Through The Bible in a Year - September 30, 2026

“This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.” - Ephesians 5:32-33

Paul calls marriage a profound mystery because the marriage of a husband and wife is pointing to something beyond itself. Marriage is a living picture of Christ and the church. The self-giving of a husband for his wife, as she arranges her gifts under the purposes of his support, is a daily enactment of the gospel—the voluntary sacrifice of one with authority for the flourishing of the one entrusted to his care for his care.

That is why Paul’s final word to husbands is not a strategy or a technique. It is a person: Christ. And a path: the cross.

The path of the gospel husband is the path of the cross. Not simply in occasional dramatic gestures, but in daily, responsible care. In small deaths to self. In choosing to listen when you’d rather be right. In serving when you’d rather be served. In building up when competition or comparison tempts you to diminish. In staying when leaving would be easier. In washing feet and willing sacrifice because that is what love looks like when it is long and costly and real according to Christ’s example.

Dr. Robertson McQuilkin, later struggling with cancer himself, asked his oncologist why his decision to resign his school’s presidency for his wife’s care made such a profound impact on people. Said the doctor, “It’s not unusual for a woman to stand by her husband in serious health crisis. It can be quite unusual for a man to give of himself for the sake of his wife.”

That is the mystery of the gospel Paul is pointing to. When a husband gives himself up for his wife—not because she has earned it, not because conditions are ideal, not because it is convenient, then the world sees something it cannot explain. It sees Christ. It sees the cross. It sees what love actually looks like when it reflects God’s heart.

Respond: What would it mean this week for you to walk the path of the cross in your marriage? Not through a grand gesture, but with daily small deaths to self? What care might you be withholding because your spouse hasn’t earned it? What forgiveness might you have been delaying because the debt hasn’t been paid is sufficiently? What listening might you have been avoiding because it requires more of you than you want to give?

The path to Biblical marriage and to Biblical headship is not unclear. It is the path Christ walked. And we are called to walk it too—for the sake of our spouse, our family, our witness, and the flourishing of our own soul.

Prayer: Father, you intended for marriage to unlock the mysteries of the gospel for me and for my spouse. Forgive me for thinking of marriage only in terms of what blesses me. Help me to nourish and cherish my spouse as my own body, knowing that such care not only blesses another, it makes the gospel more real and present to my heart. The gospel of Jesus that I mirror for my spouse’s wellbeing reflects the nature of your grace into my own soul. Help me to reflect the heart of Jesus daily so that I know more of the mystery and am more awed by the wonder of it each day. In Jesus’ name, Amen.