One Calling, Two Expressions: The Hidden Harmony in Ephesians 5

Exploring how Paul’s instructions in Ephesians 5 reveal not hierarchy, but a context-shaped mutuality that embodies the self-giving love of Christ.

Ephesians 5 presents a beautiful but complex portrait of marriage, framed within a metaphor that compares the union of husband and wife to that of Christ and the Church. But this image carries an interpretive tension. Paul exhorts wives to “submit to your own husbands as to the Lord,” and husbands to “love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” This asymmetrical language raises an important question: If the marriage relationship is meant to reflect unity and mutuality, why are the instructions not identical? Why doesn’t Paul simply command both spouses to love sacrificially and submit mutually?

For many, this differentiation suggests a hierarchy—wives submit, husbands lead. But a closer look reveals something more profound: a model of differentiated reciprocity, rooted not in authority but in love. The key is understanding whether Paul’s seemingly one-sided instruction to husbands undercuts mutuality, or whether it completes it.

Asymmetry with a Purpose?

The husband’s charge is not one of control, but of cruciform love. Paul invokes Christ’s self-giving sacrifice—a love that does not dominate but dies. This is not about privilege, but burden. To love like Christ is to pour out one’s power for the flourishing of another. It is an ethic that turns every notion of hierarchical privilege upside down.

So why doesn’t Paul say the same thing to wives? Likely because he is speaking into a cultural world where wives were already expected to submit. The radical move wasn’t in that instruction, but in the elevation of the wife through the command to the husband. In essence, Paul tells the powerful party to surrender that power—not to maintain it.

This doesn’t eliminate the asymmetry in the text, but it reframes it. The differences in instruction are not evidence of unequal roles or worth, but tailored expressions of the same gospel calling: to love self-sacrificially, in imitation of Christ.

Mutual Submission: The Forgotten Prelude

One of the most overlooked aspects of this passage is its opening: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Eph. 5:21). This is the header under which all subsequent instructions unfold. Whatever follows must be read through the lens of mutual submission. The wife’s submission and the husband’s sacrificial love are not two separate callings—they are different applications of the same principle.

Paul’s vision here isn’t about who gets to lead and who has to follow. It’s about how Christ reshapes our relationships through humility and service. Both husband and wife are called to embody Christ—not in identical ways, but in equally demanding ones.

Rethinking “Head” as Source, Not Boss

A major source of misunderstanding in this passage comes from the Greek word kephalē, translated “head” in “the husband is the head of the wife.” Traditionally, this has been read as “authority over.” But in the ancient world, kephalē often meant “source” or “origin”—like the head of a river or the source of a lineage.

This reading is consistent with how Paul uses the metaphor of head and body elsewhere (e.g., Ephesians 4:15–16), where the emphasis is on nourishment, unity, and growth—not control. The husband, then, is not the ruler of the wife, but the one called to sustain and support, just as Christ does the Church.

If Paul wanted to emphasize authority, he had far clearer Greek terms at his disposal. The absence of words like kurios (lord) or archōn (ruler) is telling. Instead, his focus remains fixed on love, giving, and interdependence.

Christ’s Love as Model for All

Paul’s metaphor works precisely because Christ’s love is not confined to husbands. All Christians—men and women—are called to imitate Christ, which includes humility, service, and sacrifice. Paul may emphasize the husband’s role because it subverts Roman norms of male dominance, but the calling to love like Christ is never gendered.

In fact, Paul’s own theology in passages like Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus,” makes clear that the gospel undoes the hierarchies that sin erected. If male dominance came as part of the Fall (Gen. 3:16), then Christ’s redemptive work begins to reverse it.

Different Expressions, Shared Calling

Rather than assigning fixed roles, Paul offers contextually resonant illustrations of mutual love. In a world where wives were already expected to yield, Paul affirms that love takes the form of willing respect. For husbands, whose cultural norm was dominance, love must take the shape of costly self-sacrifice. But these aren’t gender-bound roles—they’re timely expressions of the same gospel ethic. In Christ, both husband and wife are called to self-giving love, mutual submission, and shared flourishing. The differences in language reflect context, not cosmic design.

Conclusion: Toward a Gospel-Shaped Mutuality

The tension in Ephesians 5 isn’t a flaw—it’s a mirror. It reflects the way love often takes different forms depending on context and relationship. In marriage, Paul gives different instructions not to create hierarchy, but to complete a picture of reciprocal, self-giving love.

When both partners embody Christ—dying to self, living for the other—the marriage becomes a living testimony of the gospel. Different expressions of the same calling, rooted in the same love, can and must lead to mutual submission. This is the radical, redemptive beauty of Christian marriage: not who leads, but how both love.

This isn’t a hierarchy. It’s a harmony—an embodied gospel that turns asymmetry into beauty. Different expressions. Same calling.