August 27, 2015 | Husbands and Wives – The Love Dance

 

“Wives, be submissive to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 
Husbands, love your wives and don’t be bitter toward them.”
 (Colossians 3:18-19 HCSB)
I recently told a friend that this text can best be summarized as a love dance. Here’s why.
Love
The command for husbands to love is the great Greek verb ἀγαπάω agapao – a form of the wonderful word agape, which represents self-sacrificial love. As Dr. Robertson explained long ago:
Agapao is a strong, non-sexual affection and love for a person and their good as understood by God’s moral character. It is especially characterized by a willing forfeiture of rights or privileges on the other’s behalf. – A.T. Robertson, Words Pictures in the New Testament, Vol. 4, p. 128.
Men who are married, look carefully at that. That is the standard to which God calls and empowers us through His Spirit.
Non-sexual. You don’t just buy flowers in order to have sex. You buy flowers because it’s in your loving nature. You work very hard with God and with your life partner to eliminate the usually-attached motives of sex or desire for respect. Instead, you just shower love and affection because it is your response-ability.
Why is it a stock idea in comedies that wives have headaches and husbands are only nice in order to get sex? Because too few Christian men have displayed agape love!
Mister, if you need to discuss sexual urges with your wife, great. Do so. That is an important, normal, and healthy conversation that should be a regular part of life. But quit tying your affections to anything other than fulfilling your calling to love. As the parallel passage in Ephesians 5 makes clear, you love as Jesus loves – with self-sacrificial agape.
Dance
The command to wives is the word we translate submit – the Greek ὑποτάσσω hypotasso. Another textual expert, Dr. Ceslas Spicq, describes the term:
It may be said that this verb is peculiar to the language of the New Testament, and that “submission,” which should not be confused with obedience, is a major virtue in the Christian…writings…It is to spontaneously position oneself as a servant toward one’s neighbor in the hierarchy of love. – Ceslas Spicq, translated by James D. Ernest, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament
A member of our church pulpit team [the group that helps me plan and evaluate preaching] tells this story about learning hypotasso:
I was at a college dance and ended up paired with this guy who could really dance well. A poor dancer at best, I was unknowingly fighting him all around the floor. He kept smiling at me and saying, “Submit. Just partner with me as I lead.” I had never thought about submission like that before. It really is a fun dance together. But it can’t happen if I don’t let the leader lead.
In Colossians 3, Paul is describing responses – husbands responding to wives; wives to husbands. And when we respond God’s way, life becomes a marvelous love dance.
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