The institution of marriage was designed by God. He has given us Christ as our perfect example to follow in our distinct roles as husbands and wives. As demonstrated in this week’s message, biblical headship and submission are a blessing to not only husbands and wives and their families, but serve as a powerful witness to a watching world.

Newley’s Main Points

• Marriage was designed by God during creation.
• Marriage mirrors God’s image.
• Marriage is God’s means of provision for sex.
• Marriage is God’s means of provision for having children and discipling them.
• Marriage is God’s means of provision for basic needs in life.
• Marriage is meant to point us to Christ.
• We are one flesh with our spouse and we are created to carry out God’s call on our lives together.
• Just as Christ is the head of the Church, the husband is the head of the wife.
• Christ’s love for the Church is covenantal, sacrificial, sanctifying, and satisfying.
• Wives, respectfully submit to your husband’s God-given position.
• Wives, submission to your husband is not absolute.
• God designed the wife to be a helper for the husband—carrying out God’s commandments and commissions.
  

Key Takeaways

• If you are single:
  1) Love, support, and minister to your married friends.
  2) Be faithful in the walk that God has given you at this particular time.
  3) Learn God’s good design for headship and submission.
  4) If you’re dating, date with purpose and a biblical perspective for a suitable spouse.
  

• Christians should look like Christ. Christian marriages should reflect and glorify Christ.
  
  
• Marriage is God’s billboard for a watching world.

• God made Adam and Eve equal, yet gave them unique and distinct roles and responsibilities as husband and wife.
  
  
• God has designed the husband to be the head of the wife and granted Him authority over her. Like Christ’s headship over the Church, the husband’s authority is to be marked by responsibility and care, not rule and control.
  

• According to Newley, “Love is giving your spouse what he/she needs from what you have because Christ compels you to.”

• Following Christ’s example, a husband is called to initiate and pursue his wife, love her, lead her, lead their family, and yield to the Spirit to own his part and ask for forgiveness in conflict.

• As modeled and taught by Jesus (Mark 10:42-45), husbands are not to use their headship to lord it over their wives, but to “lord it under” them by serving them.
  

• The command of Jesus to sacrificially serve our wives requires supernatural strength which we receive in the Holy Spirit.

• Husbands are to lead their wives away from sin and towards righteousness.

• Wives, look to Jesus in how you are to submit in marriage—not to the world or our culture.

• Newley calls wives to be proactive sources of encouragement and prayer for their husbands as well as reactive sources of truth to call their husbands to repentance and renewal in the Gospel.
  
  

Discussion Questions/Application

Personal application:

• Reread Ephesians 5:22-33.
  
  
• Husbands, how are you doing at listening and meeting your wife’s needs in a tender way? In looking to Christ as your example for headship, how can you grow in your calling as a husband?
  
  
• Wives, how are you doing at respecting your husband’s God-given authority? In looking to Christ as your example for submission, how can you grow in your calling as a wife?
  
  
• What sources have shaped your understanding of marriage? What lies are you prone to believe that are contrary to God’s good design for marriage?
  
  

Discuss with your community group:

• How is God’s blueprint for biblical headship and submission truly a blessing to both husband and wife?
  

• If single, how can you grow in the following areas?
  1) Loving, supporting, and ministering to your married friends.
  2) Being faithful in the walk that God has given you at this particular time.
  3) Learning God’s good design for headship and submission.
  4) If applicable, dating with purpose and a biblical perspective for a suitable spouse.

• If married, how can your marriage more fully reflect the love and submission of Christ?

Passages Referenced for Further Study
Ephesians 5:22-33; 1 Corinthians 11:1; Matthew 16:24; Genesis 1:27; Genesis 2:7-9; Genesis 2:15-25; 1 Corinthians 7:8-9; Psalm 127:3; Ecclesiastes 4:9-12; Genesis 3:9; Mark 10:42-45; Romans 5:8; 1 John 4:19; Hebrews 12:1; 2 Peter 3:18; Ephesians 3:19; Psalm 23:1, 5; 1 Thessalonians 2:7; Genesis 3:16; Acts 5:29; John 14:26; Matthew 22:37-40.