09/15/2025
Did you know that Ephesians 5 doesn't actually contain any commands to women in the Greek?
In Greek, there's a certain "tense" of verb that is a command--it's called the imperative. And there isn't a single word to women from verses 22-35 that is in the imperative tense. But there certainly are for men!
Yet in English, especially in Bibles that put a section heading before verse 22 (which actually makes no grammatical sense in the Greek, since verse 22 is connected grammatically with verse 21), the section begins and ends with commands to women.
The impression you get in English is that this section is FULL of commands to women.
But it's not. It's really full of commands to men, because women WERE ALREADY DOING all the submitting. Paul is sort of saying, "okay, women, keep doing what you're doing, but MEN--here's what you've got to do." Because in those days, women already did submit. They had no choice. It was men that Paul had to really address.
I am not saying that women don't need to submit; but I am saying that what Paul was really addressing in order to get marriage to look like Christ was having MEN change their behaviour.
I talked with Professor Cynthia Westfall about verse 33, which talks about husbands loving and women respecting. And even that isn't a command--it's a subjunctive with a "hina" clause, which makes it conditional, more like this: "Husbands, love your wives, in order that wives respect their husbands."
There's so much we miss in Ephesians 5 because we don't understand the Roman context. But we also miss a lot when we don't realize what the Greek was really saying.
This is not a passage that is primarily about women submitting. It is a passage about men ALSO submitting and loving and serving. And I wish we understood that better.
