christian-relationships
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True Christianity positively affects our relationships. Christianity is not all about doctrinal disputes but about how we live. Christianity should affect our home and work relationships.
Submit on one another out of reverence for Christ. The Christ-like spirit is not being interested in getting all that you have coming, We are all to be willing to submit to one another. This is not matter as to what our status may be, we are to be willing to give in and back down for the sake of Christ, so that the kingdom of God can be advanced. In our relationships, if we both yield, it may takes a little doing to work it out. But if both refuse to yield, there can only be disaster.
Consider eight categories of relationships : wives to husbands, husbands, fathers to children, children to parents, slaves to masters, and masters to slaves. We do not have slaves and masters today but we do have employees and employers. The principles that govern these relationship also govern workplace relationships.
Paul tells wives to submit to their husbands. In each of these relationship categories, we find the instruction to the people and then the reasoning or logic behind the instruction. Here, the analogy is that the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church.
Since wives are to submit to their husbands then the next part is very important. Husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. Sometimes husbands are very quick to insist upon submission from their wives. When husbands invoke the rule do, they must take the whole package. This includes husbands being as loving, kind, and self-sacrificial as Christ was to the church. Remember that Christ gave his life on both a daily basis and in one great sacrificial offering for the church.
Maybe we are instructed in the part that is the hardest. So, wives are to submit and husbands are to love. If a husband loves his wife with the tender and sacrificial love that Christ loved the church, it will not be too hard to submit to him.
We need to understand that authority and power exist. This authority exists in the world, the home, the church, and the family. We do not want to exist in the absence of power, but in the Christian regulation of power. Acknowledging the existence of power is not excuse of abuse. Abuse must not exist in the family or in the work place. This principle is best summarized in the instruction to children. Discipline is not to provoke but to instruct.
Along these same lines, Christian authority implies love and Self-sacrifice. Christ and his life is the model for the Christian in everything. In this passage, it is clearly shown how much Christ gave up for us. He is the model of sacrificial leadership and authority.
If one follows the model of Christ, the Christianity eradicates and regulates abuse.
Changing subjects slightly, these instructions tell us that service is to the Lord and not to men. Others may not appreciate you diligence and sacrifice, but Christ certainly does. We are to do all things as if we were doing them for the Lord and not for men.
The next principle is that we are to treat others as you would like to be treated if you were in their place. Sound like, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you, doesn’t it?
Christianity must affect our relationships. If it doesn’t, it is not much Christianity!
How have you been treating others? If you have not been treating other well in your relationships, isn’t it time to change?
