What's Up With Husband and Wives and Working and Eating?

Paul writes about husbands and wives in Ephesians 5:21-33. A lot of people hate the part about wives. It seems to encourage subjugation of women.

But the hated passage might be lighter than often thought. The reason is simple.

The part about wives is for wives. It's not for husbands to confront wives  with. It's for wives to consider and, as they see fit, to apply. And the part about husbands is for husbands.

But you be the judge.

1. The passage.

This passage launches with the husband and wife's mutual duties. Then it briefly counsels wives. The greatest and last part of this passage counsels (mostly) husbands:
Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior. Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind – yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, because we are members of his body. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church. Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband. [NRSV.]
2. The shifting audience of the passage.
     
I'm not married, but this seems right for a husband: to live and breath part 1 (mutual duty) and part 3 (husband’s duties). These would apply to husbands.

Part 2, the wife’s duties, is not the husband's business.  It doesn't apply to him. Unless a husband has a special ministry of judging others, it serves him no purpose. The part in the prior sentence about the "special ministry of judging others" was meant ironically.

The wife’s duty is to examine part 2, to interpret it, to decide if it applies to her, and, as she sees fit, to adopt it as her practice. A wise woman doesn't need anyone else's theological pathfinding skills to find her way in this. Though like all of us, she's free to reach out.

3. The guiding principle.

The principle is simple: the Bible is written for all people at all times, but not all parts pertain to every person. And a part might pertain to a person at one time, but not at another. For the student of the Word, discernment and the Holy Spirit are the indispensable helpers.

And, subject to the  Holy Spirit, the narrower principle is this: the Bible wasn't written as a tool to hector people with. It wasn't written to help the husband to control his wife, or for a wife to control her husband. It was written to bring both under the control of God. Husband and wife need to reflect on how God wants them to treat their spouse.

Since the husband controls what he does, he needs to seek God to know his duty to his wife. Since the wife controls what she does, she needs to seek God to know her duty to her husband. And this seeking doesn't end in an answer. It's a conversation. The conversation involves, but is not limited to, the life story of the husband and the wife, the Holy Spirit, prayer, and many parts of the Bible. It neither begin nor ends in Ephesians.

4. The guiding principle in another context: rich and poor.

And it’s a principle that makes sense in other contexts, too.

For example, Proverbs is full of instructions and warnings to the lazy.
The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold; therefore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing. [Proverbs 20:4 (KJV).] Or: How long will you lie there, O lazybones?
   When will you rise from your sleep?
A little sleep, a little slumber,
   a little folding of the hands to rest,
and poverty will come upon you like a robber,
   and want, like an armed warrior. [Proverbs 6:9-11 (NRSV).] Or: The lazy person buries a [fork] in the dish,
and will not even bring it back to the mouth. [Proverbs 19:24 (NRSV)(Where I write "fork", the original wording is "hand".)]
But the Bible is also full of admonitions to the rich and powerful about the poor. For example: You shall not pervert the justice due to your poor in their lawsuits. [Exodus 23:6 (NRSV).] Or: You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the Lord your God. [Leviticus 19:10 (NRSV).] Or: 'I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ [Matthew 25:43-45.]
I don’t think that the proverbs were written to excuse the rich or the powerful when they overlook the poor. I don’t think that the passages from Exodus, Leviticus, or Matthew were written for the poor to use to hector the rich and the powerful. I think the proverbs are God’s special word for the poor or the lazy; I think the other passages are God’s special word to persons of means about their duty to the poor.

5. A contradiction to the principle?

Having said that, here’s this. Some would say it goes against my point.

Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. [2 Thessalonians 3:10.]

 6. Maybe not.

But let me say three things.

First, context matters. And that context shows (arguably) that Paul is addressing those who are "unwilling to work".
For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. [2 Thessalonians 3:10-12.] Second, in another context, Paul says things opposite to and similar to the 2^nd Thessalonians passage about working and eating: Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. [Galatians 6:2 (NRSV).] And: For all must carry their own loads. [Galatians 6:5 (NRSV).] These seems paradoxical and contradictory. Unless, three verses apart, Paul addresses different people.

7.   But maybe.

But third, I accept that you plausibly could reject explanations 1 and 2.

Yet the larger idea is that scripture is written for all people at all times, and for particular people at particular times. Maybe in Thessalonians 3:10, God addresses me, and people like me, and he says, "Make your neat principles. I am God. And I burst out of neat principles."

Amen.