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Bluethread -> RE: What is your understanding of the following......? (6/29/2008 3:27:08 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Little_1
What is your understanding of the following text - particularly the highlighted part of the text?
Ephesians 5:25-26
25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26to make her holy, cleansing by the washing with water through the word.
It is traditional, though not currently PC, for women to recieve their instrruction from their fathers or husbands. This provides two benefits, it forces men to study and communicate, which are things many men avoid like tsararat(the plague). It also keeps women focused on building up their fathers, husbands and families, and not over communicating to put it gently. This, in my opinion, is why Paul says, (1Cor 14:34) "women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. 35 If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church." A woman who inquires in public is saying that her husband is not capable of providing for her.
Now "cleansing by the washing with water" is a common reference to a mikvah(baptism). So, what Paul appears to be saying here is that a loving husband gives up his wants and desires to make time for his wife, using the Scriptures to remove all uncleanness from her life so that she is presentable before Adonai, just as one would do before going to the Temple. Just as a man may shower and shave each morning to make himself presentable, he is to be just as ardent in making his wife presentable. As Paul tells us, (1Co 7:4) "The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife." And as the rest of the passage in Ephesians says, "27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church"
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