Hello, readers. Hope your week is amazing! Word Wednesday is in Ephesians this week, and next week we’ll look at Philippians. Why don’t you wander down to the comments and leave us your thoughts on Ephesians? Looking forward to hearing from you!
Ephesians 5:33 (NIV)–However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Ephesians is one of my favorite books in the Bible. In it, Paul lists the Armor of God and, trust me, I make sure that gets put on every day! We forget we’re in warfare, but reading Ephesians reminds us, doesn’t it?
This week I found myself gravitating toward a different verse in Ephesians. A few years ago, I read the book For Women Only by Shaunti Feldhahn. (Highly recommend!) That book taught me the most valuable lesson I’ve ever learned about my husband. You ready? He values respect. He values respect so much that he equates it with love. Any time I disrespect my husband, it’s worse than turning my back on him. I never knew that until that book came along, and it’s something I try never to forget. I love my husband madly, and the last thing I want to do is hurt him. It cuts me to know how many times I’ve inadvertently wounded him in the past, before this verse and that truth really took root in me.
God knew it long before Mrs. Feldhahn’s books came along. Funny how His wisdom lasts through the ages, isn’t it?
-JB
Jessica R. Patch says
Good points, Jodie! I know if I respect my husband like asked to by Jesus, then it makes it so much easier for hubby to love me like Christ loves the church.
Ephesians is full of wonderful scriptures and passages. It’s tough to pick just one, but one of the first scriptures lays it all out so beautifully and when I have crummy days, I like to refer back to it in the New Century Version.
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In Christ, God has given us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly world. That is, in Christ, he chose us before the world was made so that we would be his holy people—people without blame before him. Because of his love, God had already decided to make us his own children through Jesus Christ. That was what he wanted and what pleased him, and it brings praise to God because of his wonderful grace. God gave that grace to us freely, in Christ, the One he loves. In Christ we are set free by the blood of his death, and so we have forgiveness of sins. How rich is God’s grace, which he has given to us so fully and freely. God, with full wisdom and understanding, let us know his secret purpose. This was what God wanted, and he planned to do it through Christ. His goal was to carry out his plan, when the right time came, that all things in heaven and on earth would be joined together in Christ as the head.” Chapter 1:3-10
Dawn Lucowitz says
After looking over Ephesians again, I do think this is one of my favorite books. That would make sense, since my favorite verse in the bible can be found there. I have mentioned in many blog responses that I have a huge mouth issue. I had done a short study on the mouth (even though I need a much longer one), and read the Joyce Myer book “Me and My Big Mouth.” I think it was then that I came across one of the coolest verses in the bible. Ephesians 4:29 – Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. To continue a little further, 5:4 – Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. I also think it’s cool that not long after finding and loving this verse (4:29), I discovered the band Building 429, who happened to get their name from that verse 🙂
These verses are ouch and ouchy to me. I am really working on making the words that come out of my mouth be more uplifting to others, to not be as sarcastic and obnoxious as I am most of the time and to not curse (which I do way way way too much). I am thankful that we have a loving, patient and forgiving God because this is a long road for me!
Carol J. Garvin says
I’ve always loved Ephesians 3:7-10, because it reinforces what my husband once said before he was ordained… that God had it all planned long before his Call to ministry ever became clear.
“This is my life work: helping people understand and respond to this Message. It came as a sheer gift to me, a real surprise, God handling all the details. When it came to presenting the Message to people who had no background in God’s way, I was the least qualified of any of the available Christians. God saw to it that I was equipped, but you can be sure that it had nothing to do with my natural abilities.
“And so here I am, preaching and writing about things that are way over my head, the inexhaustible riches and generosity of Christ. My task is to bring out in the open and make plain what God, who created all this in the first place, has been doing in secret and behind the scenes all along.”