The Relationship Between Marriage and Ministry

If my household were not in order, I would never feel stable when I’m out doing ministry. Not having spiritual and material needs met creates instability for a family and is a distraction when ministering. How could I go out and minister to people about relationships or the home if mine was falling apart? God’s order is intimacy with Him first, then ministry to our family, followed by ministry to others, and lastly our work.

The Love Between Christ and His Church

God’s Word teaches husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church and give Himself up for her. Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies, nourishing and cherishing them, just as Christ does the church. Wives are taught to respect their husbands and submit to them in everything, as to the Lord. Scripture says:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

—EPHESIANS 5:25-33, ESV

The Word of God says the husband is the head of the household as Christ is the head of the church: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 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. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands” (Eph. 5:22–24, ESV). The true understanding of this is the husband is not a dictator but one who loves his wife, as Christ loved the church and died for it. If the household is in order, then everything is in order and the home is more comfortable to be in.

But I would have you know that the head of the woman is the man, the head of every man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God.

—1 Corinthians 11: 3