Ephesians v.
22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church.
24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
28 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.
31 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.
33 Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself: and the wife see that she reverence her husband.
IF every man were as pure and as self-sacrificing as Jesus is said to have been in his relations to the Church, respect, honor and obedience from the wife might be more easily rendered. Let every man love his wife (not wives) points to monogamic marriage. It is quite natural for women to love and to honor good men, and to return a full measure of love on husbands who bestow much kindness and attention on them; but it is not easy to love those who treat us spitefully in any relation, except as mothers; their love triumphs over all shortcomings and disappointments. Occasionally conjugal love combines that of the mother. Then the kindness and the forbearance of a wife may surpass all understanding.
Phillippians iv.
2 I beseech Euodias, and beseech Syntyche, that they be of the same mind in the Lord.
3 And I entreat thee also, true yokefellow, help those women which laboured with me in the Gospel, with Clement also, and with other my fellow-laborers, whose names are in the book of life.
There were women of note at Phillippi who disagreed and caused divisions in the Church. The Apostle therefore entreated them to make mutual concessions for the welfare of the Church. The yokefellow referred to was supposed by some to have been the husband of one of the women, while others think that he was some eminent minister. But such mention by the Apostle must have been highly appreciated by any man or woman for whom it was intended.
E. C. S.
{p. 160}