Wives, submit to your husbands (Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians)

"Wives, submit to your husbands" sometimes seems like all that people, particularly men, get out of Ephesians.

Rather, Ephesians is rich in prose and the NIV translation flows almost like poetry at point.

We do not know when exactly Paul wrote the book, but the reference to himself being an "ambassador in chains" could be a reference to the times of his long imprisonments.  There were two that were recorded in Acts, both of which lasted two years.  The first was in Caesarea and the second was in Rome.

The first 4 1/2 chapters of the book cover similar ground as do the epistles to the Romans and Corinthians.  There, Paul talks about the plan and love of Jesus and also the importance of cleaning one's life from sin.

One thing I noticed, the discussions about living a sin-free life tend to focus on the present-tense and ongoing morality of the person, rather than the mitigating the effects of the prior sin.  For instance, he instructs thieves to "steal no longer" (4:28), but says nothing about paying restitution for what one has already stolen.

Perhaps Paul expects that a truly reticent heart will try to make amends and restitution at some level.  Alternatively, some things by their very nature can never be compensated and it is only grace of Christ that can do anything at all.

Looking back at the life of Christ, two examples of this dichotomy come to mind.  First, the tax man who decided to repay everyone he stole from four times what he took.  This was actually in accordance with the principles of restitution in the Old Testament law.  Jesus praised this man.  Other reformed thieves had different ideas on restitution, if any.

Second, the adulterous woman condemned to die, Jesus only told her to "go and sin no more".  Nothing to compensate the prior acts were required.

I do not have an answer to this.  I just note it as an observation.

Harmonious relationships

Ephesians 5-6 do not seem to stand for an authoritarian hierarchy, but rather balanced and proper relationships.

Wives submitting to their husbands has only context and meaning wherein the same husbands love their wives as Christ loves people.  

Likewise, children must obey their parents, but this is balanced with the context that the parents must not exacerbate their children.

Finally, slaves must obey their masters.  Since Ephesus is a Gentile city, we should probably infer that the context for this is the Roman form of slavery and not the form of Hebrew ownership "slavery"/indentured servitude that was instituted in the Old Testament.

 A few things come to mind from this.  First, this is not necessarily an implicit acceptance of any form of slavery.  Rather, Paul is not trying to upset the social order of things.  But the terms "slave" and "master" can easily be substituted with "employer/employee", "loaner/mortgagee" "police/civilian", or any social hierarchal situation.

Second, the contextual situation of slavery gives more context to the wives/husbands and children/parent relationships.  We do not accept Roman slavery today.  Just as social hierarchal standards change over time, so do the standards of other familial relationships.  The extent thereof should be considered.

The armor of God

This is another famous portion of Ephesians in that it stands out as unique among the epistles.  One on hand, this portion can make Christians sound belligerent.  However, the lynchpin in context is that the enemy is not human, but spiritual.  We need spiritual weapons and armor to fight it.

Ephesians 6 lays it out.  Where do we get it?  From prayer, as we remember from the Gospels that God will not withhold the Holy Spirit from those who ask.