Prison Epistles

The Prison Epistles

Sermon Forty-five

Colossians 3:18-4:18

Final Exhortations

(part 1)

Jim Bordwine, Th.D.

Introduction

Generalizations, that is, descriptions or accusations or challenges that are directed at a whole group of people are easy to receive. We hear and use generalizations all the time. We speak in generalizations about nations, cultures, communities, churches, and families. Being a southerner, I’ll use that region as an example. Out here, a lot of people think the south is home to a bunch of toothless rednecks with rifle racks in their pick-up trucks. That’s a generalization. I know for a fact, however, having come from the south, that this generalization is not accurate. I know many southerners who have teeth.

Before I came to the Pacific Northwest, I heard that you were all tree-hugging greenies who care more about some creature called a spotted owl than you do about human beings. Having lived here for almost fourteen years, however, I’ve come to understand that such a generalization is not at all the true picture. People here in the Pacific Northwest also care more about salmon and snail darters than they do about human beings.

You see, it’s easy to pick out a few characteristics about a region of the country, as I have done, and make a general statement as if that is all there is to be found or observed. We all know that’s not true, but, as I noted, we use generalizations all the time—and not always in such insulting or negatives ways as I just illustrated. The thing about generalizations, even when they are spoken about the group we are part of, is that we don’t necessarily take them personally. That’s the nature of a generalization—we assume that while there may be truth in it, it doesn’t necessarily describe or pertain to us. And so, we are able to distance ourselves from something unflattering.

Let’s make this a bit more personal. If I said, for example, “this congregation has a problem with gossip,” most of you wouldn’t take offense because even though I’ve spoken to you indirectly, as part of a much larger group, you would assume that my criticism was actually prompted by the behavior of someone else. I might make a sweeping generalization about the congregation in which I named various short-comings or sins that are present among us, yet you would not feel “put on the spot,” so to speak, because you have the anonymity that is part of being in a crowd of people. I could be speaking of a problem that truly is found among us, but if I speak in such general terms, I really haven’t singled out anyone and, therefore, everyone—or just about everyone—can avoid feeling as if I’ve identified a sin in a particular person’s life.

But what if I pointed my finger at you and said: “You have a problem with gossip” or “you are sinning in the way you treat other people”? What would your reaction be? Now, of course, I would never do such a thing—though I certainly have considered it at times! If I ever did specify a sin in your life in front of the whole congregation or if I ever singled you out for an exhortation, your reaction would be quite different, I’m sure, than when you hear me speak in general terms about how we should live, what we should commit ourselves to, or how we should fulfill our individual roles. Unless you hear someone addressing you specifically, what is said, though it may apply to you, just doesn’t have the same impact.

With that in mind, I want you to think about how Paul constructed his letter to the Colossians. We’re coming to the last portion of this epistle and we’re going to see a slight change in the apostle’s focus. Thus far, we know that Paul has spoken in broad terms to the congregation as he wrote of the mystery and glory of the incarnation, and the absolute sufficiency of Christ’s work of atonement. He got a bit more specific when he addressed the issue of the false teaching present in this congregation. Paul didn’t name names, but he definitely identified the error being taught and solemnly warned the Colossians about the danger they were facing.

Then, Paul wrote some of his most helpful material when he addressed the topic of those characteristics that should be present among a congregation of Christian people. We spent a long time looking at just a few verses because that passage is packed with so many essential truths and observations—some truths and observations that, by definition, were more personal than things he had said up to that point. So, Paul began with a fairly broad focus as he described the Person and work of Christ. His focus narrowed a bit when he warned about the false teaching; it narrowed even more when the apostle told these believers that they were the chosen of God, holy and beloved, and that they were to be distinguished by certain spiritual characteristics, and that they were to be ruled by the peace of Christ, and that they were to express their love and praise for God in songs and hymns and spiritual songs. Finally, Paul gave them a blanket commandment: “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.” (3:17)

If Paul had stopped at this point, there would have been plenty for everyone in the congregation to ponder, plenty to incorporate into life, plenty to challenge thinking and conduct. He provided a wealth of information about Christ and a substantial list of characteristics every Colossian believer should have taken to heart. With all that information, however, Paul hasn’t spoken directly to any particular group or individual within this body. But, as we are going to see, Paul didn’t stop with that last blanket commandment in 3:17; instead, he narrows his focus even more and speaks specifically to every major segment of this congregation: wives, husbands, fathers, children, slaves, and masters. Now, the ability to “hide” in the anonymity of the group is taken away; now, Paul is going to speak directly to various individuals in the group. That’s going to make things more personal and, consequently, more important.

The remainder of this epistle consists of a number of final exhortations and that is how we are going to treat Paul’s closing words—that is, as a series of exhortations that begin with some words for those particular segments of the congregation I just named: wives, husband, fathers, children, slaves, and masters. Our text for today is 3:18-4:1:

3:18 Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them. 20 Children, be obedient to your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord. 21 Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they will not lose heart. 22 Slaves, in all things obey those who are your masters on earth, not with external service, as those who merely please men, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. 23 Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve. 25 For he who does wrong will receive the consequences of the wrong which he has done, and that without partiality. 4:1 Masters, grant to your slaves justice and fairness, knowing that you too have a Master in heaven.

The first thing you notice about these exhortations to individual segments of the congregation is that they are brief—only one sentence except in the case of slaves. Here, Paul means to convey the essence of the role given to each of these positions. He doesn’t spend time, as he does in some other passages, speaking at length about all of these positions. He is concerned with identifying the core of the calling, we might say, and what is, in most cases, the most difficult aspect of that calling.

01. Paul’s exhortation to wives (3:18)

Paul’s first exhortation is to wives: “Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.” As I noted, this is the essence of what constitutes the calling of a wife and it is, in most cases, the most difficult aspect of being a wife. I’m referring to just what Paul says—being subject to a husband.

I’ll begin by saying that there is a mountain of distortion associated with this command from Paul. Among those who flat-out hate the Bible and the patriarchal message of the Bible, in particular, there is a wholesale rejection of what Paul says. Under no circumstances will such people even entertain the possibility that Paul meant his words to be taken universally. At best, they will say that Paul was dealing with some females who were disrupting the life of the church or they will redefine that phrase “be subject to” so that it says nothing whatsoever about one party, namely the wife, recognizing the authoritative position of another party, namely the husband.

Such rejection of male headship, which is what this is about, is based in the false assumption that a difference in function necessarily requires an inequality of persons. Consequently, egalitarians, that is, those who believe that to have equality of the sexes we must erase all distinctions in functions, despise this kind of verse and the interpretation it and other similar verses have had in the history of the Church.

I don’t have a lot of patience for feminists who think as I’ve just described or so-called Biblical feminists who think as I’ve described but wish to maintain the illusion that they still believe the Bible is the Word of God. Both parties, those who spurn Biblical righteousness and those who want us to believe they receive the Scriptures as God’s Word even as they deny that profession in their interpretations, simply do not believe what the Bible says, period. It’s that simple and all the tricks and interpretive gymnastics used by Biblical feminists, in particular, do not obscure the fact that they are not willing to accept what the Scriptures say about male-female relationships.

But there is a second class of people who struggle with this kind of command. I’m referring to truly Bible-believing Christians who honestly do want to know what the Scriptures teach and really do want to conform their lives to God’s expressed will. These folks struggle with a verse like this for a number of reasons. For example—and this is probably the biggest obstacle to understanding—we live in a culture that has become increasingly hostile to Biblical patriarchy, which is the notion that, within the family, in particular, the husband occupies the position of covenant head. To him, God has assigned responsibility for the character of the household. Our culture, as noted, has moved away from this notion dramatically in the past fifty to one hundred years. And in that process, the understanding of the relationship between wives and husbands has undergone dramatic alteration, not only in society at large, but also within the Church.

Christians, however, face opposition from our culture all the time. Cultural norms are powerful and must be recognized for the threat they sometimes are to living as God desires, but there is a solution to being swayed by a culture in which some basic assumptions or practices are in conflict with our convictions. The solution is this: know what the Bible says. We understand that this is the solution in a number of issues. Christians do take stands, normally not too combative in nature, against the prevailing tendencies in our culture. Some do stand up and refuse to be conformed to the thinking of our culture when to do so would require the violation of some fundamental principles of our faith. We know we must sometimes do this because we are committed to the Scriptures and where the culture and the Scriptures are in conflict, our desire is to follow the Word. This is the essence of how the gospel infiltrates and transforms a culture. Those who believe the gospel stick to it and live it. This isn’t a new idea for Bible-believing Christians.

But in this matter of male-female relationships, we are facing a real and highly influential challenge. Not only is our culture hostile to the idea of a wife being subject to her husband, due in part of course to the terrible distortion of understanding that accompanies this concept in the minds of so many, but within the Church itself, I’m sorry to say, there is little understanding of this notion and, therefore, little support. The congregation that teaches that the family is to be established and function upon Biblical principles, especially the principle of male headship, is not only ridiculed by unbelievers, but also by those in the Body of Christ. Christians, by and large, do not know what the Bible teaches in this regard and they hold so many misconceptions about a wife’s submission that it is nearly impossible to penetrate their hard heads with what the Bible actually says and what male headship actually means.

The result is that the Church today rarely approaches this subject and in some cases where it is approached, you find husbands treating their wives like servants—and I’ll get to husbands later in this passage, but for now, think on this: It is the husband who is to be the servant in the marriage, not the wife. He is the one who is supposed to imitate Christ and treat his wife as Christ treated His Bride, the Church. I didn’t say that the wife’s role in the home doesn’t involve service—obviously it does as any wife will tell you and any honest husband will affirm. But, when it comes to who is supposed to model servanthood in a marriage, it’s not the wife. As I said, we’ll get to that later.

The solution to this problem in the Church is identical to the solution for the problem of facing a hostile culture: We must know what the Bible says; and, knowing what the Bible says, we all must be willing to fill our God-assigned roles with gladness and dedication. If we truly mean what we say about believing God’s Word and truly mean what we say about following it, we will practice it even if we find ourselves in a minority within the Body of Christ at this sad point in history.

So, wives, here is a verse written specifically for you from the apostle Paul: “Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.” If you struggle with this concept or if you simply have questions about what it means, then listen as I explain precisely what Paul is commanding. To do this, I will concentrate on two words in this verse, the word translated “be subject to” and the word translated “fitting.” We don’t profit when we interpret such a verse according to what we think it means or what others tell us it means. The profit comes when we look at the vocabulary used by Paul and let it tell us what he intended to say.

The first term, translated “be subject to,” is hupotasso. The basic meaning of this word is “to be subject to, submit oneself to.” There are two primary categories of usage for this term, one in a military context and the other in a non-military context. In a military context, this word was used to describe the arrangement of troops under a commander. The troops, in such a situation, were subject to the leadership of their commanding officer. In a non-military context, this word was used to describe a voluntary attitude of cooperating in a relationship where one party has authority over another.

Before anyone lets their imaginations run wild, the first category of usage for this term, that of a military relationship, is not the way Paul intends us to understand this word. I know that because of other uses of the word, which I will refer to momentarily, and because of what Paul says to husbands in the very next verse and elsewhere. When the apostle addresses husbands, he does not confer upon them the rank of commanding officer; he puts upon their shoulders the sobering duty of being like Christ in the marriage.

So, it is the second category of usage, that of a willing attitude of cooperation with another party who has authority, that the apostle has in mind when he writes to wives. We know this, as I just stated, because of what Paul says elsewhere about the husband-wife relationship and also because of the way in which this term is used in the New Testament in other contexts.

When examined in other New Testament contexts, we find that this word refers to recognizing and submitting to the authority of another. It says nothing about the individual’s worth or intrinsic inferiority. The relationship Paul describes in which a wife is subject to her husband, has nothing to do with the wife’s “value” in the eyes of God. It is not a demeaning thing to be in subjection to another. This word simply refers to a relationship in which one party has authority over another and the latter party recognizes that fact and responds accordingly. This word, then, deals with the recognition of and yielding to the authority of someone else and this yielding may be by compulsion, as in the military, or it may be by desire, as should be the case in marriage.

Consider that in Luke 2:51, we are told that the boy Jesus was in subjection to his parents. Jesus, the God-Man, was in subjection to His earthly parents. Obviously, Luke is not telling us that the earthly parents of Jesus were intrinsically superior to Him! Nor is he telling us that Jesus was forced to follow the orders of Joseph as if His earthly father were the commanding general of an army. And he is not telling us that Jesus, as a boy, was somehow shamed by being in subjection to His parents. The Gospel writer is describing the nature of the relationship between parents and a child, in this case, between Joseph and Mary, the parents, and the boy, Jesus. Jesus recognized the God-given authority of His earthly parents and as a young boy, He was in submission to them.

This word is also used in Rom. 13:1 where Paul says that we are to be in subjection to governing authorities. Again, a relationship involving authority is pictured. A citizen is required to recognize and respond appropriately to the God-given authority of the magistrate. It is our duty, the apostle teaches, to subject ourselves to those who govern. This doesn’t mean that those who govern are intrinsically superior to us; it only means that they occupy a position of authority over us according to the order God has revealed.

Other examples could be cited, but the point is that this word, hupotasso, meaning “to be subject to,” is used to convey structure in a relationship—whether it is a child to his parents, a citizen to the government, or a wife to her husband. In these kinds of arrangements in which one party has authority over another, there is no implied right of abuse given to the one with authority and there is certainly no implied inferiority assigned to the one under authority. God is a God of order and He has appointed an order for the various institutions we see operating in this world: the state, the Church, and the home.

By the way, in case anyone is thinking that only females are singled out and told to be in subjection, in 1 Pet. 5:5, younger men are told to “be subject to” their elders, meaning either the elders in the church or men who are older than them. No one would say that, based on the use of hupotasso in that verse, we must conclude that younger men are intrinsically inferior to older men or church elders. Peter’s point has to do with recognizing a relationship of authority. In spite of what Biblical feminists declare, when used as Paul does in our present passage, there is nothing demeaning implied by this word. To say otherwise is to lie about what God has said in His Word and it is to call into question what He has ordained; and, in the end, it is to cave into the pressure of a rebellious culture. Christians may not have a part in that.

And notice that Paul says “as is fitting in the Lord,” meaning that the wife’s response to her husband is an element in her relationship with her Savior. Here, the term is aneko, which refers to that which is due or that which is duty. Paul uses this same word in Eph. 5:4 where he says that filthy and silly talk, along with coarse jesting, are not “fitting” for saints. That is, God’s people don’t use lewd language and they don’t engage in crude humor. Such behavior is contrary to their holy standing. Saints have a duty to behave in another manner. And so, wives are called to recognize and submit themselves to the position held by their husbands because this is what God desires. It is proper, therefore, that a marriage function as Paul describes.

There is much more said about the husband-wife relationship in Paul’s letters. In Eph. 5, for example, the apostle speaks at length about this relationship and he gives pointed words to both wives and husbands regarding how they are to conduct themselves and why. There, Paul compares marriage to the relationship between Christ and the Church. But in our present passage, as I noted before, Paul is putting before us only the essence of the calling for wives and only what is most difficult for most wives, which is living in subjection to a husband.

Application

As you think about what Paul says and what I’ve said, what remains to be done? Well, we know that v. 18 says, but what does it mean to be subject to a husband in practical terms? If I’m a wife and I want to do what the apostle says I should do, how do I do it and what does it look like? And I’m not referring to the day-to-day elements of who cooks and who cleans and who takes out the trash; I’m referring to the theology of the marriage. What principle is Paul giving wives in this verse?

This is, I believe, where many discussions of this topic break down. Wives are told they are to be in subjection to their husbands, but then the impression is given that husbands get to define what that means. Not so! Husbands have an assignment from God, too. It’s not just the wife who has a calling in a marriage and family; a husband also has a calling defined by God.

Let me dismiss one widely-held notion about what being in subjection to a husband means. Many assume it means that the wife is supposed to stand in a corner waiting to obey whatever order her husband gives next. That is the Marine Corp; that is not a Christian marriage. Subjection is not about being “bossed around.” Remember, Paul is speaking about that wonderful, loving relationship of a man and woman in marriage. Paul must mean something other than a cold, calculated regime in which a wife becomes little more than a husband’s “gofer.” Christian marriage is a relationship rich in love and mutual edification. We aren’t looking at Eph. 5, but if we did, we would quickly see how beautiful the husband-wife relationship is supposed to be and will be when it is modeled after the Christ-Church relationship.

What, then, does it mean for a wife to be in subjection to her husband? It’s really not all that complicated. To be in subjection to a husband means that a wife recognizes that her husband has responsibility before God for the character of the home and, recognizing that God has given to her husband the primary responsibility for the character of the home, she assists him in achieving the goals he sets for the family.

Right away, I trust, you can see that this puts a tremendous weight of responsibility upon the shoulders of the husband. But that is where it is supposed to be. The wife isn’t the one primarily responsible before God for the character of the home, the husband is. The wife isn’t supposed to bear the weight of developing the spiritual character of the family, the husband is. The wife’s duty is to recognize that this is the arrangement God has ordained and then willingly cooperate with the leadership of her husband. In this regard, the calling of a wife is not burdensome; it is, in fact, a calling of high privilege. It is a calling to labor under the leadership of a husband to create a home in which God is glorified.

A lot could be said, of course, about how a husband leads and how he makes use of the valuable resource for aid and counsel God has given him in his wife, but that will come later. Right now, we are looking only at the wife’s calling. Her calling, once again, is to recognize the place of leadership God has given to her husband. Ideally, of course, the husband understands that God has given him the primary responsibility for the character of the home; and ideally, the husband isn’t pushing that responsibility off on his wife. But, as I said, we’ll get to husbands later.

I want to close with one more thought and it has to do with the most challenging obstacle a wife faces when considering what Paul says. The most challenging obstacle for a wife is found in five short words: “But what about my husband?” Wives hear what Paul says and consider the implications of his words and think about their present situation and say “But what about my husband? If he would just be what God calls him to be, then I could be what I’m supposed to be.” This verse isn’t about your husband.

Marriage isn’t a negotiation in which one party says to the other: “I’ll match your faithfulness and dedication to your calling, but I won’t go beyond the level you establish.” Of course a God-honoring marriage depends on more than a wife who pursues her calling, but it begins with each party hearing what the Word says and making a commitment to honor the Lord in response. There is more to come, as I’ve said, but right now, we’re looking only at wives. And the question I put to wives is this: Are you willing to accept the role God has given to you? Your husband will hear plenty about his calling next time, but he is not the focus at the moment. Have you recognized that God has given to your husband the primary responsibility for the character of your home? Let the weight land on his shoulders. That’s where God has placed it.

Let’s pray…

Conclusion

This sacrament testifies regarding the work of the Savior, a work that results in all of us being able to walk together in peace with God. Whatever your calling or station in life, give thanks to the Lord for His kindness and provision of salvation. Rejoice as you eat the bread and drink the wine with all others gathered here today. We are assembled as the saints of God and He has encouraged us and renewed His promises to us during our worship. Now we come together to declare our common faith in Christ by receiving what He Himself appointed on that last night.

The Scripture says:

While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.” And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins. (Matt. 26:26-28)