Another Paul sermon! I picked one of Paul's most difficult texts, although Ephesians is considered by many biblical scholars to be written by Paul's followers after Paul's time.
This text is arguably one of the most difficult texts in Paul's letters. I decided one of the weeks needed to be one of the texts from Paul's letters that has historically challenged and irritated many people. I'm not sure the sermon resolved any of those issues, but it was a difficult week of sermon preparation.
“Changing Times” Ephesians 5: 22-33 St. Andrew Presbyterian Church; July 26, 2026; Footsteps of Paul series; Richard B. Culp
Ephesians 5: 22-23
22 Wives, be subject[a] to your husbands as to the Lord, 23 for the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, 27 so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind, so that she may be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hates his own flesh, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, 30 because we are members of his body.[b] 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32 This is a great mystery, but I am speaking about Christ and the church. 33 Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect[c] her husband.
Introduction: One of the surprises of our trip following in the footsteps of Paul was when we got to the seaport of Ephesus.
If you’ve done Bible study on Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, you probably have learned that Ephesus was a major, bustling port city during the time of the Apostle Paul (around the mid-1st century CE).
Ephesus was situated on the Aegean Sea at the mouth of the Cayster River. Its location made it a critical gateway where major overland trade routes intersected with maritime shipping lanes.
Biblical scholars suggest that this strategic access is one of the reason Paul chose it as a base for his missionary work for nearly three years, as people from all over the empire passed through its harbor.
Imagine our surprise when we arrive at the archaeological site of Ephesus and there is no Aegean sea in sight!
Ephesus is no longer a seaport with a bustling harbor.
apparently, Even during Paul’s time, the city was fighting a continuous, uphill battle against nature.
The Cayster River constantly deposited silt into the harbor. Roman authorities had to repeatedly dredge the channel to keep it open for large cargo and passenger ships.
Eventually, after the Roman era, the silting became too severe to control. The coastline gradually moved outward, and the harbor completely dried up into a marshland.
Today, the spectacular ruins of ancient Ephesus—including its famous "Harbour Street" which once led directly to the docks—sit about 3 to 4 miles inland from the Aegean Sea.
Times change, sometimes it forces significant change in how we view the situation,
and maybe even how we understand ourselves.
change is part of what it means to be. Disciple of Christ;
part of what it means to be the body of Christ.
Move 1: I thought about change as I studied this passage from Ephesians,
this passage that is an example of why some people really don’t like reading or studying Paul’s letters.
a. But let’s take a moment and look at how this passage speaks to change.
1. At first glance, this text seems to speak to. Hierarchical view of marriage that seems counter to what some of us might envision.
admittedly, if we go back to vs 21; just before our passage Paul offers a sense of mutuality, “ be subject to one another,” Paul tells us there,
but vs 22 is not a mistranslation or or some type of Greek word, which we do not understand, and when we do understand it it makes sense.
2. Paul’s words reflect a hierarchy in social status and relationships with the husband being a step up on the social ladder than the wife.
3. This reveals the (household codes), those rules ccommon to Greek moral philosophy that governed how relationships were viewed.
To those to whom Paul was first writing, social stratification, proper domestic roles, and the subordination of wives, children, and slaves were considered natural and essential for a stable society.
that’s the way it was.
Paul does not seem to be calling for radical change in social structures and relationships.
Paul basically accepts the socio-cultural order of its era rather than calling for an outward structural revolution.
b. But Paul also calls for change.
Paul is calling for a change in how the wife and the husband understand their relationship.
the wife’s submission is not be coerced or forced on her a like servant.
Instead, it is a voluntary submission fueled by mutual Christian love and reverence for Christ.
likewise, the husband may still be a step up on the ladder of power in the household, but he is called to love his wife by giving himself over to her.
the language of Jesus’ riff on the commandments - that is, to love your neighbor as yourself shows up in calling the husband to love his wife as he loves himself.
2. But Paul brings a theological perspective to those marital relationship calling the Ephesians to see that a marriage relationship is akin to the one Christ has with the church.
The husband is called to love his wife just as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her.
This shifts the entire focus of the household structure away from a husband's entitlement to privilege,
turning it instead into a mandate for Christlike, self-giving love.
Paul declares that these new followers of Christ may still live in the social context of their world, but they are called to a new way of life and new understandings that are governed not by the current worldview,
but by the change in them that comes by following Jesus Christ.
3. through the years, I have witnessed and been part of lots of wedding ceremonies that had symbolic gestures to define the marital relationship.
when I first started officiating weddings, unity candles were a big thing.
the traditional way was the mother of the groom lit a candle, then the mother of the bride, and then after the vows the couple goes over and lights the unity candle standing between the other two candles.
or you can sort of braid three separate strands of colored rope together, often representing the couple and God or their families, creating a sturdy cord that cannot easily be undone.
or now I hear about couples planting a tree together, which seems like a bit of a logistical challenge,
or I just heard about a couple making a sour dough starter in their service - that’s for another sermon
but a several times over the years, I’ve had couples want to do a thing with sand.
kind of cool act
a table with two sort of glass vases or containers, each with a different colored sand - one color for the groom, one color for the bride - I assume they pick their favorite colors.
after the vows, they pour from their containers into a third glass container,
the couple ends up with a glass container to put on their mantel for the rest of their married lives with the the sand all intermixed so there is no longer husband and wife, if you will, but a totally shared relationship.
I kind of like that, although one time a couple I don’t think had read the directions, so they patiently took turns pouring for the sand from the containers and the end result for their mantel was a completely stratified visual with the sand carefully separated into layers.
not quite the image intended, but 20+ years and four kids later, I assume they figured it out.
The Ephesians live in a world where the wife’s sand would have been on bottom of the container and the husband’s would have been on top,
Paul does not change the worldly image of marriage, but calls the husband and wife to shake it up - the husband willingly shifting his sand, in service to his wife,
and his wife willingly intermixing her sand as well, in service e to her husband.
A change,
a major shift all because they follow the one came to serve and not be served.
Move 2: Paul’s shift in how he calls the Ephesians to understand the marriage relationship reflects his call for us to be changed.
a. Becoming a follower of Christ,
believing in the God of resurrection
calls us to change how we view the world.
b. I suspect most of us have an idea of how we understand the world works.
1. We may not agree,
we no doubt have a variety of worldviews, even sitting here in the pews or in livestream here at St. Andrew this morning.
2. And most of us can find lots of support for our perspective.
3. One of the things about social media is that is allows us to find affinity groups and connect with people from all over who hold our same worldview.
4. Paul’s challenge for us, it seems to me, is to figure out how believing in Christ changes our worldview.
5. I think our tendency is to take our approach to the world and figure out how to justify our Christian beliefs in a way that supports what we already believe and do.
I am reminded of the person who noted that if we are praying to God and God’s answer is exactly what we already believe and do, then we might not be talking to God!
6. Paul redefines the household code in his time in light of what he has discovered in Christ.
christ’s sober-giving sacrificial approach becomes the overarching way of interpreting the household codes.
the husband may still be a step up in social hierarchy of Ephesus, but now that means the husband should give himself over to his wife.
7. As you look at the actions you take each day,
as you listen to the words you speak each day,
as you reflect on your social media profile and public comments,
are you doing more changing Jesus to suit your worldview,
or changing how you approach others because of your commitment to serving and following Christ.
Paul believes we should be changed in how we act,
even as we live in the same old world,
because following Christ calls for a changed pattern of living.
Move 3: Change also impacts us in our work as the church.
a. The world around us changes.
1. Seaports fill with silt and are no longer seaports.
2. Immigration?
or Warfare driven by drones and dropping bombs
or AI technology and its impact on the world?
Paul did not mention any of those things
but they are part of our changed world.
b. How are we the church in today’s changed world?
1. We know we are the body of Christ, but what does that mean in our time?
2. What does an incarnational Model of joining with others mean in our divided world?
How might that speak to issues today like immigration,
or relations with other countries?
or dealing with housing insecurity?
how are we called to be at work in our changing world?
2. In our world where power and resources are not shared equally,
what does it mean that our model for ministry, Jesus Christ, lived as a servant among us and gave his very own life for the sake of others?
Conclusion: do we just give a nod to Jesus, and keep on doing things our own way?
or do we change as we engage our changing world because we follow Jesus Christ?
I think we know what Paul would say!
