bride's bath before her wedding.

One flesh, a mystery (vv. 31-33)

Verse 31 quotes Genesis 2:24 on two becoming one flesh and calls this a deep mystery about Christ and the church; Catholic and Orthodox Christians see support here for marriage as a sacrament (a holy sign that carries God's grace), while most Protestants do not. The closing line sums up: husbands are to love, and wives to respect, a word older translations give as fear in the old sense of reverence.

Key verse: Ephesians 5:2

Where Christians differ

Christians genuinely differ over whether head and submit in verses 22 to 24 set a lasting pattern of husbands leading and wives following, as many traditional churches teach, or whether, read alongside verse 21's call for everyone to yield to one another, they reflect a household order of that era that the letter was already moving toward equal partnership, as many others hold. Across both views, churches widely agree this passage never asks anyone to accept abuse or stay in harm's way.

Something to think about

In your experience, what makes giving way to another person feel like mutual care rather than being controlled?