You need only tune your television to one of many family-based sitcoms to get a glimpse of popular opinion regarding men within their roles as husband and father. Men are portrayed as being careless, irresponsible, clumsy, inadequate, unloving, untrustworthy, and unintelligent. Their wives are portrayed as damage control experts, resolving the dilemmas their husbands have created and more efficiently assuming the roles men typically fill. Granted, some of these shows are entertaining; I have been known to watch a rerun or two of Home Improvement. But, today, this image of men is emerging as a common theme and sending an unbiblical message to society as a whole. Our divorce rates and the number of children being raised completely without the influence of their fathers reflect this theme. The importance of men, as husbands and fathers, has been dismissed overall.

Throughout the Scriptures, God clearly reveals that He calls men to leadership within their households: "But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God" (1 Corinthians 11:3). Here, the term head primarily means "authority". The relationship between men and women does not involve inferiority, for, in the parallel clause, Christ is not inferior to God the Father. Submission does not indicate inferiority, but subordination. Just as Christ and God are equally divine, men and women are equal beings. But just as Jesus and God the Father have different roles in God’s plan of salvation, so men and women are given different roles (The Nelson Study Bible, Earl D. Radmacher, General Editor, p.1929).

The term submission originated as a military term, used to describe soldiers who were voluntarily and willingly under the authority of their leaders. To submit simply means to yield. Christian submission is to voluntarily yield in love and consider other’s needs more important than your own (The Student’s Bible Dictionary, Karen Dockrey and Johnnie and Phyllis Godwin, p.215). As a woman, it is my role to submit to my husband’s leadership, and God holds me accountable for my willingness to do so. As a man, you are held accountable for your willingness to submit to God in leading your family.

In order to effectively lead your family, you must abide in the Lord, remain obedient to Him and His Word, and sensitive to His leadership in your life. To abide in Christ means to dwell, to stay, to settle in, to sink deeper. The way to abide in Christ is to obey (The Nelson Study Bible, Early D. Radmacher, General Editor, p.1795): "If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love" (John 15:10). . The believer who obeys Christ and His Word will produce a bountiful harvest of fruit: "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit..." (John 15:7). Remaining sensitive to God’s leadership involves knowing and submitting to His will and serving within your God-given role of leadership within your family accordingly.

A believer’s actions must always be rooted in the love of Christ. As a husband, you are called to lead in love and honor for your wife: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might present Her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish: So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband" (Ephesians 5:25-33b). Here, the apostle Paul does not emphasize the husband’s authority, but his love. He calls husbands to love self-sacrificially. Husbands are to emulate Christ’s love, the kind of love that is willing to lay down one’s life for another person and serve that person even if it means suffering. The "great mystery" Paul mentions is that Christian marriage parallels the union that exists spiritually between Christ and His bride, the church (The Nelson Study Bible, Earl D. Radmacher, General Editor, p.1991).

Jesus entrusts you to caring for, tending to, and loving your wife, who is one with you, just as He cares for, tends to, and loves His church, which is one with Him. Put simply, you are called to live out Jesus’ love as a husband; this is a most high calling, but if you look to Gods leadership as you fulfill the role He designed for husbands, you will serve in obedience within your marriage, bless and honor your wife, lead your family in accordance with God’s perfect will, have a lasting impact on your children and generations to come, and bear witness to a world of seeking men whose own marriages may be weak or crumbling.