Ephesians 5:21-6:9
New Catholic Bible
Christ and Christian Spouses[a]
Be Subject to One Another in Christ. Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife, just as Christ is the head of the Church, the body of which he is the Savior. 24 Just as the Church is subject to Christ, so also wives must be subject to their husbands in everything.25 Love One Another in Christ. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her 26 in order to sanctify her by cleansing her with water and the word,[b] 27 in order to present the Church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such flaw, but holy and without the slightest blemish.
28 In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. The man who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hates his own body; rather, he nourishes it and cares for it, even as Christ does for the Church, 30 because we are members of his body.
31 For this reason
a man shall leave his father and mother
and be joined to his wife,
and the two shall become one flesh.
32 This is a great mystery. Here I am applying it to Christ and the Church. 33 However, each one of you should love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife should respect her husband.
Chapter 6
Christ and the Members of the Household[c]
Children and Parents. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for it is only right that you should do so. 2 “Honor your father and your mother.” This is the first commandment that is connected with a promise: 3 “that it may go well with you and that you may have a long life on earth.”4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Slaves and Masters. 5 Slaves, be constant in your unwavering obedience to your earthly masters with fear and trembling and with the same heartfelt sincerity that you show to Christ. 6 Do this not just when they are watching you, as if you only had to please human beings, but as slaves of Christ, wholeheartedly carrying out the will of God. 7 Do your work willingly, as for the Lord and not for human beings, 8 knowing that whatever good we may do, whether as slaves or as free men, we will be repaid by the Lord.
9 And masters, treat your slaves fairly. Stop threatening them. Remember that both of you have the same Master in heaven, and he shows no favoritism.
Footnotes
- Ephesians 5:21 Christianity promotes, in community and in family, a new kind of relationship that is marked by humility and mutual submission. Here is a practical essay on the subject. The Old Testament had a lofty idea of marriage and liked to use the image of spouses to suggest God’s faithful love for his people (Ps 45; Song 1:3; Isa 54:4, 8; 62:4-5; Ezek 16; Hos 1:3).
21
In the same tradition, Christians compare the relationship of Christ and the Church with a marriage (Mt 9:15; 22:2-4; 25:1-13; Jn 3:29; 2 Cor 11:2; Rev 19:7; 21:2-9). Here Paul goes even further: marriage as such is related to the mystery of Christ and the Church; the reciprocal love of Christ and the Church becomes the foundation and model for the life of spouses, who ought to be a sign and manifestation of that reciprocal love. There is a profound connection between the oneness of marriage and the oneness of Christ with the Church; the former reveals the ultimate intention of the creator when he created the human couple: an intention that the first generation of Christians saw in the text of Gen 2:24 (see Mt 19:5; Mk 10:8; 1 Cor 6:16-17). Chapter 5 of the Letter to the Ephesians, following the same theological line of thought, gives us one of the finest passages on the mystery of the Church and the spirituality of marriage. Paul’s ideas on marriage may be completed by a reading of 1 Cor 7:1-14 and Col 3:18-19. - Ephesians 5:26 Cleansing her with water and the word: a reference to Baptism (pouring of water and sacramental formula). Perhaps Paul had in mind the Oriental practice in the purification of a wife.
- Ephesians 6:1 Christian life also gives a new meaning to relations between children and parents. In an age less attentive than ours to the lot of little children, Paul was already emphasizing the responsibility of parents, without denying the duties of the young. The atmosphere he suggests is one of dialogue.
1
As for slavery, Paul does not pass judgment on the social structure of his age (see 1 Cor 7:21-22; Col 3:22-25; 1 Tim 6:1-2; Tit 2:9-10; Philem), but he does foretell new relations between master and slave, since all are equal before God, whatever the differences in their roles and social obligations.
