While I love my job, there are severe set-backs to working in a climate-controlled, basement room of the library...namely that it is freezing at all times. I've layered coats, brought blankets, etc. and to no avail - I always walk out of this room hoping that outside it's much warmer (yes, that is a thought I have on a regular basis, even when it's January and blizzarding). Today, though, I'm quite thankful that I work in a library, particularly a seminary library. I've been reflecting a lot on Ephesians 5:22-33 recently, and our library does have a nice selection of commentaries to help me wrap my brain around it all (thank you, people smarter than me!!). In case you're interested, the NIV Application Commentary and the Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament both have very helpful articles on this passage.
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their 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 Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." 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. (ESV)
